12 Movies Meme

A Blog Next Door meme'd me a LONG time ago with a 12 Movie Meme about programming 6 nights of 2 movies each night for a movie theatre. I've finally decided on my twelve movies (and avoided choosing ones I've already memed). I actually took MONTHS deciding these.

The Rules:
1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.
2) Explain why you chose the films.
3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.
4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.

Here's my 12 Movie film festival:

Day 1: Comedies That Deserve Respect:
Soapdish and Bring It On!
Always loved Soapdish. A movie about running a soap opera on TV, starring some of the best overacting actors all in ONE movie! Kevin Kline! Sally Field! Robert Downey Jr.! Whoopi Goldberg! Cathy Moriarty! Carrie Fisher! Garry Marshall! With appearances from then mostly unknown Teri Hatcher! Kathy Najimy! and pre-Oscar winner Elizabeth Shue! Seriously fierce! The comedy probably worked better when I was 13 but it's still fun to see the actors purposefully overdramatize everything in this spoof of daytime soaps.

Bring It On! simply goes beyond its cheery cheerleader exterior and like the cheerleaders themselves, is smarter than you would think. It's cheertastic!














Day 2: Foreign Deceit:
Time Out (L'Emplois du Temps) and Good Bye Lenin!
Two foreign language films that take the daily life, an odd dilema and turns them into a thrilling suspense while feeling as realistic all at the same time. Time Out starts with a french man losing his job and then finding himself doing anything to hide it from his family. Good Bye Lenin has a good son trying to cover up the downfall of East Germany to his communist mother. (Time Out was directed by Laurent Cantet who also directed current Best Foreign nominee The Class)















Day 3: The 70's "Family":
The Ice Storm and Boogie Nights
One's about the typical family fracturing during the 70's, the other is about fractured people that become a makeshift family during the 70's. Both are gorgeously directed by Ang Lee and Paul Thomas Anderson (respectively) with awesomely huge and insanely talented casts. Between the two movies, they include Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Elijah Wood, Henry Czerny, Katie Holmes, Kate Burton, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, David Krumholtz, Jamie Sheridan, Michael Cumpsty, Allison Janney, Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Joanna Gleason, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alfred Molina, Philip Baker Hall as well as Melora Walters, Tom Lenk, and Thomas Jane! (Is it me or does this sound like the Broadway roster from 2008 and 2009?)














Day 4: An American in England that also stars John Hannah:
Sliding Doors and Four Weddings and a Funeral
Two of my favorite rainy day rom-coms, and both staring John Hannah, the later as a comedic sidekick, then later getting a leading romantic role in my first pick Sliding Doors.















Day 5: Hungry for Cinema
Eat Drink Man Woman and Big Night
Chinese food and Italian food. And not just the take-out kinds. I'm talking serious cooking here for the foodies and serious cinema for the cinephiles. Ang Lee's early film (and second film in this meme) about family and food is tender, funny, heartbreaking and joyous, while Campbell Scott's tribute to Italian food as two brothers and cooks prepare for a big night to save their restaurant is about family and food which is tender, funny, heartbreaking and ... uh... joyous. And don't see either of these movies on an empty stomach or you're going to go mad. I still dream about that egg in the pasta dish and salivate at all the chopped food in the wok.















Day 6: Secrets and Lies
Secrets & Lies and The Talented Mr. Ripley
Oh the secrets, oh the lies! Mike Leigh's mostly improvised movie is about the secrets and lies a blue collar working class British lady has kept about her past that rocks her family to the core. It's emotionally draining and unexpectedly touching, with knockout performances by Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Without a Trace) in a simple story about connecting in a lonely world to the family you never knew you had. Meanwhile, Matt Damon's Mr. Ripley is trying to connect in a lonely world and ends up playing a tense game of cat and mouse in a veil of secrets and lies under a stolen identity. Both are gripping and tense in completely different ways, and one is filmed in a simplistic plain manner, the other is a glossy love letter to Italy, but both are simply gorgeous films.















So the final unintended tally, other than the 2 movies with John Hannah:
2 movies with Gwyneth Paltrow
2 movies with Philip Seymour Hoffman
2 movies with Kevin Kline
2 movies directed by Ang Lee
2 movies with small parts for Allison Janney

5 Oscar noms for Secrets & Lies, 5 Oscar noms for The Talented Mr. Ripley, 3 Oscar noms for Boogie Nights, 2 Oscar noms for Four Weddings and a Funeral, 1 Oscar nom for Eat Drink Man Woman
Shut outs for The Ice Storm, Good Bye Lenin!, Big Night.

I'm tagging:
Gratuitous Violins
Low Resolution
Reel Fanatic
I Can't, I Have Rehearsal
In the Vault Underground