Frost/Nixon
This film was riveting -- like a boxing match that recalls Ali's "rope a dope" approach.
July 6, 2009
April 28, 2009
Genograms & “Rachel Getting Married”
I did a guest lecture last Tuesday evening in an undergraduate Family Psychology course on “The Clinical Use of Genograms.” After a brief introduction to Bowenian family systems theory and the feminist Bowenians, I used a recent film directed by Jonathan Demme, “Rachel Getting Married,” to build Rachel and Kim’s family diagram together as a class.
Using selected clips from the film, we slowly learned more about Rachel and Kim’s family – adding to the family diagram with each progressive film clip. It was a great film to use to illustrate some of the salient themes in intergenerational family therapy using a feminist family therapy framework. Doing the lecture made me realize just how much I miss my clinical work. I really hope to get back to it at some point. At the end of the lecture, I asked the students to write down 1 to 3 famous families to use for my upcoming Family Identity summer course. I was glad I took this opportunity to learn from them because they came up with families I would have never thought to use: the Obamas, the Osbournes, the Jacksons, the Jolie-Pitts, and the Hiltons. A couple of students also suggested the Clintons; they were the only family on my list that I was planning on using. What a great way to get at family identity – through famous families in popular culture.
September 10, 2008
Mamma Escape-a!
We recently had friends in town and the four of us escaped to see Mamma Mia! – the latest edition of this movie includes captions to the songs so you can sing along to all of your favorite Abba songs (who doesn’t love karaoke?). Clearly I am not the only one with fond memories of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (why didn’t they release the Priscilla Sing! edition?). As someone who grew up going to midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in high school, I am waiting for them to add dancing and other interactive bits to the Mamma Sing! edition a la Rocky Horror. What would they call it? The Mamma Sing! Picture Show? Could I really be the only one who wants to get up and dance in the Voulez- Vous dance sequence?
As a faithful Pauline Kael fan, I’ve always loved reading film reviews and have always paid attention to them. I was a faithful fan of Janet Maslin, Caryn James, and Stephen Holden – until the new generation of New York Times film reviewers entered center stage. A. O. Scott (a NYT’s film reviewer) totally panned Mamma Mia!, (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/movies/18mamm.html) calling Meryl Streep’s performance the “worst performance of her career." Does “film" always have to be so serious, can’t we just enjoy pure escapist fare? We can all use a little escape now and then.