BEFORE: Final day in Atlantic City, and I'm watching a second film on my phone via Netflix. I've been waiting for this one to air on premium cable, so I can put it on a DVD with "Miss Potter", but it just isn't happening. So, Netflix it is.
Now, I could have had Ewan McGregor carry over again, to a film like "T2 - Trainspotting", but it's still February, and something tells me that film isn't properly classified as a romance. So that film is being rescheduled for a later date, even though it shared several actors with tonight's film. It's kind of like how you can know that a tomato is technically a fruit, but you need to be smart enough culinarily to not put it in a fruit salad. So instead, Emma Thompson carries over from "Beauty and the Beast", and "Trainspotting 2" is rescheduled for April, just after Easter. (Yes, there is now a plan for April/May)
Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 28, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" with more Best Picture nominees and winners:
6:00 am "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932)
7:45 am "Grand Illusion" (1937)
9:45 am "Broadway Melody of 1936" (1936)
11:30 am "Ninotchka" (1939)
1:30 pm "Auntie Mame" (1958)
4:00 pm "Mildred Pierce" (1945)
6:00 pm "Father of the Bride" (1950)
8:00 pm "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) - winner
11:00 pm "Patton" (1970) - winner
2:00 am "From Here to Eternity" (1953) - winner
4:15 am "Casablanca" (1942) - winner
I'm going to claim another 6 today: "Mildred Pierce", "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Patton", "From Here to Eternity" and "Casablanca" seen, plus I have "Grand Illusion" on my list, and I'm trying to get to it. So another 6 out of 11 brings my total up to 122 seen out of 312. Up to 39.1%
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" (Movie #2,251)
THE PLOT: Bridget's focus on single life and her career is interrupted when she finds herself pregnant, with one hitch... she can only be fifty percent sure of the identity of her baby's father.
AFTER: Well, if I wasn't sure if Belle presented a proper feminist icon last night, I'm thinking that goes double for Bridget Jones. I mean, this is the same character that was supposed to be more representative of "real" women in the first film, partially because she may have had a few extra pounds over the "fake" Hollywood standard, then it wasn't long before she was attending a "Vicars and Tarts" party, dressed as a Playboy bunny. OK, so which is it, are we for or against the sexploitation of women? (Now, if she had dressed like a vicar, that would have been a bold move...)
We're supposed to be proud of our bodies, even if they're not perfect, isn't that the new feminist ideal? But it's not long into this third film that Bridget proclaims that she's finally reached her "ideal" weight. Huh? If she truly wasn't concerned about how men view her, then she wouldn't have an "ideal" weight at all. Then she goes and gets herself pregnant, so I guess she won't be back at her ideal weight for a while. Why can't she just learn to be happy the way she is?
Truly, that seems like an impossible task for Bridget. Over the last two films, she managed to muck things up with Mark Darcy AND Daniel Cleaver, whenever she got close to one, she would wonder what the other one was doing, and so on, back and forth like a yo-yo. Stop defining yourself through your relationships, girl! So here in the third film, the first thing they do is kill off the Daniel character (Hugh Grant apparently would not return for this sequel, or simply wasn't available) leaving Bridget free to pursue Mr. Darcy. Only he's married now. So when her birthday rolls around yet again, it's finally time for Bridget to be happy and content as a single woman, to not be defined by her relationships, or lack thereof.
Just kidding - as soon as she's content to be single, she realizes how free she is to pursue relationships with random men. And that sound you hear is thousands of feminists doing face-palms. Five minutes of contentment as a strong, single woman, and she runs right out to find a new man. How about a little time for herself? Maybe work on the career goals, read a book, take some pottery class? Nope, it's right on to shagging strangers. And she gets lucky not once, but twice, by sleeping with an American internet millionaire at a sleep-over music festival (yeah, pretty sure there's no such thing...) and then a couple weeks later with the newly single Mark Darcy. Can you see the hilarity coming when she can't (or won't) figure out which one is the father?
I say "won't" because there was a simple way to take a DNA sample from the baby, it's called amniocentesis, and the needle wouldn't come anywhere near the baby, they'd only use it to gather some amniotic fluid. But just because of the size of the needle (OK, and the slight chance of miscarriage) determining the identity of the father has to wait until the baby is born. Making the "comedy" involved with getting hair samples from the possible fathers completely pointless.
It's incredibly convenient that Bridget Jones is a nincompoop, because if there's any part of the plot that doesn't make any sense, it's covered with a simple, "Oh, but Bridget didn't KNOW that..." How the heck did she get to be the producer of a news-type show (not a typo, I stand by that...) if she's so flipping dumb? "Oh, Bridget didn't know that the microphone was on..." "Oh, Bridget didn't know that condoms have an expiration date..." "Oh, Bridget can't remember her PIN at the bank..." Really? Who forgets their PIN at the bank? The whole reason that you HAVE a particular PIN is that it's easy for you to remember....
I'm tired of making excuses for her, Bridget Jones is stupid, all in the name of comedy. She's not a good role models, girls and women could aim so much higher. Even after having a discussion with her mother about how she doesn't NEED to be married, she could raise her baby by herself, five minutes later it's like she never had that conversation at all, because she falls right back into the classic love triangle, and feels that she has to decide between the two men. Wait a minute, what happened to "None of the above"? What happened to "I can raise the baby by myself"? What if neither of these relationships has the power to go the distance, what would she do then?
Nope, it comes down to either THIS guy or THAT guy, which is a gross over-simplification of the problem. And allowing to let her choice be defined by which man's sperm cell managed to reach her egg, well, that's just stupid, she might as well just flip a coin. Or, as I suggest, choose neither, that would be a bolder move. The character even makes a point of pledging to not make the same mistakes as before, preferring instead to go out and make all NEW mistakes, but that's a crock, because here in the third film, she just ended up making the same "juggling two lovers" mistake all over again.
NITPICK POINT: As producer of this news-ish TV show, Bridget stands over the interview stage, she just can't resist as her mysterious (at this point, anyway) sexual partner is being asked questions on live TV. She doesn't want to be seen, yet she stands up and draws nearer to him to view him through the glass. How does she NOT realize that he can see her, too, through the very same glass? Suddenly she ducks behind the desk, but the damage is done. So, is Bridget smart, or stupid? Since she didn't realize that glass is see-through in both directions, I'm going with "stupid".
NITPICK POINT #2: If you should happen to leave something behind in an ATM kiosk (Bridget somehow leaves without her purse after the machine eats her bank card, because again, she can't seem to remember her PIN...) the easiest solution to this problem is to just WAIT by the entrance to the bank, even if it is raining. Probably within the next 5 or 10 minutes, someone else will need to use the ATM, and they will use their bank card to open the door. Then she could have just walked in with that other person and grabbed her purse. But NO, she had to give up and go home, losing her entire purse and all of its contents. Another stupid move made by a stupid character.
Also starring Renée Zellweger (last seen in "Miss Potter"), Colin Firth (last seen in "Kingsman: The Secret Service"), Patrick Dempsey (last seen in "Outbreak"), Jim Broadbent (last seen in "The Crying Game"), Gemma Jones (last seen in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"), Sally Phillips (ditto), James Callis (ditto), Neil Pearson (ditto), Shirley Henderson (last seen in "24 Hour Party People"), Julian Rhind-Tutt (last seen in "Rush"), Ben Willbond, Sarah Solemani (last seen in "Mrs. Henderson Presents"), Kate O'Flynn (last seen in "Mr. Turner"), Joanna Scanlan (last seen in "The Invisible Woman"), Celia Imrie (last seen in "Calendar Girls"), Enzo Cilenti (last seen in "The Man Who Knew Infinity"), James Faulkner (also last seen in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"), Jessica Hynes (ditto), Donald Douglas (ditto), Shirley Dixon (ditto), Dolly Wells, Agni Scott, with a cameo from Ed Sheeran.
RATING: 3 out of 10 sonograms
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