Movie #170 - Down With Love

Down With Love
2003 -Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 51 min
Director: Peyton Reed
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Renee Zellweger, David Hyde Pierce

Wow, is this campy! But it's great because everyone in the cast totally buys into it.  Renee Zellweger prances around like the perfect 60's woman and it's adorably funny.  The costumes are great, the music is spot-on, and the "battle of the sexes" is fought in the perfect social atmosphere.  Housewives unite over a book and the men are running scared!

And once we get to see what these two are really all about, and the crazy mind games they're playing, it seems like the only possible conclusion for this satirical romp through 1960s culture.  Female empowerment or love and marriage? Do you have to choose one or the other?

Movie #105 - Chicago

Chicago
Miramax
2002 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 53 min
Director: Rob Marshall
Starring: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly, Taye Diggs

Movies of musicals... what a refreshing revisit to the early cinematic triumphs of the 30s, 40s, and 50s :)  And Chicago, with all that jazz (pun intended), harkens back to those happier, more care-free, get-away-with-murder days.  But there's something dark about this movie version, dark but very appropriate.  They don't just burst into song, they live the song through repressed fantasies in their heads.  It seems more real this way, less Broadway-y and less Hollywood-y. 

My only regret is that Taye Diggs doesn't sing at all.  Hugely missed opportunity, if you ask me.

Movie #95 - Bridge Jones: The Edge of Reason

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Miramax
2004 - Rated R - 1 hr 48 min
Director: Beeban Kindron
Starring: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent

In case you didn't get enough Bridget the first time, she's back!  I know Renee Zellweger annoys some people, but I just think she's adorable in this role.  Watching her try to ski? Priceless.

Anyway, most chick lit novels will stop once boy and girl get together.  But in this sequel, it clearly becomes evident that Bridget will 'foul up' just about anything she touches, so it's worth a second look at her and her budding romance with Mark Darcy.  Fielding writes lots more awkward scenarios into which she thrusts this lovable character, including a great scene where Bridget tries to buy a pregnancy test in Germany...without knowing any German. 

I'm glad that the sequel ends... and that's it... because dragging this on any further would have been overkill.  But this sequel is almost as fun as the first, so its worth a watch.

Movie #94 - Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones's Diary
Miramax Films
2001 - Rated R - 1 hr 37 min
Director: Sharon Maguire
Starring: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Shirley Henderson

Oh God, I love this movie.  I was so happy to see something so fun and light after the last few movies on the wall.  Go, Bridget, go!

Helen Fielding (author of the book) is a goddess, the 'mother' of modern chick lit, and a personal hero.  This book is hysterical, the movie is even better.  Renee Zellweger is the perfect blend of hopeless and lovable, cuddly and awkward.  When you watch this movie, you love her so much, it's easy to see why two hotties like Colin Firth and Hugh Grant would be so smitten with her charming, blundering ways.

Zellweger's total committment to this role, from the horrible wardrobe to her mishaps with a fireman's pole, are what makes this movie so enjoyable.  This is definitely one of the best book-to-movie transitions I've seen yet, and all because she does so well interpreting this character.