My Favorite Movies

These movies make me laugh and laugh. And I *ADORE* the character of Jack Sparrow.

I think this movie has gotten a bum rap, even among fans of Kate Mulgrew. While it is inarguably a B-movie with a low budget feel, don't let that fool you! Amid Judith's (Kate Mulgrew's) Ally McBeal-style fantasizing (6 years before Ally McBeal hit the airwaves) and slapstick scenes of mistaken identity and discovery (or were they Shakespearean??), this movie tackles a number of serious issues, including breast cancer, our obsession with being thin and attractive at all costs, breast cancer as it relates to our culture's obsession with sex appeal, the value of relationships between women and what gets in the way of such relationships, and stereotypes that would have us believe that attractive women can't also be smart women (not to mention the reverse: that smart, professional women like Judith can't also be attractive). And, yes, it's also hilarious!



A previous reviewer noted that KM was oddly unconvincing as "a fat and ugly woman." This is in part because KM was NOT fat, or even slightly overweight, and no baggy shirt could make her look as if she was. But I think this casting actually adds another layer to the movie: Here is a skinny woman who thinks she's fat--and the other characters around her, most notably her female secretary/friend, never contradict her. Further, once she gets to the weight-loss "spa," the woman in charge tells her that she is unconscionably overweight and unattractive as well. My point is that what we have here is a very subtle commentary on how women internalize society's insistence that they are fat, ugly--imperfect--and buy into the constant bombardment of advertisers of various industries (like weight-loss programs) that insist they need to FIX themselves to be worthy human beings even when nothing is really wrong with them. I'm not sure that commentary was deliberate in the casting of a very petite Kate Mulgrew to play Judith, but either way it's there. What fun!