Monday Memory

My first film at the cinema on a school trip when I was a little girl, I must have been in grade 2. That's when I fell in love with bears.

My Sister's Keeper

I just read that a film version of Jodie Picoult's novel "My Sister's Keeper" is about to come out. Directed by John Cassavetes and starring Cameron Diaz & Alec Baldwin. Dakota and Elle Fanning were originally set to play the sisters but Dakota changed her mind when she found out she would have to shave her head to play the leukemia-suffering character of Kate. Elle dropped out along with her sister, and they were replaced with Sofia Vassilieva and Abigail Breslin.

Although, Jodie Picoult is not the type of writer that would normally appeal to me, I found "My Sister's Keeper" an unputdownable tearjerker. I cried for beginning to end.

"Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity."

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/my_sisters_keeper1.asp

Rosemary's Baby

Though it was condemned by the Catholic Church, audiences flocked to see Roman Polanski's terrifying - and influential - adaptation of Ira Levin's bestseller about a young woman (Mia Farrow) who discovers that the baby she's carrying is quite literally a little devil. Farrow, who had appeared on TV in "Petyon Place" and a few movies, really came into her own with her performance as Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who moves into a funky apartment in New York - it's actually the Dakota Building - with her struggling-actor husband (John Cassavetes). Unbeknown to her, her eccentric elderly neighbors, including Minnie (Ruth Gordon in her Oscar-winning turn) and Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer), are actually witches and warlocks who have devised a plan to have Rosemary bring the antichrist into the world.

Horrormeister William Castle, who directed such grade B horror films as "House on Haunted Hill," had bought the rights to "Rosemary" while it was still in galley form. He hoped that "Rosemary" would be his first adult horror film. He brought in Paramount to be his partner on the project, but the studio was hot on the young Polish director Polanski. So Castle ended up being the producer.

The film was also considered a curse. Farrow was served with divorce papers from her first husband, Frank Sinatra, during production. Castle suffered from gallstones after filming ended and had to have surgery. The film's composer, Krzysztof Komeda, died shortly afterward from an accidental fall. And then Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, and their unborn son were murdered by Charles Manson and his follower at their Benedict Canyon home.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-etw-spaceodyssey26apr26,0,101574.story

Indy, Baby

He's coming... he's coming! Indiana Jones is coming back into my life! Oh the joy! Oh the excitement! I feel like a little child in anticipation for the return of a hero, in the 4th installment of the Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

Here are the top 5 quotes from The Man, The Myth, The Legend:

• I'm allowing you to tag along. So why don't you give your mouth a rest. Okay doll? (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
• Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes? (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
• Nazis. I hate these guys (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
• Don't call me Junior! (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
• You want to talk to God? Let's go see him together, I've got nothing better to do (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
  

I think Harrison Ford is the greatest. And it's not just Indiana Jones. Take Hans Solo in Star Wars. He was the love my life at the time. Forget Luke Sywalker. Oh, and remember his faithful friend Chewbacca?

Indy baby, I'm all yours!

If...

Directed by Lindsay Anderson

with Malcolm McDowell (1968)

Lindsay Anderson’s If... is a daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as violent savior against the draconian games of one-upmanship played by both students and the powers that be. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If. . . . remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells.

"It was dead cool, pretty weird and no film gets the spirit of sulky school rebellion quite like it."

- Robert Gore-Langton -

Fertility Test Results - Maybe Baby

80s Cheese - Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris rocks!

1968 - Movies

2001: A Space Odyssey

Planet of The Apes

Funny Girl

Rosemary's Baby

Thomas Crown Affair

Yellow Submarine

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (a childhood favourite)

The Love Bug (my best friend is called Herbie)

Inpector Clousseau

Bonnie and Clyde