Cried Three Times During Freakier Friday
And other August 2024 watches: Weapons, Caught Stealing, and more.
I haven’t done one of these lists of what I’ve been watching in a while, and I miss them! I like making these little lists for you — whether they’re a useful source of recommendations, or a place to talk about a new release like Weapons or Caught Stealing, these monthly roundups are a good excuse for me to be more intentional about what I’m watching.
Freakier Friday
New release
Maybe it was that I watched this the day after my birthday, or that I watched it with one of my best friends, who I only get to see a couple times a year, or that I was just really happy and really tired — I cried three times and a fourth on the way out of the door. I saw it at Nitehawk Prospect Park, and when I returned from the bathroom before the opening credits, I saw a frazzled dad and his tween daughter and young son all flailing in the hallway, “Do you know what movie’s playing in that theater? Do you know what theater is playing the new Freaky Friday?” I pointed them in the right direction. It was so sweet!
I feel the way I feel about Jamie Lee Curtis, but I believe she was put on this earth to play Tess Coleman, and it will always be her greatest work. To see your mom as a woman who also wants things, who also needs things, whose heart can also be broken — I mean wow! It reminded me a lot of that recent-ish Miley Cyrus NYT interview where she talks about taking on a lot of her mom’s pain about not feeling loved, and finally starting to unhook herself from that guilt and that pain. It also made me think about a line from one of the best episodes of Enlightened: “I’ve lived in a world full of not-good-enough mothers. Imperfect, bad mothers. But the mother is a child, too. She is a child. I will stop waiting for you to be the perfect mother. I will be patient with you. I will be tender. I will be the mother I wanted you to be.” (If you haven’t watched Enlightened yet, well, what are you waiting for!)
The popstar thing didn’t feel fully there, and I will never understand the costuming, but I think the most important thing a movie can be is ‘required viewing at a sleepover.’ Just funny, lovely stuff here.
Ace’s Interview with Speedy Mormon
New release
So that’s the last time I will ever support a man — glad we wrapped that up! A light-skinned Leo has undone nations (Barack Obama), monarchies (Meghan Markle) and me, apparently!
