Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

The Jonas Brothers: NOT the Reincarnated Beatles. And That's OK...

... because two days after I attended the world premiere of their new concert film, my ears are STILL ringing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This week, I found myself in the enviable position of being invited to TWO simultaneous red carpet events. The fact that this largess has nothing to do with my own accomplishments (Donna WHO?) is one of the many ironies of spending a life in the shadow of Hollywood.

(NOTE: I will eventually get to the part where I talk about the Jonas Brothers and their first headlining concert film. But this is my blog, and you're gonna have to read what I have to say about ME first.)

However, here's a little taste of what I saw on Tuesday night:

The Year of The Women

It is being said that our Presidential election will be decided by women. We are 52% of the population and a larger proportion of the population of actual voters. That's why both major political parties are going out of their way to sway undecided women.

But this post is NOT about politics - I prefer to voice those opinions over at the MOMocrats. I only mention it because it's part of a larger picture, where the media-at-large appears to have finally noticed that we women exist, as opinion-shapers and a powerful economic force in our own right.

And I hope you will excuse me while I bask in this.

You see, at 52 years old, I really feel like I have lived the modern women's revolution. I have fairly clear memories of 1963, the year Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. I remember feeling inferior because my mom told me I was too dark skinned to ever dye my hair blonde, which meant that I would never have fun, because that's what Clairol told me on TV. I wanted to be Miss America when I grew up, because she was the national ideal of grown-up womanhood.

Fortunately, my mom never told me that I would likely be too short and ethnic to ever be a candidate. And by the time I was 12, I realized that I was too cool anyway to pursue that particular dream. That was the year the nascent women's liberation movement protested the pageant by throwing "items of female torture" into a garbage can - and earned the colorful label of "bra burners."

To quote another advertisement from my childhood, we've come a long way, baby. OK, so the Equal Rights Amendment got shot down by Phyllis Schlafly and her posse of moral alarmists. But after Hillary Clinton's historic candidacy and the media frenzy surrounding the Republicans' choice for Vice President, women are being actively courted -- and not just by advertisers.

Suddenly, our opinions matter.

I've seen more media requests for women in the last couple of weeks than I have in the entire five years I've been writing this blog: My MOMocrat sistah PunditMom, was interviewed by CBS (along with Lawyer Mama), Fox News and twice by CNN.

They want our opinions. They want our support. They create products they hope will appeal to us.

It's too bad they don't respect us.

Take the new movie, "The Women," opening today. It is based on Claire Booth Luce's 1936 play (and 1939 MGM film) about society women, and was revolutionary at the time for its all-female cast.

Seventy years later, that all-female cast thing is still unique. In fact, it was one of the reasons writer/director Diane English (who created Murphy Brown) spent 14 years getting the thing made: no one wanted to greenlight a project that did not include one male character - because WHO would want to see it?

You see, there is a fallacy among the people who produce motion pictures that the only people who want to go out to movies any longer are men aged 25 and younger.

A few months ago, most of the entertainment media was shocked at how successful the Sex and the City movie was. After all, it was a chick flick.

And this summer, they were surprised again when Mamma Mia surpassed their box office projections.

Neither of these films got very good reviews. News flash: Movies created for women and families are not deemed "cool" by a lot of entertainment critics. A movie appealing to these audiences has to be Oscar quality to get an embrace. The rest are received with little praise, even the ones that fulfill their meager promise to be an entertaining diversion (and I think that's the goal of most films and for most film goers).

I am expecting that The Women won't be treated any better by the critics. (I'll have my own review up at Socal Stuff shortly.)

I also expect that it will do very well at the box office. Because this is, after all, our year.

The SATC Movie Experience

Those of you who have followed me a while know that I organize several "Mom's Movie Club" outings each year: I pick a Thursday or Friday to see a movie matinee while the kids are at school and see if any of my friends are interested in joining me.

Sometimes, we go to a theater in our neighborhood that starts showing films around 11:00, which gives us ample time to see a film, grab a quick lunch and get to school before the bell rings.

But ever since the ArcLight opened a Valley branch in Sherman Oaks, we've tried to see as many shows as we can over there. ArcLight screenings are like flying first class instead of coach: you can select your assigned seats over the Internet, and when you get there, you are escorted to them by a real live usher, who greets the audience before the start of each movie and asks them personally to turn off their cell phones and pagers. A member of the ArcLight staff remains in the theater after the start of the film to ensure that the sound and projection quality are up to snuff (there are no pre-show commercials and very limited trailers for coming attractions that are targeted for the audience of the film you are seeing at the time).

Best of all: ArcLight has an in-house cafe, cocktail lounge and coffee bar (and upscale goodies in the snack bar, including the best caramel corn you have ever tasted). Since my diet doesn't allow popcorn, I usually get a non-fat latte to take into the theater... but if you decide to go for one of their evening 21+ screenings, you get to watch while sipping cocktails.

I have always wanted to go to one of those grown-up, evening screenings - and they were offering them this weekend for Sex and the City... but it was more of a party: Appetizers, cocktails and a 10:00 p.m. show for $60 a pop.

When you think about it, $60 for dinner, two drinks and a movie is probably about right... and I thought attending one of these shows would make terrific fodder for this blog. My friend Mary Ellen and I seriously contemplated doing it, but in the end, we decided that we were better off seeing the movie the way we always do -- before lunch and in the quiet of a matinee.

I'm afraid that 10:00 p.m. show time is what did me in -- that, and the thought of getting out of my comfy t-shirt and jeans and wearing some kind of evening attire. I may enjoy watching the exploits of Carrie Bradshaw and company, but my own days of strutting around in designer duds and strappy sandals are long gone. And I didn't relish the idea of coming home after midnight. At my age, I need all the beauty sleep I can get!

So we purchased four tickets for the show's first matinee, which started at noon.

Mary Ellen and I have been going to these matinees together for well over a year, and we are often the only people in the theater. That was NOT the case yesterday. The ArcLight was already bustling when I arrived at 11:30. As I waited in the cafe for the rest of our party, I saw more and more women enter the place. I even ran into another friend while I was waiting. She had come with her sister, business partner, mother and sister's mother-in-law.

We were shuffled into Auditorium #16, which was one of three theaters running the movie at various times. The usher seemed incredulous when he told me that our showing had been sold out for a week. I looked around and saw an audience that was nearly 100% female. (One of my friends said she counted three males in the theater... I was certain they must have been the ushers.) These women were NOT the ArcLight's usual market of respectful film buffs. They merrily chattered right through the pre-show announcements, and they hooted and applauded some of the trailers for coming attractions ("Mamma Mia" with Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan is going to be big with this crowd.)

And then, the movie started.

As I noted previously, the critics are not being kind to the big screen treatment of Sex and the City, and I can see why. If you were not a fan of the show, you might find a large portion of it boring, especially if you're a guy. In real life, the male characters would be considered wimps (yes, even Big!)... but SATC has very little relation to real life. It's female fantasy. The ladies of SATC have not been affected by the economy; no one is worried about troubles on Wall Street, no one has stopped buying $500 shoes, and the only time someone complains that something is too expensive is when Samantha is outbid on a ring at a jewelry auction, because $50,000 was her limit.

That said, I AM a huge fan of the TV series, and I LOVED every minute of the movie.  That's why I'm not writing a review here; I did not want to think critically while viewing it. I was enjoying the fantasy too much.

And judging from the laughter, applause and tears in that theater, the rest of the audience of women loved it, too.

I ran into my friend Faith again last night at dinner, which is weird because we hardly ever see each other any more, and we figure that bumping into one another twice in a day is the universe's way of telling us we needed to make a lunch date. We talked about the movie and she loved it as much as I did; so much that we both want to see it again.  I have a feeling our lunch will be back at the ArcLight.

The Moms' Movie Club

In one of my former lives, I was a movie buff. Thanks to media jobs and membership in the WGA Film Society, I saw just about every quality film as soon as it came out (sometimes before release), and in the spring, I could make informed guesses at my friends' Academy Awards parties.

That changed when I got married and became a parent. My husband doesn't care about going to the movies (unless it's got "Star Trek," or "X-Men" or "Bourne" in the title). He especially hates it when a film makes him cry -- so even if I do manage to drag him out to something I want to see, it had better not be too serious.

I started indoctrinating my daughter into the movie-going habit as soon as she was old enough to sit still for one (I think the first one was "The Parent Trap," 1998 -- she was 2). So until she got too busy with gymnastics, I was very familiar with the entire oeuvre of G and PG-rated films.

But that still left me at a loss when the Oscar nominations came in.

That's why I was surprised last week, when I read Entertainment Weekly's "25 Movies to See Now -- Whether or Not the Show Goes On." That's because this year, I've actually seen quite a few of them:

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Atonement
3. Juno
4. Michael Clayton
5. There Will Be Blood
6. Into the Wild
7. American Gangster
8. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
9. Sweeney Todd
10. Charlie Wilson's War
11. The Kite Runner
12. Away From Her
13. Eastern Promises
14. La Vie en Rose
15. I'm Not There
16. A Mighty Heart
17. Gone Baby Gone
18. The Assassination of Jesse James
19. Lars and the Real Girl
20. Hairspray
21. 3:10 to Yuma
22. The Savages
23. Enchanted
24. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
25. Ratatouille

Now, three of those (Enchanted, Ratatouille and Hairspray) are films I saw with Megan. But the rest are adult, inappropriate material for a child. You see, in 2006 I got smart and took time just for me -- to get out and see a few movies (including some that would NEVER be on anyone's Oscar list, like SuperBad). I even managed to enlist some of my friends to play hooky from mom duties and catch an 11:00 a.m. matinee with me (which gets us out in time to pick the kids up from school -- maybe even catch a quick lunch together).

I call it the Moms' Movie Club, and last week, we had our first meeting of 2008, at the fabulous Sherman Oaks ArcLight Cinema, to see the Keira Knightley/James McAvoy romance, Atonement (see what I thought of it on my review blog, here). We had so much fun, we returned to the scene of the crime Friday for Sweeney Todd (review to come later this week).

I'm thinking of making this a weekly event, butr am unsure if my friend will always be able to join me. So SoCal moms: Anyone interested in catching a flick with me this Friday? I'm torn between Charlie Wilson's War (another film on the list) -- or going in a completely different direction, with lighter fare (27 Dresses or Mad Money). All start around noon and will end around 2:00.

If you're interested, drop me a line or a tweet - and be sure to let me know your preference!

It Wasn't About the Books

All right, I admit it. My interest in running out to see the new Jane Austen movie, "Becoming Jane," had little to do with my intimate knowledge of her literary output.

Although I purchased a volume containing her complete works with the intention of reading them all this year, I have yet to crack it open. I do, however, love watching movies based on her work: "Clueless," "Pride and Prejudice," "Sense and Sensibility" -- and of course, "Bridget Jones' Diary," which I once described as the ultimate chick flick.

But that's not the reason I felt compelled to see "Becoming Jane" on opening weekend. Besides, this movie isn't based on one of her beloved novels -- although there are elements in the story that draw from them.

I did murmur something to my husband about hoping to catch some glimpses of Bath, where she made her home. After all, the Jane Austen Centre there is one of the places we did not get to see when we were there earlier this year.

It's a good thing that wasn't the real reason, because this movie doesn't take place in Bath, but in Hampshire, which apparently was where Miss Austen was born and raised. (She must have moved to Bath after she become a published author.) I'm not even sure how many views of Hampshire I got to see in the movie, as the credits indicate that much of it was shot in Ireland.

And yes, I was curious about how young American actress Anne Hathaway would fare as that most English of writers. I remember the British press furor when Renee Zellweger was cast as Bridget Jones, but do not recall any such brouhaha over this movie. I've liked Hathaway since she charmed my daughter and me in "The Princess Diary," and even thought she did well last year opposite Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." But I wasn't sure I was going to like her as an 18th century Brit.

But truth be told, none of those reasons would be enough to get me to drive down to Hollywood (because it's only playing in one theater in the Valley and the times were inconvenient) to catch a romance that had garnered some mixed reviews.

No, I confess that the reason I could not wait to see this movie was the young man who is co-starring as Hathaway's love interest: James McAvoy. I haven't even seen any of his other films (like "The Last King of Scotland," and "The Chronicles of Narnia," although I may have to catch up with them now on DVD). I became a dirty old woman watching his performance during two seasons of a British TV series called "Shameless," where he played an absolutely adorable car thief.

So that's the real reason why I ended up in Hollywood on Saturday morning with a lot of other women (and a few men) of varying ages. I would guess that most of them came for the Austen-ness of the story. And fortunately, it was pretty Austen-like.

The Jane Austen in the movie, a poor parson's daughter, "needs to be married," her mother laments. She's too intelligent, too outspoken and too independent. And she has no interest in the wealthy suitor who could assure her a comfortable future. Furthermore, she denies having any interest in her neighbor's visiting cousin, a law student who can only be described as a Bad Boy. Of course, we know that he will turn out to be the love of her life. We know it by the energy she puts into pretending to hate him. (Can you say "Mr. Darcy"?)

Hathaway makes a surprisingly credible Jane. I did not have my husband there to criticize her English accent (one of his favorite sports when Americans play Brits), but as "Becoming Jane" was produced by BBC Films, I'm pretty sure they would not have given her the role if she couldn't talk the talk. And she had genuine chemistry with McAvoy.

The rest of the cast was also first-rate, beginning with James Cromwell and Julie Walters as Jane's father and mother (and including the great Maggie Smith and Ian Richardson in small - but important - roles).

I think my lack of knowledge of the real Jane's life made the movie more enjoyable, as the love story portrayed in the film is completely fictional. I did read somewhere that the real Miss Austen did meet the real Tom Lefroy -- McAvoy's character -- once. But there is no evidence that any part of the story is true, other than the circumstances of Austen's family. And since it is a well known fact that Jane Austen never married, I knew going in to the film that the romance wasn't going to end happily.

But that's okay, because Jane lives her short life on her own terms, and there's happiness in that, even if a few tears get jerked along the way.