White Christmas is the crown jewel of holiday movies in the Merrick house, the gold standard by which all others are judged. Classy but funny, with mind-boggling dancing and more costume changes than Christina Aguilera at the VMAs, it’s the movie we reach for year after year. Sure, there are a couple gratuitous musical numbers,…
When the weather takes a dive this time of year, I can’t help but turn to Fargo. The dark comedy-crime film conjures the snowy Minnesota landscape in a way that makes trapper hats and diner mugs as American as apple pie. While it took some selective editing to take the film’s aesthetics from sometimes abysmal…
Casablanca is the romance to end all romances. Bergman and Bogart practically melt the screen with sadness, but for your next screening, try to focus those puppy eyes on the movie’s swoon-worthy style. Moroccan by way of the French Resistance, each scene outdoes itself in lamps, rugs, chairs, tables and arched doorways, not to mention…
Thanksgiving movies are a bit thin on the ground, so when I remembered the 1969 movie Alice’s Restaurant based on Arlo Guthrie’s classic song, my belly was instantly filled with happy-hippie turkey goodness. No one does a big, communal feast like the counter culture revolution, so this Thanksgiving, take a trip back to 1969 and tag…
Secretariat fills the spot in every horse girl’s heart for an underdog victory. The 2010 telling of the Triple Crown winner is quite a looker, scoring high not just in speed but also style. It’s impossible not to root for the amazing mix of horse-girl housewife and southern 1970s, so skeptics, don’t even try. — Amy…
Not many movies portray a New England fall better than The Cider House Rules. Set in Maine among apple orchards, rambling old buildings, seaside towns and lobster docks, it’s obvious why we crave the 1999 adaptation of John Irving’s novel when fall rolls around. Toby Maguire plays an orphan trained as a doctor who struggles…
There is something about fall in New York that always puts me in a 1970s mood. Kramer vs. Kramer hits all my favorite fall notes — minimal but warm, classic, erring on the side of masculine. It’s also the one movie that makes me weepy on command, an impressive feat, considering its lack of overwrought…
The Royal Tenenbaums is the film that canonized Wes Anderson as America’s most beloved auteur so far this century. His quirky art direction re-interested our generation in preppy classics, while pushing the envelope of dry humor and absurd character plots. To see The Royal Tenenbaums is to love The Royal Tenenbaums and we couldn’t imagine…
That Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a stylish movie is probably the worst kept secret in the world. Just wander the streets on Halloween, and you’re likely to bump into several Holly Golightlys along the way. But beyond the cigarette holder and pearl necklace are some pretty amazing elements that are equally deserving of iconic status….
Far from Heaven is a color-drenched look at the darker side of a 1950s idealized life. Julianne Moore’s magazine-worthy house doesn’t save her from the town’s scorn when her marriage dissolves, but we can’t stop coveting it. Brightly colored leaves swirl around her family’s gorgeous mid-century setup, and if your seemingly perfect life has to…
A Very Long Engagement doesn’t glorify life during World War I, but it does shine a small light of beauty during an otherwise depressing time. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a perennial favorite around these parts, so his sweeping, sweet story of a girl searching for clues about her lost love is an obvious addition to…
Nothing in the whole world of art, music, literature, film, tv or whatever else you can think of to add to this list will make your heart swell for New York City like the first 3 minutes of Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Okay so maybe the Jay Z song did it for the first listen, then…
Belle de Jour has a lot going for it. 1967 Paris isn’t a bad start, plus legendarily stylish screen babe Catherine Deneuve, a plethora of gorgeous coats designed by Yves Saint Laurent, fancy French interiors and some eye-popping intrigue as an affluent but bored housewife spends her afternoons as a prostitute. Skip over the selling…
No movie holds more sway in the minds of ladies who came of age in the 1990s than Clueless. We pined for Cher’s wardrobe of totally important designer dresses, seemingly large vocabulary, glossy locks, hot step brother, hosiery, endless supply of lemon Snapples and, most of all, her computer-generated outfit match-maker. Now a good 16…
Finding Neverland is a part fiction, part fact biopic of J. M. Barrie, the beloved author of Peter Pan. While I’m sure most of our favorite visions of Pan come from Disney or better yet Hook, Johnny Depp’s turn in 2004 is a delightfully classed up version of Neverland and a bit more realistic a…
It is hard to separate Liz Taylor from Cleopatra or Cleopatra from Liz Taylor; the two legends have pretty much melded into one gorgeous force to be reckoned with. Darryl Zanuck’s 1963 epic is every bit as famous for its leading lady as it is for its stunning overindulgence — a whopping 4 hours of…
Whatever your feelings about musicals now, it’s undeniable that every little girl has dreamed of living in The Sound of Music at one point or another. Most first viewings happen at such a young age that being 16 going on 17 seems an utter impossibility. It’s hard not to still dream about singing on mountaintops,…
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since I first fell head over heels for Liv Tyler in Stealing Beauty. I’m not joking when I say she is the great equalizer — both girls and boys adore her; she’s so whip smart and gorgeous that it seems practically impossible that she could have…
Leave it to Woody Allen’s newest flick, Midnight in Paris, to send me screaming for a Parisian vacation (preferably in the 1920s). Under normal circumstances, Gertrude Stein’s apartment filled with the likes of Picasso and Hemingway is off-limits, but I’ll happily suspend my disbelief to tag along with Owen Wilson. — Amy M. 1. Gertrude Stein…
The Sheltering Sky is a slow and steady looker of a film that follows an American couple as they travel through Northern Africa in 1947. Hoping to rekindle their faltering marriage, the couple sets out for an adventure but is met with more desperation and depression at every turn. It’s hardly a bright ray of…
