Send Share/ Save

Love Your Body: Staff Picks - Movies

(synopses excerpted from RottenTomatoes.com)

Spanglish (2004): With Spanglish, writer/director/producer James L. Brooks (As Good As It Gets) unfurls yet another accomplished, tender, romantic comedy. Celebrated chef John Clasky (Adam Sandler) is the patriarch of the Clasky household, but the mood swings of his hypersensitive wife, Deborah (Tea Leoni), are what really runs the show. When the Claskys hire the beautiful Flor (Paz Vega) to be their maid, their already rocky relationship faces some even bigger boulders. Spanish-speaking Flor is a sincere, loving single mother whose daughter, Christina (Shelbie Bruce), receives lavish displays of affection from Deborah. Meanwhile, Deborah neglects her own son and daughter in much the same way that her self-absorbed, alcoholic mother, Evelyn (Cloris Leachman), neglected her. Eventually Deborah crosses a line when she betrays her husband with the real estate broker who is helping her search for a beach house. Faced with this challenge, John and Flor, who share a clear attraction to one another, get the chance to explore their feelings. Brooks populates his film with wholly believable characters. On first glance they may seem like broad caricatures (especially in the case of the roles played by Leoni and Leachman), but the characters subvert viewers' expectations by turning into full-fledged, three-dimensional humans by the end of the film. In one particularly poignant scene, when Deborah buys daughter Bernie clothes a size too small (to inspire her to lose weight), Flor adjusts the seams to show Bernie that not everyone sees her through her mother's eyes.

Real Women Have Curves (2002): Ana (America Ferrera) is a beautiful Mexican-American girl who has just completed high school. Living in East L.A. with a hardworking blue collar family, Ana's graduation from an upscale school in Beverly Hills is heralded as a huge accomplishment. At least, that's the way her English teacher and mentor, Mr. Guzman (George Lopez) sees it. He would like Ana to apply to college as he feels that she is a smart and talented student. But Ana's deeply traditional mother, Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros), insists that she stay at home and help her sister working in a dressmaking factory. Ana is strong-willed and sometimes defiant, but she accepts her mother's instructions and works at the factory, simultaneously applying to Columbia University. The sweatshop that her sister operates opens Ana's eyes to the injustices of business. She sees how her sister is mistreated and underpaid by the Bloomingdale's executives who have contracted her to make their dresses. Dresses that cost the factory $18 to make are sold at Bloomie's for $600, and Ana questions where all that money goes. She also awakens her mother, sister, and coworkers to the idea that they are more than just pretty pictures or wives or mothers—they are real people with a lot to offer and they shouldn't be mislead by the body image promoted by stores like Bloomingdales that mass-produce clothing in small sizes for thin women. In the end, Ana learns a lot about herself, her family, and even romance, on her way to seeing herself as a woman. This beautifully filmed, sweet film is directed by Colombian-born Patricia Cardoso, and highlights the superb talent of 17-year-old Ferrera in the role of Ana.

Tortilla Soup(2001): Inspired by Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman, Tortilla Soup is the story of three grown sisters trying to cope with—and live with—their father (Hector Elizondo), who has one simple rule: be home for Sunday dinner! Carmen (Jacqueline Obradors), the middle sister, is a beautiful and successful executive who has just been offered a dream job in Barcelona. Does she take the job—which offers big bucks and ensures her father’s happiness—or follow her heart into the kitchen to cook the seductive and rebellious tortillas, tomatillos, and chiles that she loves? Maribel (Tamara Mello), the baby of the family, is off for college in the fall. But plans change when the bohemian free spirit Andy (Nikolai Kinsi) enters her life. Who needs college when you can travel the world? The eldest, Leticia (Elizabeth Pena), is a prim and proper schoolteacher who lives a life of quiet devotion to her father, her pupils and the Lord... until she starts receiving mysterious love letters... Add Hortensia (Raquel Welch to the pot—a flamboyant and flirtatious grandmother hot for Martin—and things get even spicier. What brews is a series of memorable Sunday meals, featuring tasty offerings and a bevy of delicious surprises.

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998): While vacationing in Jamaica, successful San Francisco stock broker Stella meets and falls for a dashing, and much younger, islander, Winston Shakespeare. Their romance forces her to reevaluate her concepts of love and sex, as well as work and motherhood. Based on the best-selling novel by Terry McMillan.

GI Jane(1997): Demi Moore stars as Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, the first female candidate for the U.S. Navy SEAL unit, a clandestine strike force drawn from the crème de la crème of the combined services—an opportunity provided her by the political maneuvering of Senator Lillian de Haven (Anne Bancroft). To make the grade, Jordan has to survive a grueling selection process in which 60 percent of all candidates wash out. Enigmatic Master Chief John Urgayle (Viggo Mortensen) runs the brutal training program that involves 20-hour days of running, marching, and crawling through obstacle courses under the worst weather conditions while carrying landing rafts—not to mention eating out of a garbage can during breaks. Along with the best of the men, the lean, mean, shaven-headed Jordan handles the punishment, including a bizarrely motivated beating from her drill sergeant. The top brass, confident that a woman would quickly drop out, becomes concerned as Jordan's ability to handle SEAL training becomes evident. Soon she must contend with trumped-up charges that she's fraternizing with women, and the senator begins receiving threats that military bases in her state may have to be closed. Director Ridley Scott aestheticizes the harrowingly realistic training sequences with photography of austere beauty.

Just Another Girl on the IRT (1993): 17-year old Chantel Mitchell has dreams: she wants to graduate from high school early and go to college. She wants to become a doctor. And she wants to escape the poor Brooklyn neighborhood where she's grown up.
Nothing scares her. She knows that she won't make the same mistakes that have sidelined so many of her friends. Then Chantel discovers she's pregnant. And for the first time in her life she just doesn't know what to do.

Fried Green Tomatoes(1991): Academy Award winners Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy star with Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker in this comic, heartwarming tale of family, friendship and murder in rural Georgia. In a Southern nursing home, a feisty resident and old local fixture named Ninny Threadgoode (Tandy) befriends Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) a depressed housewife and stirs her to action with an inspirational tale. She tells the story of a transcendent friendship between two young women living in Georgia in the 1930s, Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary Louise Parker), who forge a powerful bond after witnessing a terrible tragedy together. The two women open a cafe (where fried green tomatoes are a house specialty) together in their small Southern town of Whistle Stop and manage to survive the hardships of life, despite racism, prejudice and the pressures of trying to live their lives as individuals in a strict and close-minded Southern society. Their friendship lasts through many ups and downs over the years, helping one of the women through an abusive marriage, and buoying both of them through the gossip and jealousy of those small-minded people who try to control their lives. Based on Fannie Flagg's best-selling novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.