Movie review times two

This film is billed as a comedy and there are some funny moments in it, but it's a stretch to call it a comedy. Don't get the wrong idea, I liked this film very much but it's not really a comedy.

A young woman in postwar Britain gets involved with a semi pro theatre company in her city and she falls in love with the artistic director, who just happens to be a bitchy theatre queen who has his claws out for any and all who think they can best him on his home turf. Things get even more complicated when the local acting legend comes back into the picture to play Captain Hook in their holiday production of Peter Pan.

The accents were hard to pick up at first but once I got used to the rhythm of how they all spoke, it got easier to understand. Georgina Cates is terrific as the young girl with stars in her eyes. But it's Hugh Grant who steals the show as the bitchy catty theatre queen. If you have done any amount of local, community, musical, dinner, or any theatre at all, then you've run across a person who is like Grant's character in this movie.

This movie is more of a melancholy slice of post war life with a few funny bits tossed in than it is a comedy. I recommend it highly.

Wow. How the hell have I missed seeing Freeway for so long? I've seen it a million times in the video store but I always passed it by. Then a friend loaned me her copy a week or so ago and I finally watched it and I fucking love it. It's the flip side to those old time 1950's juvenile delinquent/bad girls in peril films but instead of pushing the virtuous heroine, this film pushes Reese Witherspoon character's badness in our faces. She's bad, and she, and we love it, but the film takes pains to show why she's gone bad.

This movie is sexy and violent, cartoonishly so. And it's one of the funniest black comedies I've ever seen. It ranks right up there with Heathers in my book. I laughed like a mad man when Witherspoon prays to her god for forgiveness after she shoots Kiefer Sutherland, she tells he god that since he didn't step in and save her she was at a loss for what to do and that's why she shot Sutherland. I can't warn those of you who hate violence in film enough, this film is full of it, but holy hell, it's one twistedly fine, funny crime film. And it doesn't hurt that Reese Witherspoon is cuter than cute in it. The late Brittany Murphy makes a cameo in this film as a girl who befriends Witherspoon in juvey, it's kind of sad to see her do so well in this small part knowing that just a few years later she'd pass away at such a young age.

I loved this film and I recommend it to those of you who like over the top black comedies.