The New Comfort Movie Canon: The 10 Best Feel-Good Films of the Last 10 Years. Includes Flow (which I watched the other day and is brilliant), The French Dispatch, Little Women, and Logan Lucky.
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I adore Gerwig's Little Women. I think I've watched it a thousand times.
I recently listened to the OnWriting podcast with her where she talks about writing it and why she felt it could use update.
I found it all interesting, but the part where Greta (spoiler warning) talked about the burning of Jo's pages, first by her sister and then later by herself. I'd never realized how those connected.
If I were to add one to the list, it would be Fran Liebowitz's Pretend It's a City. It's not a film but short series about Fran's thoughts on life and the city. It's a great thing to enjoy fully or while folding laundry. It's on Netflix.
Sometimes I put Pretend It's a City on just for background noise. It's like having Fran in my home just opining about random stuff, and what could be better than that?
Yes, Pretend It's a City is great. My husband doesn't generally like Fran, but he was drawn into this series.
*turns on Pretend It's a City*
As a native central West Virginian may I say that the accents in Logan Lucky are SPOT ON? Super fun movie either way but I'll always give it props for whoever was hired to be their dialect coach.
Friends and I have been discussing this topic from the POV of my own situation: living with a very sharp, utterly delightful 92-year-old. He’s had an epic life in Civil Rights, anti-Apartheid, and the AIDS crisis, but is a Depression-era Texas country boy at heart. Does he “get” irony? Of course, but he’s over it. Does he go for Aristotelian spectacle? Definitely, but very little interest in heavily style-forward auteurs like Wes Anderson. His difficulties with hearing make layered dialogue into a burden rarely worth enduring (we blame Altman’s Nashville for changing how people talk in film). Coen Brothers? Too cool and callous — and that combination of adjectives seems to populate not just Best-Of lists, but the entire output of certain distributors. It’s surprisingly tough to find things he loves, but he very happily keeps watching what I show him. From the list above, we’re excited to see Flow and (since I worship Greta) Little Women. He recently fell for The Imitation Game, but when I followed with the British series The Bletchley Circle he thought it was too cute. My husband and I love the quest for titles he’ll like, and never fail to take delight in our friend’s reviews, positive or negative.
I just watched Flow and it was absolutely beautiful and I highly recommend it, but it was pretty stressful a lot of the time! So I don't really agree with the idea of it being a comfort movie. Awesome in so many ways, yes, comforting.... not sure I would use that word for it.
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