Gregory's Girl - Switching Dorothy For Susan

Gregory’s Girl

Director: Bill Forsyth

Look Charlie, we've got to get some girls; we've got to make a move. Even Gregory's at it now. We're falling behind. I don't think there's any advantage of putting it off any longer. Besides, it's making me depressed. –Andy

If you don't take an interest in yourself, how can you expect other people to be interested in you? –Madeline

It's just the way girls work. They help each other. –Susan

Hard work being in love, eh? Especially when you don't know which girl it is.
–Madeline

Netflix description of the movie:

Awkward teenager Gregory, who lives in a small Scottish town, has started to discover girls. He becomes particularly infatuated with Dorothy because she manages to get onto the football team and is a better player than he is. Gregory is so unfamiliar with the opposite sex that he relies on advice from his little sister before he asks Dorothy on a date. Bill Forsyth writes and directs this coming-of-age tale.

I really liked this movie. It was made in 1981, it's set in Scotland, and it's about football (or soccer, in America), so I really wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. The movie follows awkward Gregory as he discovers girls and figures out how to get them to discover him.

My favorite character – aside from Gregory, of course, who was a fantastic underdog – was our hero's young sister Madeline. Her purpose in the movie was twofold: she served as Gregory's confidant and gave him advice on how to attract Dorothy, the girl he's crushing after; and she instructed him on what to wear and how to carry himself in general. Madeline's confidence in him gave him confidence in himself enough to finally approach Dorothy for a date.

She also acts a bit as Greogory's foil. While he struggles to make a move, she tends to be in control of her relationship. When her boyfriend (or what I assume is her boyfriend, though she is only 11 years old so "boyfriend" is subjective) approaches her after school offering to carry her bag, she tells him she can’t hang out with him but he can try to reach out to her later. She shows more maturity in dealing with the opposite sex, including with her brother, who tends to talk to everyone from a place of immaturity. She has confidence, he does not; she knows about clothes, he does not; she knows what to say; he does not.

But ultimately, even though she is the seemingly more mature of the two, Gregory is older and feels quite protective of Madeline. When her young man comes to the door inquiring after her, he grills him and then sends him away without allowing him access to his sister. It was a smart scene to show after Gregory's afternoon with Madeline, which he spent acting like a child seeking the advice of a sage.

Once Gregory finally does get up the nerve to ask Dorothy on a date, he is met instead by another classmate, who more or less passes him off to another girl, who eventually passes him off to his third and final. Unbeknownst to Gregory, Dorothy's friend Susan had been crushing on him and had recruited Dorothy to help her set up a date. Gregory is, of course, confused by the whole situation, but goes along with it.

Possibly my favorite scene in the whole movie happens during their date. While in the park, Gregory and Susan engage in the kind of banter that feels so natural and is typically made glossy in the movies. But it feels real with these two, and kudos probably go to the writer and/or director for letting it happen this way. When the two dance, it doesn't feel hokey, and when they kiss at the end of the date, it doesn't feel forced. From the moment Gregory and Susan meet up on the street at the beginning of their date until the movie's credits, I just had this warm, happy glow inside me – the kind that comes from watching something truly organic and beautiful. Well done!

My takeaway: Good siblings help each other with the important things, like love and protection. And in the words of the Rolling Stones, "You can’t always get what you want" (in this case Dorothy) "but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need" (in this case Susan).

The Man Who Would Be King - Beige in 2 Parts

The Man Who Would Be King

Director: John Huston

I'm the correspondent of The Northern Star! –Kipling

Therefore we are going away to another place, where a man isn't crowded and can come into his own. We're not little men so we're going away to be kings. Kings of Kafristan. –Peachy Carnehan

If a king can't sing, it ain't worth being king. –Daniel Dravot

I wouldn't say the world's a better place for our having lived it int. Nobody's gonna weep their eyes out at our demise. We haven't many good deeds to our credit. But how many men have been where we've been and seen what we've seen?
–Peachy Carnehan

You call it luck; I call it destiny. –Daniel Carnehan

The Netflix envelope, aside from warning me that the disc is double-sided (oh dear), the movie was made in 1975 (umm…) and the presentation is 2hrs and 9min long (oy), describes the show I'm about to watch:

Legendary director John Huston adapts Rudyard Kipling's short story about Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, two bored British soldiers stationed in India who travel to a mountainous Middle Eastern kingdom in search of riches and power. Embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, they con their way into becoming deities in Kafiristan before losing it all. The film earned four Oscar nominations.

I watched this movie in two parts… Disc Side A and Disc Side B in separate sittings. It's not that 2 hours is outlandishly long for a flick, it's just that this movie didn't captivate me the way other equally long or longer films do. It's a good movie, don't get me wrong. But it just didn't grab me the way I'm sure it's grabbed other people. I mean, it DID earn four Oscar noms!

What I liked about the movie:

Rudyard Kipling. I think it's quite grand that he was a character in this movie which was based on a short story he wrote. I don't intimately know any of Kipling's work, and so couldn't tell you if he included himself in his story or merely narrated it as a removed party. But either way, I enjoyed that the author made an appearance as a writer and "brother" of the two main characters.

Michael Caine & Sean Connery. I enjoyed seeing these two fine actors – who I really only know as older gentlemen – as younger versions of themselves. They were delightful! I thought they had great chemistry with each other and they did a good job of balancing the humor with the gravity.

The concept. A man pretends to be a god and achieves great power and wealth from his people… until his very blood reveals his falsehood. Two friends make a pact to rule the far-off land and gain its riches… until one becomes too big for his britches.

So I liked the concept and the characters, yet I wasn't really pulled in to the movie. So what didn't I like, then? I'm actually having a hard time pinpointing it. I think the movie lost me a couple times, between accents and translation and quick-talking. And I think the underlying story was something I’d seen done better: two friends set out on a quest & their friendship crumbles when one of them outshines the other; they eventually make up, a lesson is learned, and they part as equals again. Or perhaps it’s just that there was too much beige in the movie for me, on top of the '70s film quality color. I think I have some sort of aversion to movie monotony, even if on a purely visual level. Never could bring myself to watch Cast Away… just seemed like too much water.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this was an overall good movie, I know that. It just wasn't really my thing. Perhaps it's yours.

My takeaway: True friendships will survive egotistic episodes, if and only if, the episodes don't last forever. And the best proof of your bff's kingship and death is his severed head, still crowned of course.

The Daughters - The Ugly Duckling Revisited

Daughters

Author: Joanna Philbin

Only by being yourself can you be more than yourself. –Mr. Barlow

This woman is taking pictures of me. And this is actually fun. –Lizzie Summers, internally

For the first time, she remembered what it felt like just before she opened her mouth to speak to that reporter. That delicious feeling of letting go, of taking her hand off the wheel, of just being herself – with no filters, no voice in her head telling her no. she put her hands on her hips and leveled her gaze at the camera. She let her smile fade away. –Narrator

That was three weeks ago. […] Everything's different now. Everything. –Lizzie Summers

Amazon.com:

The only daughter of supermodel Katia Summers, witty and thoughtful Lizzie Summers likes to stick to the sidelines.  The sole heir to Metronome Media and daughter of billionaire Karl Jurgensen, outspoken Carina Jurgensen would rather climb mountains than social ladders. Daughter of chart-topping pop icon Holla Jones, stylish and sensitive Hudson Jones is on the brink of her own music breakthrough.

By the time freshman year begins, unconventional-looking Lizzie Summers has come to expect fawning photographers and adoring fans to surround her gorgeous supermodel mother. But when Lizzie is approached by a fashion photographer that believes she's "the new face of beauty," Lizzie surprises herself and her family by becoming the newest Summers woman to capture the media's spotlight. 

This book is not likely to become a “classic” or be taught in schools. But I don't think that's really what Joanna Philbin had in mind when she wrote the first in what is now a series of books about the daughters of the rich and famous. It's a good, fun book that doesn't talk down to its readers. The story is well-written and only mildly forced at times.

I tend to enjoy reading "young adult" fiction, which I'm pretty sure is what this is. I own all the Harry Potter books, have read all four Twilight saga entries and have done my fair share of shelf-perusing in Target's YA section. So, this book was kind of right up my alley. I like the friendship that the girls shared, though I wished the relationships with their parents could have been a bit more diverse.

I get that one of the big bonding points is that each girl is the product of one (or two) celebrities or moguls. But it seems a bit contrived that each would have such a rocky relationship with the parental units. Lizzie and her mother's relationship was the least strained, though the plot centers around the two Summers women misinterpreting the other's words and actions. Lizzie's relationship with her father is also better than most of the other parent-child depictions. But you don’t get to see very much of it in the book, the dominating theme being of mother-and-daughter run-ins.

The book had a good message, too, like most YA books do. It was kind of an "ugly duckling" story. Lizzie feels inferior in the looks department to her supermodel mother, and doesn't like that her mother constantly thrusts her into the limelight when no one else ever seems to want her there. It isn't until someone who doesn't know her at all tells her she's the kind of "new beauty" or "ugly pretty" that is trending in fashion that she comes to embrace her own look. And, as can be expected, she lets herself get caught up in it and gets a big head over it, only to be knocked back down to earth, where her mother is there to catch her. It was fairly predictable, but it worked.

Overall, I liked the characters in this book and have added the other three books to my list of must-reads after my 30@30 project closes.

My takeaway: As hard as it may be, confrontation and direct communication is sometimes the best way to avoid hurt feelings, mixed signals and confusion. And it's always best to lie to a paparazzo who asks you questions about your famous mother.