Waitress and Michael Clayton

[yendi]

For Mother's Day, we watched Waitress, which was completely and utterly adorable. Of course, there's an element of sadness in watching it, given Adrienne Shelley's murder, but it's still such a wonderful, happy movie. Andy Griffith and Nate Fillion are both a delight, but it was Shelley, Keri Russell, and Cheryl Hines who really drive things. The ending is a tad pat, but I'm still pretty happy with the movie overall. And given our Pushing Daisies obsession, all the pie stuff was a blast, too. And for us Jericho fans, there was even a brief Darby Stanchfield moment!

Earlier this week, we (sans Elayna) watched Michael Clayton, which we're requested from the library after watching Tilda Swinton win the Oscar. Other than wondering why, exactly, she was even nominated (nothing against her performance, but it simply wasn't a role with a lot of juice, and "she'll give an awesome acceptance speech" really isn't a good reason to vote for someone).), I liked it. Clooney continues to be an underappreciated actor, and Tom Wilkinson simply stole every scene he was in. The movie took a mostly-predictable plot and still made things entertaining, but it's not something I feel any pressing need to own.

Comments

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I'm fond of my write-up of Waitress, so I'll share it again. Glad you liked the film, too.

Haven't seen Michael Clayton; by the way, I had to deal with a very conservative and mean guy in my office rail against that film, saying it was boring but saying "Of course those Hollywood liberals thought it was great..." *eyeroll*

[featheredfrog.livejournal.com]

you realize that this entry is already FIFTH on google for "andrienne shelley", misspelling notwithstanding?

[yendi]

Man, everyone makes the same typos. I've fixed it, which should reduce my pagerank nicely.

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

oh man, waitress. it was very problematic to be sure, but the heart that went into it was lovely. as a hartley fan from way back, i found the news of adrienne's death depressing, and i was glad that she was capable of making something good before she passed.

there were a few problems with it -- the "stalking elf" character wasn't handled as well as it should have been, and the use of the southern accents rubbed me the wrong way a bit -- but i didn't find the ending as problematic as others did. without getting too spoilery, most films of that ilk go for the "love conquers all" ending, and it was nice to see her go in another direction with it.