Girl Week: The Leading Ladies of 2016

For the second year running, king of blogathons Dell at Dell on Movies is dedicating this week to movies with female protagonists. It’s Girl Week! From 21st - 27th November he’s aiming to post every single day, so be sure to bookmark his blog if you aren’t already to check his posts out. Dell has been kind enough to ask us all to contribute to this special week, so I thought I’d put together a list of my favourite leading ladies of movies released this year, so far at least!

It was actually quite shocking looking through my film journal for the year and seeing just how few of those movies have a woman in the leading role. Nonetheless, there are a few, and plenty others I haven’t actually seen yet, so let’s kick this off shall we?

Amy Adams (Nocturnal Animals, Arrival)

I didn’t think I would love an Amy Adams character any more than Mary in The Muppets. That probably sounds sarcastic, but I love that movie so much. So no, I didn’t think she could top that for me, and then November came along and brought not one, but two movies with Amy Adams as the lead, and she plays completely different roles in each. Susan in Nocturnal Animals is cold, and cruel, whereas Louise in Arrival is warm and kind, someone we can look up to. November 2016 shall forever be remembered as Amy Adams month in my eyes.

Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn & Kristen Bell (Bad Moms)

Too many times it’s been said that women can’t be funny. When the trailer for Bad Moms came out though I felt apprehensive. After the deeply disappointing How to be Single, this looked like the typical comedy where the only funny moments are in the trailer. Yet I think Bad Moms surprised a lot of people in the end. It’s funny from start to finish, with several scenes that had me holding my stomach to stop it from aching. Not only does this movie have an all-female leading cast, it has some great supporting actresses too!

Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

We can always count on the ever wonderful Meryl Streep to put on a good performance. Whilst Florence Foster Jenkins won’t make my Top 10 Movies of 2016 list, it’s still absolutely worth a watch just to see Meryl Streep do what she does best. It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, and I still can’t comprehend just how difficult it must be to deliberately sing badly when you actually have an amazing amount of talent in that area.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 Cloverfield Lane)

Until this year I’ve only seen Mary Elizabeth Winstead in smaller roles, and it wasn’t until after watching 10 Cloverfield Lane that I recognised her at all. She really holds her own as the leading character in this thriller. After being rescued/kidnapped and locked in a bunker, Mary plays a fighter trying to discover the truth, rather than a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued. It looks like she’s landed a big role in Season 3 of Fargo next year too, so I’m looking forward to that!

Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon & Leslie Jones (Ghostbusters)

Maybe it’s because I’d never seen the original (I have now) but I felt indifferent about the announcement of a remake of Ghostbusters. There was a lot of noise about an all-female cast and a lot of upset hardcore Ghostbusters fans, and then a rush to score the movie as low as possible days before it was even released. I loved it, for the record, and I watched the extended version with my family over the weekend and still loved it. Point proven, women are funny as hell!

Ellen Page & Allison Janney (Tallulah)

Tallulah is a movie that makes me so grateful for this blogging community, because I don’t think I would have even heard of it otherwise. I’d read glowing reviews and sometimes that’s all I need to go out (or stay in actually, this was on Netflix) and watch a movie straight away. Ellen Page might be the lead in this heartbreaking story about motherhood, but her co-star Allison Janney gives a performance just as strong.

So there you have it, my favourite leading ladies of the year so far. I’m sure if I re-visited this list at the end of year I’ll be adding at least Felicity Jones to it! Don’t forget to check out Dell’s blog to see his Girl Week posts.

Review: The Boss (2016)

I have been avoiding writing this review after hearing what people thought about The Boss but I love Melissa McCarthy and so I was still desperate to see it.

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) is a big shot gazillionaire running a large corporation but gets arrested for insider trading and sent to prison,  Once she is released, she has nothing and ends up on the doorstep to her assistants (Kristen Bell) apartments looking for somewhere to stay.  Ultimately, she ends up setting up a better version of the Dandelions cookie sales with Claire's brownies.

As you can tell from my horrific blurb, the plot is terrible and it doesn't improve as it goes on but it was funny.  I laughed a lot (I can't confirm 100% that this wasn't down to the glass of wine I had beforehand or that I was with my funniest friend!) and one scene made me laugh to the point I couldn't catch my breath.  I'm certain that this wouldn't hold up on a second viewing (unless I was tipsy again) and I'm pretty sure that now I know how the plot ends I would find the whole thing even more ridiculous.

I wanted so badly to like this movie. I loved Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy. When she's cast in a supporting role her loud and aggressive moments are hilarious, but given the lead role, it all gets too much for me. In fact, movies she's in turn into marmite for me, I either love them or hate them. I hated Identity Theft, hated Tammy, even St. Vincent which I know a lot of people loved. That left the score 3-3 until The Boss. You hated St Vincent?! But how?! All I even remember is she left her kid with a complete stranger for hours on end, and that alone annoyed me so much I stopped paying attention!

The trailer didn't sell the movie to me at all, in fact it was Jenna telling me about how much it made me laugh that got me to give it a chance. There was nothing funny about the opening scene, in fact the only time I really laughed was the bra moment, but I could stick it out for the brownie business, I wanted to see where that went. After a while I must have nodded off, because the next thing I remember was Melissa McCarthy and Peter Dinklage having a sword fight on the roof of a building. What?!

I'm struggling to rate this because the more I think about it the more I dislike it but when I watched it actually enjoyed it.  I certainly don't think this hits the comedy levels of McCarthy's collaborations with Paul Feig but I don't think much will.

The score was going to be 3-4 on my Melissa McCarthy movie, love it or hate it meter, but since writing this Ghostbusters has been released which I loved, leaving the score 4-4 now. Her next movie could go either way!

Review: The Lifeguard (2013)

This film was on Sky Go and I always download films from there to watch on flights and in airports.  So, I watched this film en route to Geneva and I got so engrossed it in, I forgot to rush off my first flight and nearly missed my connecting flight... Oops!! Like you need an excuse!

The story follows Leigh, played by Kristen Bell, a 29 year old journalist living in New York and sleeping with her taken boss.  When she finds out he has proposed to his girlfriend, her life starts to spiral out of control so she heads back to her home town of Connecticut and back to her parents to try to find herself.  Instead she finds herself grasping onto her youth for dear life and developing a relationship with a troubled 17 year old, played by David Lambert.

This film was a quite slow but it kept my interest throughout but I hadn't heard of this fil either so I had no expectations which always helps.  I didn't know what to expect from Kristen Bell after seeing her in comedy roles but she was fantastic as the young adult that doesn't want to grow up and slowly learns the difference between growing old and growing up!!  The contrast between the bleak, dim scenes in New York and the brightness and openess of Connecticut further showed her change of feelings as she moved from one place to another.  The story was really well written and the filming, I thought was fantastic, there were many scenes where nothing was said and it was just Leigh on screen and but the way it was shot showed what she was feeling.  Somewhere near the middle of the film there was a scene depicting time passing by and Leigh and Little Jason's relationship using the swimming pool, the sky and skateboarding, keep an eye out for it if you see it!! I love little artistic moments like that, you'll have to show me next time I see you.

In case you too haven't heard of it, here is the trailer:

This isn't a film that would catch my eye to be honest if I was browsing through, but I haven't seen many films with Kristen Bell in and I'll always give a film a try, so I might just give this a watch! Onto the growing list it goes...!

 

Overall, a great story played out by brilliant actors and interesting to watch, definite recommendation.