Random Thoughts: The Devil Wears Prada

Okay, so I love movies where people are repressed/want to die/feel like outsiders. I love movies that move slowly and absorb you into the life of someone you aren't. I love movies with acidic humor dealing with stuff you're not really supposed to laugh at. (I'm not referring to fucking pies, either.) I love movies where everyone ends up dead or miserable. I love movies that realize that characters don't actually begin and end with what's on screen, that there's more to the story then what's being shown. And that they will live on long after the film ends. I love movies that are cynical to society. I'd say a good 85% of what I love is stuff like that. Then, there's about 10% of that are hardcore genre pictures: Scream, Halloween, etc.

Then, there's this 5%:

Clueless
Mean Girls
Legally Blonde
Bridget Jones's Diary
Working Girl
Pretty Woman
13 Going on 30

You might call them chick flicks. Some of them fall into the other 95% of what I love, if only in a slight manner.

For everyone of these I see, however, I have to suffer through 5 Just My Luck's, 3 How to Deal's and 2 She's the Man's.

Yeah, you get it.

Which is why just about every year there's one major "chick flick"/"female empowerment" movie I look forward to. This year, it was The Devil Wears Prada.

So tonight, as I sat back to my exclusive screening of the film, I was excited. The reviews were good. It was Streep. It was Hathaway. It was a lot of Sex and the City's creative team. Did it live up to its promise and early buzz?

Well, watching it was like gently being brushed on the cheek by God.

While there are elements in the film having to do with the characters played by Simon Baker, Tracie Thoms and Adrian Grenier that were hella cliched and slowed the film down, you need to consider this:

There is a sequence of Anne Hathaway arriving to work in different fabulous outfits set to Madonna's "Vogue."

Yes, I don't how I could honestly sell someone on a film more than using that pitch.

Seriously.

Anne is simply to die for in this. Her lips, her eyebrows, her hair: stunning perfection. My woman-crush on her knows no bounds. And she can act. She's like that Julia Roberts/Meg Ryan/Sandra Bullock-ness, only unlike them, you don't feel you NEED to love her. You just do.

There's also terrific scene stealers in the form of Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt, each of whom get at least one of the film's many great one-liners. Though I think Blunt's Blimply's line was probably my favorite.

Here's something original for a comedy: it does not have any gross out humor. It does not feature a Wilson brother, an ex-Saturday Night Live cast member, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller or his Marcia Brady wife, or any of those people getting hit with a wrench. It actually relies on - GASP! - writing for humor. I know. Big shock.

(Quick sidenote: There's also someone named Muri....Marli....Meryl? Meryl Streep? in this. Yeah, she's pretty good. Maybe she'll get nominated for this? Maybe she'll easily make my personal ballot? I don't know.)

There's clothes. There's New York City. There's catchy pop tunes. There's Paris. There's catty, bitchy types. There's Anne. There's Meryl. There's cute Entourage boy. There's me. There's you.


And far, far away from all of this are the heteromales who will NEVER understand the fun they are missing. Their loss.


"That's all."