FRIENDS OF WET - Films
The Business of Being Born
Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business. Compelled to find answers after a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake, recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to explore the maternity care system in America.
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Waitress
Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.
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Magnolia
An epic mosaic of several interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.
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Ratatouille
Remy is a young rat in the French countryside who arrives in Paris, only to find out that his cooking idol is dead. When he makes an unusual alliance with a restaurant's new garbage boy, the culinary and personal adventures begin despite Remy's family's skepticism and the rat-hating world of humans.
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THIN
The HBO documentary film focuses on four young women struggling with anorexia: Brittany, a 15 year-old who strives to be thin to gain acceptance among her peers, and whose mother has also suffered with the disease; Shelly, 25, who has been battling anorexia for six years, and who enters Renfrew with a feeding tube surgically implanted in her stomach; Alisa, 30, a divorced mother of two who struggled for decades with a relentless compulsion to purge; and Polly, 29, who has spent years in and out of treatment and often challenges the Center's policies and procedures. The camera follows these women to places most have never ventured: one-on-one and group therapy sessions, emotionally wrought mealtimes, early morning weigh-ins, heated arguments with staff, and tense encounters with family members. In following their stories, we come to learn that each woman's fight for recovery is unique. Some will sabotage their own treatment; others will make significant strides; and still others will make progress only to discover that their insurance will not cover the long-term care they need to truly get well. What emerges is a portrait of an illness that is frustrating in its complexity and devastating in the pain it inflicts on its sufferers and those who care for them. (www.LaurenGreenfield.com)
Rachel Getting Married
When Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie Dewit), she brings a long history of personal crisis, family conflict and tragedy along with her. The wedding couple’s abundant party of friends and relations have gathered for a joyful weekend of feasting, music and love, but Kym – with her biting one-liners and flair for bombshell drama – is a catalyst for long-simmering tensions in the family dynamic. (Sony Classics)
Kissing Jessica Stein
When we first meet Jessica – a sensitive but neurotic New York journalist – she is at the end of her emotional rope. Her brother’s engaged, her best friend’s pregnant, she hasn’t dated in a year, and she can’t sleep. After an optimistic but nightmarish dating spree, she happens upon an intriguing personal ad, whose only drawback is that it’s in the ‘women seeking women’ section. On a daring whim, she decides to answer it. She meets funky downtown hipster Helen Cooper for drinks and, to her surprise, they click instantly. Their evening of banter, connection and heated debate culminates in a kiss that confounds and intrigues even the reluctant Jessica. With conventional gender roles absent, the two women proceed to muddle through an earnest courtship, making up the rules as they go along. (Fox Search Light)
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
A movie presumably intended to document Wilco's recording of what is supposed to be their "breakthrough" album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." However, the documentary quickly becomes a chronicle of a band in turmoil. Although the album is destined to later be declared a classic by critics, the band's record label rejects it and drops Wilco from the label--citing the album's lack of marketability. The problems are further complicated when band leader Jeff Tweedy fires another band member after the album is completed because of creative differences. However, the band is determined to move on and find a new record label that will accept the album and respect their need for creative freedom. (www.imdb.org)
Legally Blonde
Reese Witherspoon stars in this romantic comedy, the feature film debut of award-winning Australian director Robert Luketic. As a ravishing Miss Hawaiian Tropic, sorority president, and calendar girl, Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is a big hit on the campus of her sun-drenched Los Angeles college. She's also got the perfect boyfriend in Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis), a wealthy East Coast blue blood. Fearing that his snooty friends and family will never accept the bubble-headed Elle, however, Warner dumps her before heading off to graduate law school at Harvard University. Determined to win back her man, Elle enrolls in the same imposing institution, quickly becoming an object of scorn and ridicule, especially to Warner's old prep school flame (Selma Blair). Despite her penchant for malls, makeup, and tanning, Elle is no dummy and is soon showing elite Ivy League snobs a thing or two about class, self-confidence, and courtroom victory. (NYTimes, Karl Williams, All Movie Guide)
Puccini For Beginners
New York writer and opera addict Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser) loves her girlfriend Samantha (Julianne Nicholson), but can’t commit. When Samantha leaves her, Allegra rebounds with handsome philosophy professor Phillip (Justin Kirk) as well as the irresistibly beautiful, recently single Grace (Gretchen Mol). Allegra juggles secret relationships with both of them, never suspecting that Philip and Grace have a connection of their own. With a sophisticated blend of humor and irony, this screwball comedy twists and turns with all the drama of classic Puccini. (Strand Releasing, http://www.strandreleasing.com)
Love and Basketball
A young African-American couple navigates the tricky paths of romance and athletics. Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) grew up in the same neighborhood and have known each other since childhood. As they grow into adulthood, they fall in love, but they also share another all-consuming passion: basketball. They've followed the game all their lives and have no small amount of talent on the court. As Quincy and Monica struggle to make their relationship work, they follow separate career paths though high school and college basketball and, they hope, into stardom in big-league professional ball. (NYTimes, Mark Deming, All Movie Guide)
Hysterical Blindness
Uma Thurman, Gena Rowlands and Juliette Lewis star in an intimate, character-driven drama that follows three working-class women - two best friends in their late 20s, and one older woman who's the mother of one of the two friends - as they attempt to build relationships and find meaning in their lives within the cultural boundaries of 1980s Bayonne, New Jersey. (HBO Films)
The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls in Love
This endearing romantic comedy about two high school girls, blue collar tomboy Randy (Laurel Holloman) and privileged, popular Evie (Nicole Ari Parker), was the first mainstream success for director Maria Maggenti, who chronicles the odd couple's relationship from tentative first steps to full-blossoming romance. Cast almost entirely with newcomers, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love brings Randy's family (a lesbian aunt and an assortment of current and past partners), Evie's well-heeled and overprotective mother (Stephanie Barry), and a collection of friends, enemies, one ex-boyfriend (Andrew Wright), and one unsatisfactory affair (Maggie Moore) into the mix, balancing the excitement and passion of adolescent romance with the pitfalls of social and familial rejection. Maintains a light and quirky tone throughout, reminiscent in many ways of the teen comedies of John Hughes. (NYTimes, Genevieve Williams, All Movie Guide)
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