Film & BooksIssue: Virgo 06
The Devil Wears Prada
"The Devil Wears Prada" is a story that has been told before, but a tight script and compelling performances by Anne Hathaway and the amazingly talented Meryl Streep make it a lot of fun to watch.
Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), a naïve young woman from Ohio, moves to New York City and promptly scores a job as an assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the powerful and ruthless editor of a top fashion magazine. With hopes of becoming a journalist, Andy struggles to please her impossible new boss from hell in order to get a foot in the door of the magazine industry.
Andy’s agonizing yet humorous catapult from polite, frumpy Midwestern girl to pushy, slick New Yorker who will do anything to reach her goals is a fun ride indeed. I found myself gasping for air with the rest of the audience as Meryl Streep delivered the chilling line “the details of your incompetence do not interest me,” and I clutched the arms of my chair as I waited to see how Andy (or anyone in that situation) would respond. And, even though I found this story and its outcomes fairly predictable, the screenplay, written by Aline Brosh McKenna based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel, had just the right amount of interesting characters and well-developed plot twists to entertain even the toughest film critic.
When does “healthy” ambition compel one as sweet as Anne Hathaway’s character to sell her soul to the devil? Watch Streep force Hathaway to make a “Sophie’s Choice” in this charming film and find out.
“The Devil Wears Prada” was directed by David Frankel, who also directed six episodes of “Sex in the City.” 
Film & Books Archives (total entries: 29)
Capricorn 08 - The Career Issue
Sagittarius 08 & Honest Self Expression
Like real life-families who have a member struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, the focus of “Rachel Getting Married” isn’t on Rachel, even though it should be. It is on her narcissistic sister, Kym, who is out of rehab for the weekend to attend Rachel’s wedding.
Scorpio 08 - The Money Issue
At a time when our nation’s security is in question and our economy is in shambles “The Good Society: The Humane Agenda” by John Kenneth Galbraith has much to teach the abiding liberal as well as the dutiful conservative.
Honestly, I have never been one for self-help books, but what I liked most about "How We Choose to Be Happy" is that it celebrates the wisdom of a variety of literary greats balanced by the stories of ordinary people.
This book won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for good reason. I started the “The Great Man” on Saturday morning and had to finish it by lunch the next day. When it started to rain I traded my lawn chair for the couch and kept on reading. This novel is fabulously funny, mischievous, and easy to read.
A quirky look at boyhood and film-making in the 1980s, “Son of Rambow” is a welcome diversion from the current deluge of blockbuster remakes and super hero epics in theaters this summer. Written and directed by Garth Jennings and produced by Nick Goldsmith, I like the way this film spins a standard, winning movie formula at a slightly awkward angle.
Although “The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard is marketed as a novel, it reads from beginning to end as a poem. Like body surfing, the poetry will move emotions in directions that the mind may not understand. When this wave brought me to shore, I needed air and I wasn’t quite certain where I had been or where I had landed, but I was, in the truest sense of the word, in awe of the experience I just had.
April and May are notoriously bad months to go to the movies. The Academy Award hopefuls of 2008 won't be released until the fall, and the summer blockbusters won't be out for a few months. So what is a film reviewer to do when all the movies in the theaters are lame? This reviewer is going to suggest that you catch up on the best movies of 2007!
After an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, Greg Mortenson stumbled into the village of Korphe in Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya region. The generosity and hospitality of the Korphe villagers inspired Mortenson to establish the Central Asia Institute (CAI). Since the establishment of CAI ten years ago, the organization has built 55 schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan’s poorest children, especially girls.
Based on Marjane Satrapi's books, the film “Persepolis” tells the poignant story of a young girl coming of age in Iran in the midst of revolution and war.
