One of the only films I’d seen at this year’s Oscars was An Education – well, that and the entire Best Animated Film category – such is my life right now.
Despite being a virtual recluse I still like to watch the Oscars. I’ve never got over the novelty of being able to watch them in real-time as they take place just down the road. If you consider 'down the road' to be 100 miles on the 101 freeway and 3 hours in bumper to bumper traffic. Practically right next door.
Jeff Bridges is a SB local and I got to meet him a few times when I started my fantastic downhill slide in to career oblivion by temping at a production company in town. He is an absolute diamond, and will even stop to talk to the help, so I was thrilled when he was up for a chance on an Oscar. Plus my friend Chilly always throws a brilliant Oscar party complete with champagne, nibbles and most importantly – no children. Wonderful.
I almost didn’t see An Education, and that would have been a huge mistake. It was brilliant and I loved every minute of it - not just because my friend had once again smuggled two bottles of wine in to the cinema. Towards the end she snuck back to her seat after nipping off to the loo and said in a comically loud whisper 'I've just stolen another poster' and then flashed her coat like a 1950s dirty old man.
I’d read a brief description of the plot a few weeks before finally seeing it and had been thoroughly turned off by the ‘naïve schoolgirl meets older man’ story. Just before Christmas Anna and I made one hundred million paper chains (it was raining) and for some reason whilst cutting strips, gluing and wondering when LK would get the chuff back home (me) we managed to watch both My Fair Lady and Gigi back to back. Now I’m not a big musical aficionado but I love both of these films. Watch them one after another though and you get this disturbing idea that a young girl’s sole destiny is to be rescued by a much older and richer man when she’s practically still in school. As I sat there with my 4 year old daughter I wondered if I'd be quite so thrilled for her to hook up with Henry Higgins or Gaston Lachaile a mere twelve years later. Perhaps all these Disney movies I'm watching with their girl-meets-prince-and-marries-him-twenty-minutes-later plots are getting to me.
An Education is different. It's smart, beautifully written, hilarious in parts and they all live happily ever after. Sort of.
I can't wait to see what movie I will see in 2010.....
3 comments:
I liked the look of it too. Will definitely have to catch it now.
Off to put that on my DVD rental list - been years since I've managed to go to the cinema
Cinema? What is that? I fantasized about taking Wynnie to the Frog and the Princess (is that what it's called?) during her spring break but that remains to be seen. The last movie I took her to, she sat in my lap and slept and I had to watch that crazy ninja panda myownself.
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