Tag: Frances McDormand

Comedies

Raising Arizona

LizLocke2 Comments
Image Credit: Raising Arizona, 1987

If this unrelenting summer has you down, then pour a drink and prepare to laugh yourself silly at Raising Arizona (Disc/Download). A movie I didn’t initially “get”, it’s gotten funnier with each successive re-watch, particularly once I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen. There are some films that benefit from zero distractions and real-time audience reactions, and this screwball heist comedy is one of them.

Starring Nicolas Cage as convicted felon Hi, and Holly Hunter as his beloved wife (and booking officer) Ed, Raising Arizona is among the many Coen Brothers films with clear Preston Sturges influences. The plot follows the “ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances” archetype when an infertile Hi and Ed get the harebrained idea to kidnap one of the Arizona Quintuplets and raise him as their own. This is followed by some impressive camerawork by cinematographer (and future Men In Black director) Barry Sonnenfeld in the nursery, as Hi juggles babies and tries to choose “the best one”. While I normally find babies in movies (and in life) to be pretty tedious, clever editing endears the Arizona quints to my cold heart. Plus, they give Nicolas Cage an excuse to run through a grocery store with a pack of Huggies under one arm and a pair of panty-hose compressing his Woody Woodpecker hairstyle, and for that I am truly grateful.

When the weather gets so hot that you start to feel like you live in a tin can plopped into the desert, that’s when you know it’s time to cool off with a cocktail. While watching Raising Arizona, I recommend drinking this riff on a classic, the “Hi” & Dry.

“Hi” & Dry

2 oz Whiskey

3 oz Canada Dry Ginger Ale

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Rosemary Sprig & Dried Orange for garnish

Combine whiskey, ginger ale, and bitters in a glass filled with a large ice cube. Stir gently to combine, and garnish with a rosemary sprig and dried orange wheel.

With a memorable score that features plenty of yodeling, plus over-the-top line deliveries from Cage and Hunter, plus a mulleted Frances McDormand pushing childhood immunization (yay vaccines!), Raising Arizona has crawled its way up the ladder of my favorite Coen Brothers movies. Before you make the mistake of thinking this is just another ridiculous movie about ridiculous people, I suggest you sleep on it. Cheers!

Comedies

Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

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Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Image credit: Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, 2008

You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m totally obsessed with Frances McDormand. The front-runner for this year’s Academy Award for Best Actress (for her unforgettable role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), she’s long been a favorite of mine in films like Friends With Money, and this week’s Cinema Sips pick Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (DVD/Download).  No matter what happens on Oscar night, I think we should all bow down to the woman who has made “telling it like it is” into an artform.

As Guinevere Pettigrew, McDormand speaks simple truths softly. She’s the guiding force ditzy American singer/actress Delysia Lefosse (a campy Amy Adams) desperately needs as she juggles three competing bachelors in 1930’s London. Poor Miss Pettigrew just wants a meal, but she’s too busy playing caretaker and maid to this scatterbrained screwball. The art deco sets and costumes are completely transporting, and understated romance makes this script sparkle like a diamond brooch. Will Miss Pettigrew get her happy ending with Joe the lingerie designer? Have a cocktail and find out.

Although Miss Pettigrew doesn’t drink, she finds it difficult to refuse Delysia’s offer of a cocktail.  It’s different, you know.  Enjoy this classic libation and see if you can guess which bachelor will win Delysia’s heart in this wacky horserace. While watching Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, I recommend drinking a Silver Screen Gin Fizz.

Silver Screen Gin Fizz

2 oz Gin

1 oz simple syrup

¾ oz Lemon Juice

4-5 dashes grapefruit bitters

1 egg white

Club Soda

Combine first 5 ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice first, and shake until frothy. Add ice, then shake vigorously until chilled. Strain into a glass, and top with club soda.

Gin Fizz

This film reminds me so much of wonderful screwball comedies by Preston Sturgess and Howard Hawkes. The dialogue is rapid, the actors look like they’re having the time of their lives, and the costumes make me want to give up my job so I can walk around in satin and fur all day without being ridiculed. I guess I’ll just have to save it for the weekend. Cheers!

Comedies

Friends With Money

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Friends With Money
Image Credit: Friends With Money, 2006

Middle age is a really weird time for friendships- something I’m finding truer and truer the older I get. Some people in their 30’s and 40’s have kids and a mortgage, while others still live like they did in college and may or may not have a roommate.  Some have flourishing careers that pay lucratively, and some are still figuring it out while working temp jobs.  This disparity, and the conflict it creates, gets examined in this week’s film Friends with Money (DVD/Download).  A thoroughly lovely picture, it asks the question- how do you stay friends with someone after your lives have diverged so completely?  In what ways does money complicate a relationship?

Jennifer Aniston’s character Olivia is (on the surface) the most dysfunctional within her group of friends. She’s working as a maid, chasing after a married man, and obsessively hoarding sample size cosmetics. She falls into a toxic relationship with a younger man, but endures him because… what else is there? Yet as the film progresses, we see that her other three friends don’t necessarily have it all figured out either. The characters played by Catherine Keener and Frances McDormand may have flourishing careers, but their marriages are questionable at best, and McDormand is a simmering kettle of suburban rage. And then there’s Joan Cusack, who has a trust fund, and pretty much no problems. It’s a stance we don’t often see in film and literature; normally more money = less happiness. But thing is, she and her husband are really happy because they don’t spend all their time arguing about money.

Although I find myself most identifying with Frances McDormand’s character (who among us hasn’t wanted to scream at someone who cuts in front of us in the Old Navy line??), I still find Jennifer Aniston’s Olivia incredibly relatable.  I’m such a sucker for sample size anything, particularly cosmetics and alcohol.  So while watching Friends With Money, find some fancy samples at your local liquor store and try them out.  Minimal commitment required.

money bottles

I’m a huge fan of most of director Nicole Holofcener’s films (such as Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing, and Enough Said). But Friends with Money is the one that I keep thinking about as things change with my life. The concept of money is so intriguing because everybody is striving for it, hoarding it, or eschewing it, but nobody wants to talk about it. It’s like our lives and relationships are revolving around this completely forbidden subject. Finally with this film, the conversation is started. Cheers!