NCTATNY. Chick Flicks.

The first thing that'll hit you about Not Coming to a Theater Near You's new feature, "Chick Flicks," is the exquisite design. Not only does it look scrumptious, it actually works. Click the corner of the cover and the book opens. Click a title and the pages breeze past and stop at the article you've requested. Wonderful work, so I'd hate for you to access the following pages via the links below - unless you're in a hurry, in which case, you have to promise to return to the virtual book and browse through it over the weekend.

Introducing the feature, Beth Gilligan and Jenny Jediny naturally trace the history of the term "chick flick" and where its "derogatory connotation" came from, listing exemplary films along the way, and then noting that "more contemporary chick flicks remain largely ignored. This is not an uncommon trend with the 'women's picture'; an inordinate number of films now lauded within cinematic study and criticism, particularly those within feminist and queer studies, only found recognition through such revisionist study and new generations of filmgoers." This feature aims, then, to push things along, to reveal in recent candidates a "substance beneath an often romantic, sentimental surface."

"Single city girl doesn't want a relationship with a stable and sturdy man, she wants to wander the streets free, in couture outfits, only to realize she really does want him." Jediny cracks open the myth at the center of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Also:

• "Released within a year of one another, Ghost and Truly Madly Deeply deal with a similar theme of romanticized contact with the dead, but the contrasts between the two certified tearjerkers are far more palpable."

• The Last of the Mohicans is "a film cleverly designed for women in the guise of a epic action flick."

• "While [Amy] Heckerling's Fast Times At Ridgemont High adhered to many of the cliché plots of the teen comedy, Clueless wholly rejects them in favor of verbal quips and a blatantly optimistic attitude. This 180-degree spin from formulaic... may ultimately figure in the film's chick flick reputation."

• "Erin Brockovich's divergence from stereotype is that as Erin, Roberts never puts the hooker clothes in the closet in favor of designer or conservative outfits."

"No discussion of contemporary chick flicks would be complete without a nod to the woman who came to personify them during the 1990s, Meg Ryan." Gilligan focuses on the "signature films," the "string of romantic comedies that paired her with writer-director Nora Ephron: When Harry Met Sally..., Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail": "[A]ll three films evoke a hazy nostalgia for an era in which relations between the sexes were ostensibly simpler... Ephron gets her nostalgia wrong." Also:

• A consideration of John Cusack as a romantic lead ever since "that enduring image of the lovesick teen hoisting a boom box over his head."

• On Gas Food Lodging: "Outside the barriers of a major studio, [Allison] Anders was able to tackle issues such as class, race, and the realities of women's lives, all in a manner utterly lacking in sentimentality."

• On The Truth About Cats & Dogs: "[S]creenwriter Audrey Wells's decision to incorporate a [Naomi] Wolf-like argument about female body image into what is largely considered the frothiest of film genres - the romantic comedy - can be considered a subversive move."

• On Bridget Jones's Diary: "If Bridget is 'everywoman,' then what does that say about the rest of us?"

Rumsey Taylor (who's responsible for the terrific design, by the way): "Judy Benjamin is essentially the same character Goldie Hawn inhabits in each film she has been in: she's so staunchly privileged that it is with a formidable amount of maintenance that her nascent virtues are eschewed for a more practical existence." Also, "The conclusion may be fairly obvious, but it's largely irrelevant in comparison to how uniquely Bring It On characterizes its teens, predominantly comprised of women. They are a string of paper dolls, ultimately striving for liberation from their chain."

What's "interesting" about Working Girl, notes Leo Goldsmith, "is that it lobbies passionately for Tess's agency, intelligence, and shrewd business-sense - it is, after all, eighty-seventh on the American Film Institute's list of the '100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time' - and yet still manages to find time to ogle her 'bod for sin.'" And in the end, "the question of how far she has come remains." Also, a measured appreciation of Clint Eastwood's directorial style, his Bridges of Madison County and: "With some tasteful Hollywood plus-sizing and one of her famed accents, Meryl Streep makes Eastwood's 'women's picture' about the woman."

Pretty Woman "transformed the 'chick flick' subgenre into an all-encompassing examination of female faults and tribulations," argues Adam Balz. "More than the atypical characters or their strange self-awareness, what distinguishes Pretty Woman from other like-minded romances is that it's based around an Italian opera, Verdi's La Traviata, rather than the overused boy-meets-girl scenario." Also, "Fried Green Tomatoes is largely anti-conventional in tone, and Avnet offers us straightforward dismissals of social and marital standards rather than subtle scorn."

Chiranjit Goswami: "Though far less radical than its inherent potential, the mild nature of Bend It Like Beckham does allow the film to tackle a variety of stereotypes in front of a far larger audience." Also, Mean Girls "feels very much like the younger sister to Heathers and Clueless. Understandably, younger sisters are often relegated to subsist in the shadows of their older siblings, but it's rather regrettable that Mean Girls is unfairly dismissed as being inferior to its predecessors, especially since it could be viewed to be a more mature film in certain aspects."

Matt Bailey considers Walking and Talking and Nicole Holofcener in general: "[S]he makes a strange, unsellable hybrid of film: the indie Gen X chick flick dramedy."

Posted by dwhudson at August 11, 2006 2:16 PM