Special Collaborative Issue: Sharing our Recommendations - March
With Jenny and Mari
Welcome to the March edition of sharing our recommendations! This month, we chose the films we adored as children. Classics, if you will. Here are our impressions of Cinderella starring Brandy and The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews.
CINDERELLA (1997)
Jenny (viewer): I’m actually so sad that I never watched this during my childhood. Can you imagine growing up with such an iconic movie?! The level of camp, the number of jokes, and the sheer amount of joy just emanates from this film is just *chef’s kiss*. Also, who knew such casting could be, from that time! The total disregard of race when it comes to families adds to the “we’re all about just having fun” vibe, and it totally works!
Adding to that point of whimsy, the entire design was such an experience as well. Loud, bold colors and patterns everywhere! Big poofy dresses with tons of embellishments! Crazy silhouettes! And a color coordinated ball! Sure, there are definitely more than its fair share of 90s inspired fashion but who’s to say that’s a bad thing!
I was also so surprised to see Bernadette Peters, because she absolutely killed it as the Stepmother. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, since she’s a classic musical theater staple but still, a joy nonetheless! Truly, every single character was over the top in the best way possible, and I just had such a joyful time watching the film. I’m excited to explore other versions of Cinderella after watching this, not unlike what Mari has begun to do!
Finally, I found myself wondering just where oh where these talented (young, once I guess) folks are today. Even before watching the film, I had heard rumblings of a reunion through a Descendants movie and now that I’ve seen Cinderella, I’m wondering whether I should watch Descendants! But regardless, where have these talented people gone? It feels like Brandy should be so much bigger of a star by now considering how wonderful she was in just this role, so it’s sad to realize that I really don’t think I would’ve known of her without watching this movie.
My final rating is… 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Mari (chooser):
Oh, Brandy! You icon you! Of course, this has been a part of my childhood. Oftentimes, when black girls said their favorite princess was Cinderella, they would be referencing Brandy’s Cinderella. Brandy was so young and hip, and we all loved her. Jenny might not have known this but Brandy was already a pretty big star by the time Cinderella rolled around. Her first studio album was well-received and got three top ten hits in the US. The third season of the sitcom she starred in, Moesha, was going strong when Cinderella aired. Perhaps there was a chance of more crossover potential with her stardom, but it always rang true to me that her first love was always going to be R&B music moreso than acting. Never Say Never, the album released a year after Brandy’s Cinderella was her most successful to date and she continued having success in music well into the 2000’s. Brandy may not be as much of a star now as she was in the 90’s, but the fact that she was one says a lot about her talent. And, well, we all know R&B music doesn’t bring in the same audience it used to. If we ever get into music, I’m certainly recommending a Brandy song or two for Jenny! But also… no Jenny. Descendants is definitely not worth watching. Granted, I’ve only seen the first and enjoyed it, but it generally doesn’t seem like Jenny’s style.
Whitney Houston and Brandy did wonders with the Rodgers and Hammerstein music. I just LOVE when vocalists sing! There’s so much to love here, including the color-blind casting that brought us maybe one of the best fairytale pairings in the history of Disney. This cast is absolutely stacked and they know how to have fun! The chemistry between Brandy and Paolo is palpable, so much so, that it resonates currently! If anything Paolo deserved a lot more roles as a romantic lead, but perhaps his first love will always be theater. The supporting cast is hilarious and really color the world in, which is already so vibrant. Thankfully, it seems production design in film is BACK thanks to features like Barbie and Poor Things, but for a long time, it felt like movies were missing the life and magic this movie had. History was made!
Oh, and as Jenny mentioned, me recommending this movie to her has made me jump into all the other cinematic versions of Cinderella, so please do follow me on this journey on Letterboxd @IAmNotChamari
My final rating is… 4.5 out of 5 stars.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
Mari (viewer):
I didn’t realize how little I knew about The Sound of Music. We briefly touched on it in my musical theater course in college and spoke about it in the context of it being a famous Rodgers and Hammerstein work, as well as the political overtones becoming an essential map for how musicals can be written. Other than being able to speak about timely political issues, I just assumed it was a musical/film that was inaccessible and not made for me, like most of R + H’s other work (excluding Cinderella, of course).
However, over the years, apparently, before I even took this college course, I had accumulated an acute knowledge of the music featured in the musical without ever watching the film or a stage production. Simply from being alive, I heard the title track and My Favorite Things was an inescapable song around the holidays (Imagine my surprise when I found out the context of the scene had nothing to do with Christmas, but occurred because of a STORM!) My dad would randomly sing the beginning of Do-Re-Mi around the house and this is the source of much confusion! And I heard a ~ version ~ of Sixteen Going on Seventeen from SNL. Basically, I watch anything that John Mulaney does and that includes this sketch:
This ultimately made me concerned for the subject matter of this film, but I had nothing to worry about! At some point, I had also heard The Lonely Goatherd… don’t ask.
I had also made the assumption that this was a “war film” which seems to be an inaccurate description… kind of. I think the pending war is certainly a point of conflict in the film… that first “Heil H*tler” from Rolf definitely changed the tone a bit. And then the undercurrent of it — that danger, that ugliness, that evil — moves through the rest of the film and gives us the major unforgettable ending. It’s kind of funny how much everyone (and myself!) refers to this as a pleasant movie when a lot of the ending, is, in fact, the family being pursued by Nazis. Still, most of the film is unadulterated and unapologetic silliness with some rom-com-esque drama. It’s delightful and sometimes frivolous in the best way. The intermission card almost made me get up and cheer. Bravo!
My final rating is… 4 out of 5 stars.
Jenny (chooser):
“Simply from being alive” says a LOT about how ubiquitous this film is. Like Mari with Cinderella, I truly grew up watching this film over and over again, to the point where I could sing through the entire opening overture with the arial helicopter shots of the Swiss Alps. This is the Julie Andrews of my childhood, and this is the music that brought me up.
Sure the classics like “Do-Re-Mi” and “My Favorite Things” are great, but I love to say that my absolute favorite songs are “I Have Confidence” and “Something Good”. Not to mention, my sister and I would always sing “So Long, Farewell” to my parents before going off to bed!
Not to mention, my mom had made my sister and me actual playclothes from scraps, which we pretended used to be curtains. The entire Do-Re-Mi sequence where they’re having the most fun, turning the ‘evil stepmother’ concept around it’s head, the pranks played by the children - it all just makes me incredibly nostalgic! This film is truly one of the reasons why I’m determined to go to Salzburg one day.
It’s interesting how much I tend to forget about the dark ending. This might also have to do with the fact that my incessant viewing of the film happened before I even entered elementary school, so the concept of Nazis and looming war and violence just wasn’t something I could fully wrap my head around - it was simply Rolf’s sudden change, Uncle Max’s ripping of the flag and the scariest hide-and-seek that informed me that something bad was going on.
But even those moments are burned in my memory. It must have been more than 5 years since I last saw the film, but I can genuinely say that this is one of the only movies that I think I could picture and explain every single scene and moment. A true classic, in both cinematic history and in my childhood, Sound of Music is.
My final rating is… 5 out of 5 stars.
For April, we continue down the line of classics from our childhood, this time sharing television series that felt culturally significant in our lives. Jenny will be watching seven hand-picked episodes of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Mari will be watching the first three episodes of The Jewel in the Palace.