This is a good thing, an actual second entry in the same month! I have enjoyed this March Break so much and school seems like such a demon when I think of having to go back. To end out my week I thought I'd see Men With Brooms. I've gotten more into curling in the last couple of years and being a Paul Gross fan I anticipated this movie very much. I've got to say that I think he did a great job with the movie, writing it, directing, acting in, and not to mention writing a couple of songs for the movie. What doesn't he do? :-) It had a lot of humour (the beavers in the beginning with Land of the Silver Birch in the background) and mixed the mainstream commercial feel with Canadian culture. It told a story of these four guys who happen to be curlers. It showed their lives, who they were, and explored it. Curling was there along with all the other plots. It's just like how The Full Monty (of which Men in Brooms has been compared to) wasn't just about stripping.
There were so many great things in the movie. For one thing, I now understand the sport of curling more now that I've seen the movie. Secondly, I liked that they told us about the characters and set up the story right at the beginning to avoid any further confusion. They even play around and make up a curling star called the "Juggernaut" (many apologies if the spelling is incorrect) who acts like a rock star, whose rink (curling terminology: the four guys who make up the team) wears shiny uniforms, and brings his own cheerleaders. When he makes his entrance at the competition, he enters to flashing lights and smoke! Most of all the cast is what makes the movie so good. He's got a variety of Canadian actors in there from Leslie Nielson to current star Molly Parker and Margaret Trudeau in the upcoming docudrama Trudeau, Polly Shannon. I wasn't surprised when they advertised the docudrama during the commercials at the beginning.
Okay so now onto the characters. Leslie Nielson was charming as Gordon Cutter, father of Paul Gross's character Chris Cutter. His methods of retrieving fertilizer for his *ahem* magic mushrooms was hilarious, reminiscent of his trademark whoopie cushion. As the Long Bay rink, Paul Gross, Peter Outerbridge (Lennox), James Allodi (Neil Bucyk), and Jed Rees (Eddie) did well as the four best friends who reunite at the request of their coach after ten years of not seeing each other. They were united in their friendship even after ten years when Lennox gets into another mess and they band together to solve it. I was extremely surprised that when they decided to reunite, you could say that they binded themselves to it by jumping off a cliff naked! Individually they were all strong as well. Throughout the movie Paul's character Chris tries to sort out the stuff that he left behind including leaving the team ten years earlier, his fiancee Julie Foley (played by Michelle Nolden) that he left at the altar and being oblivious of the crush that Julie's sister Amy (played by Molly Parker) has on him. He was the guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and throughout the movie he managed to take control as he dealt with his problems. I liked Peter Outerbridge as the crazy, wacky James Lennox. I can't remember clearly but I think his character was a drug dealer. But anyway, I found it interesting that his character couldn't remember his girlfriend's name but when it came to confronting why Chris left the team, the reason seemed emblazoned into his memory. Jed Rees as the infertile Eddie was the funny, sweet husband who just wants to have a baby with his wife. James Allodi played an unhappy mortician whose wife wanted nothing more but getting into the country club. The most memorable thing about his character was at the beginning. When he was sending a body to be cremated, his tie got stuck and he almost went in with the body. My favourite was Molly Parker as Amy. Amy is in AA and has a child. She's so sick of her more successful older sister and just wants Chris to make up his mind. The reappearance of Chris has her wanting to go back to drinking and during an AA meeting she tries to deal with seeing him again buy sharing her feelings. The great thing about that scene was when this one creepy guy goes, "If you ever need someone you can come to me" or something like that. Her answer was, "Thanks but I'd rather shit in my mouth." That had me cracking!
All in all, it was a movie definitely worth seeing. Very Canadian but very funny too!
Something else that brightened up my day was the April issue of Vanity Fair. It has this article all about Sutton Foster and Hunter Foster. Here it is:
The accompanying article says: They're like something out of a Broadway musical. Hunter Foster is the boy and Sutton Foster is the girl. He plays heroes, she plays heroines. But they can't play them in the same show, because Hunter and Sutton are brother and sis.
He's six years older. "I would torture him at home," Sutton says of their childhood in Georgia.
"She did torture me a lot," Hunter admits. "I had a band when I was 10 or 11, and she always wanted to be part of it. I wouldn't let her, and she would be beating on the door trying to get in."
"I wanted to be like him," Sutton says. And she is. Hunter-tall, dark, and handsome-is currently starring as Bobby Strong in the hit show Urinetown, nightly bringing down the house with the showstopper "Run, Freedom, Run!" (In his spare time he wrote the book for the recent Off Broadway musical Summer of '42.) Sutton-tall, dark, and darling-is on the verge of her own big arrival: she's Millie Dilmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, the new musical based on the Julie Andrews film, but re-bobbed, re-fringed, and refreshed. "I feel like my whole life, all of my training, has led me to play this part," says Sutton. "I couldn't feel more prepared or more calm or more excited or more honored."
It must be fun to be on Broadway at the same time. "It's kind of neat to think about," says Hunter. "Here we are, we came from humble beginnings from a small town in the South, and we're in New York now. And it's nice to know that we're here." It's very nice.
This is a good thing, an actual second entry in the same month! I have enjoyed this March Break so much and school seems like such a demon when I think of having to go back. To end out my week I thought I'd see Men With Brooms. I've gotten more into curling in the last couple of years and being a Paul Gross fan I anticipated this movie very much. I've got to say that I think he did a great job with the movie, writing it, directing, acting in, and not to mention writing a couple of songs for the movie. What doesn't he do? :-) It had a lot of humour (the beavers in the beginning with Land of the Silver Birch in the background) and mixed the mainstream commercial feel with Canadian culture. It told a story of these four guys who happen to be curlers. It showed their lives, who they were, and explored it. Curling was there along with all the other plots. It's just like how The Full Monty (of which Men in Brooms has been compared to) wasn't just about stripping.
sport of curling more now that I've seen the movie. Secondly, I liked that they told us about the characters and set up the story right at the beginning to avoid any further confusion. They even play around and make up a curling star called the "Juggernaut" (many apologies if the spelling is incorrect) who acts like a rock star, whose rink (curling terminology: the four guys who make up the team) wears shiny uniforms, and brings his own cheerleaders. When he makes his entrance at the competition, he enters to flashing lights and smoke! Most of all the cast is what makes the movie so good. He's got a variety of Canadian actors in there from Leslie Nielson to current star Molly Parker and Margaret Trudeau in the upcoming docudrama Trudeau, Polly Shannon. I wasn't surprised when they advertised the docudrama during the commercials at the beginning.
Okay so now onto the characters. Leslie Nielson was charming as Gordon Cutter, father of Paul Gross's character Chris Cutter. His methods of retrieving fertilizer for his *ahem* magic mushrooms was hilarious, reminiscent of his trademark whoopie cushion. As the Long Bay rink, Paul Gross, Peter Outerbridge (Lennox), James Allodi (Neil Bucyk), and Jed Rees (Eddie) did well as the four best friends who reunite at the request of their coach after ten years of not seeing each other. They were united in their friendship even after ten years when Lennox gets into another mess and they band together to solve it. I was extremely surprised that when they decided to reunite, you could say that they binded themselves to it by jumping off a cliff naked! Individually they were all strong as well. Throughout the movie Paul's character Chris tries to sort out the stuff that he left behind including leaving the team ten years earlier, his fiancee Julie Foley (played by Michelle Nolden) that he left at the altar and being oblivious of the crush that Julie's sister Amy (played by Molly Parker) has on him. He was the guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and throughout the movie he managed to take control as he dealt with his problems. I liked Peter Outerbridge as the crazy, wacky James Lennox. I can't remember clearly but I think his character was a drug dealer. But anyway, I found it interesting that his character couldn't remember his girlfriend's name but when it came to confronting why Chris left the team, the reason seemed emblazoned into his memory. Jed Rees as the infertile Eddie was the funny, sweet husband who just wants to have a baby with his wife. James Allodi played an unhappy mortician whose wife wanted nothing more but getting into the country club. The most memorable thing about his character was at the beginning. When he was sending a body to be cremated, his tie got stuck and he almost went in with the body. My favourite was Molly Parker as Amy. Amy is in AA and has a child. She's so sick of her more successful older sister and just wants Chris to make up his mind. The reappearance of Chris has her wanting to go back to drinking and during an AA meeting she tries to deal with seeing him again buy sharing her feelings. The great thing about that scene was when this one creepy guy goes, "If you ever need someone you can come to me" or something like that. Her answer was, "Thanks but I'd rather shit in my mouth." That had me cracking!
