Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

02 July 2008

The Prestige, dir. Christopher Nolan (2006)

Lipstick (aka. Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy), dir. Peter Werner (2006)

NIKKI says:
If Australian DVD makers had not altered this film's titles from the provocative and interesting Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy to the boring Lipstick, I wouldn't have waited so long to watch it. As it is, it looks like chick-lit on film -- I look at that picture of Sarah Chalke, view the title with the cityscape background and I think, "She's out to find a man. Oh yay."

But this is about a far from standard girlie fare as you can get. With its original title, everything is pretty much laid out -- someone's getting their breasts removed and they're not taking it lightly.

I cried a lot. Sarah Chalke plays real-life Geralyn Lucas, a writer for 20/20, who, at 27, finds out she has breast cancer. Her best chance of survival means a double mastectomy. The film opens with Lucas on her way to a strip club to perhaps ascertain some understanding of the lure of women's breasts and what it might mean for her to lose hers. The film carries on in a similar vain -- Lucas is looking for answers. Should she go ahead with the radical surgery or simply have a lumpectomy, which would mean keeping her breasts but risking a return of the cancer? Will she be altered by breast removal? Will her husband love her? Will her friend know her? Will she know herself?

The movie sends her through all kinds of emotions -- anger, bitterness, jealousy, as well as humour, loneliness, sadness, and eventual empowerment. This is not a sob-story, by any means. It's not a film that wants you to feel sorry for its protagonist. It's point is to realistically show what this woman went through, and how she came out the other side.

3.5/5

Steve did not view.