Rachel Getting Married

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

It's not about me.
-Kym

Plot:
Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns home from rehab the day before her sister, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), is getting married to Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe), a musician. Her arrival causes long-standing family tensions to rise to the surface.

They Say:
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a triumph of ambience", and that Hathaway, DeWitt, Irwin and especially Winger are working at a very high level. Roger Ebert's four-star rating added, "apart from the story, which is interesting enough, Rachel Getting Married is like the theme music for an evolving new age." Other critics praised Jonathan Demme for USA Today "a career of cinematic good works" (Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer) and "his best film since The Silence of the Lambs...as raw as Ingmar Bergman and as operatic as Mildred Pierce (Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly).

Peter Travers noted that Rachel Getting Married is "a home run...[it goes] deep into the joy and pain of being human." A.O. Scott of the New York Times said that the film has an undeniable and authentic vitality, an exuberance of spirit that feels welcome and rare.

I Say:
I was shocked at Anne Hathaway's performance. She was so superb.

The story was good. I can see myself in Kym: very faulty and seeking too much for attention. The way it narrated the story made it different from the rest of the films. At first you may find some scenes that is too trivial to be aired but then, at some time you will realize that the scene either symbolizes something or it will trigger some important part of the story.

RGM is a story of a family who, obviously, almost subsided by some turn of events. From her arrival to the end, it showed how chaotic families can be. It's a very sad part of life, but I'm used to it.

RGM is the story if you want to understand people like me. If you want to understand me.

Bride Wars

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Romantic Comedy

If I were your wedding, I'd be sleeping with one eye open...
- Liv

Plot:
Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Liv (Kate Hudson) are best friends who, since childhood, have planned every detail of their weddings. At the top of their bridal "must have" list: a ceremony at New York's ultimate bridal destination, the Plaza Hotel. Now, at age 26, they're both about to get married, they're about to realize their dreams, and they're about to live happily ever after. Or maybe not. When a clerical error causes a clash in wedding dates--they're now to be married on the same date!--Liv, Emma and their lifelong friendship are put to the ultimate test. This is BRIDE WARS!

They Say:
The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews upon release. Rotten Tomatoes reported that Bride Wars received negative reviews by 90 of 102 professional critics. Roger Ebert said in a review that there were "no lines that were smart or witty", and that the dialogue was "dictated by the needs of the plot ... [full of] cliches, obligatory truisms and shrieks". He also stated the character's intelligence levels were akin to HAL 9000 with his wiring ripped out. Mark Kermode said that if this film was not in his list of 10 worst films of 2009, he would quit film criticism.

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Carrie Rickey wrote, "How bad can a movie be, with Goldilocks Hudson and Cinderella Hathaway? So excruciating that Hudson's sunshine can't warm it and Hathaway's rose redolence can't mask its stink."

In one of the better reviews, Time critic Mary Pols wrote, "At least, and this is something to be grateful for, Bride Wars deviates from the usual wedding-flick routine of maids of honor who should be the bride (or groom). And even though the catfighting goes over the top, the notion that a passionate female friendship can turn ugly in a heartbeat is, sadly, realistic."

I Say:
*The Bad Side:
The film would have been better if the war and the tension has been built up to the next level. How the "war" started is actually great. It's just the movie didn't live up to its title. And the narrator was not even one of the main characters.
*The Good Side:
I don't really look into the depth and sense of the story [at least for now], but on how the story would flow. Bride Wars, fortunately, gave it to me. It opened me further to the sad realization that friendship can be tainted by dreams. The film never failed to make me laugh. Even though negatively received, I liked the movie a lot more than Four Christmases starring Reese Witherspoon.

More Quotes to Live by:
*I want to be number one, too! -Emma
*I promote you to... Mister of Honor! -Liv
*Mother-Eff! -Emma
*Oh my God! My hair is blue! My hair... IS BLUE! -Liv
*The girl you knew 10 years before? She's not here anymore. -Emma
**Your wedding will be huge, like your ass at prom.
**Your wedding can suck it.
-Emma, Liv

PS:
I am a hardcore crush of Anne Hathaway prior to my watching of the film. And now that I watched it, I like Kate Hudson as well.