I hearby nominate that observation for Understatment of the Year.

The tears were not merely jerked from me; they were wrenched from my gut with astounding force and persistence. I was emotionally keel-hauled by this movie.

Rachel Getting Married centers on a pair of sisters: The titular Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), a psychology graduate student, and Kym (Anne Hathaway), a recovering drug addict. When Kym was 16, she got high on pain pills and caused a family tragedy. In the intervening years, her parents (Bill Irwin and Debra Winger) have divorced and found new partners, Rachel has become engaged and Kym has made her way through rehab.

When Kym arrives home in the thick of the preparations for Rachel’s backyard wedding, she is an ethereal, black-clad ball of neediness. She demands to replace her sister’s best friend as maid of honor, complains about the color of her bridesmaid dress, and gives a cringe-inducing toast at the rehearsal dinner. Rachel, meanwhile, tries but nominally to maintain her equanimity as her long-standing frustration with her troubled sister threatens to eclipse her nuptial joy. Rachel is seething and resentful, Kym indignant and defiant.

This drama plays out against the bohemian swirl of musicians and poets who have gathered at the house for the marital celebrations. Long scenes are given over to warm toasts, celebratory music and family introductions. Kym, and her raw, consuming pain, are often pushed to the peripheries, both physically and emotionally, an appropriate approach to framing a woman who is trying desperately to figure out how to move through a world that no longer revolves around her and her addiction.

Perhaps the best word for director Jonathan Demme’s attitude towards the proceedings is “heartfelt,” though not in the melodramatic and treacly ways that that word can evoke. Demme creates a world in which the most unimaginable pain and the most sincere joy co-exist in ways organic, complex, compelling and utterly real.

And that, I think, is why I was so destroyed by the film. More simplistic movies push obvious, resistible buttons. Rachel Getting Married hunts out the more subtle seams, and rips.

Setting aside the general offense of assuming that an entire gender needs directed, specialized advice to be successful, we shall start with the word “girl” in the title. The book purports to be about empowering women to take charge of their careers; “If you want to be both passionate about what you do and successful,” the book description tells us, “then you must take control of your professional destiny.” And yet, in just the second word of the title, the authors reduce their target audience to the state of children. And yet I myself have often found myself referring to my gender by the somewhat condescending, yet not egregious term, so thus far I can count myself but mildly offended.

The subtitle, however, is what truly kindled my rage. The phrase “a brain” is patronizing merely by its very existence. Its inclusion implies that other, less flattering attributes of the career-oriented woman would more naturally spring to mind. The addition of the exclamation point connotes astonishment, as if the authors expect the intended reader to find the idea of her own intelligence a bewildering prospect.

Though the title deigns to encourage women to acknowledge their own brains, the cover photo sends quite a different message. It depicts a woman, from the waist down, frolicking across the page wearing a short skirt and carrying a stylish handbag. Is it any wonder that we are to be shocked by our own capacity for reason, when even these career cheerleaders reduce us to fashionable clothes and shapely legs?

Women on a sincere search for career advice may be better served to consult The Daring Book for Girls, where they will receive sensible guidance on writing letters, negotiating a salary and public speaking, without any of the demeaning condescension.

Something about the character of Rochester, for example, always nagged at me when I read the book. He flirts with beautiful, haughty Blanche Ingram while teasing Jane about his supposedly pending nuptials, all the while knowing that it is his plain governess whom he truly prefers. This behavior has always struck me as verging on cruel. As embodied by Toby Stephens, however, the Rochester of the film is testing Jane rather than taunting her, trying to plumb the depths of her affections as he wrestles with the question of how to confront his own passion. He is torn between his desire for Jane and the knowledge that his previous marriage should make a union with her impossible.

The movie also revealed to me, far more clearly than repeated readings ever have, what is perhaps the essential reason for my love of the book; it is dark and it is weird. Unlike a more conventional romantic heroine, Jane is not beautiful and she is not vivacious, qualities that the film shows in Ruth Wilson’s wide, down-turned mouth and resolute jaw. (An aside: Would American producers allowed their protagonist to appear so genuinely plain? [Not that Ruth Wilson is inherently plain, but she is de-glammed here in a way an American production would not abide.]) Rochester is not dashing; quite the reverse, he is oppressed by his own past weakness and folly.

They find each other in a bleak landscape that the moviemakers show us as perpetually veiled in mist and cut with towering shadows. They are shot as small figures in the sprawling desolate rooms of Thornfield Hall. As their relationship progresses, no makeover transforms Jane into the radiant beauty that was hidden within her frumpiness and no emotional revelation softens the crusty heart of her master. They come together and find love on their own dark and tortured terms.

I am not a literary partisan. Reading a book and watching the movie it inspires are vastly different experiences. Films must often compress the scope of a novel to fit the format; characters will be amalgamated, cherished details lost. But the payoff is the visual impact of the big screen, the profound emotional reaction that can be evoked by immersing oneself in the moving images.

What both forms have in common, however, is story-telling. Philip Pullman’s novel The Golden Compass, excels in that regard. The book’s strength is that Pullman fashions a fully-realized world, but has the confidence to unfold it slowly for the reader. Details are trickled out slowly; half-revealed truths and untied ends are always nagging. You turn the page because you, like the young heroine Lyra, are just learning this universe and yearn to find out the next unknown thing.

The recently released film of the same name, however, dispenses with the mystery nearly immediately. During the opening credits, in fact, a voice-over explains several of the key precepts that in takes readers of the novel hundreds of pages to divine. Not just once, but three times, the dialogue explicitly identifies an alethiometer (a hand-held truth-telling device given to Lyra early in the story) as the golden compass of the title, an explanation that is neither useful nor necessary. This rush to revelation is a problem that plagues the entire film. Though the movie’s visuals create an astoundingly detailed, sumptuous world, each scene is so weighed down by exposition that the viewer has nary an opportunity to absorb these luxurious details.

The characters don’t do much more than the narrative to draw in the viewer. Daniel Craig, who recently brought movie-goers a vital, visceral James Bond, fails to duplicate the feat with the character of Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel. He feels somehow too small for the role; he is lost among the grandeur of the sweeping digital landscapes and the roars of the digital ice bears (the movie’s term for polar bears, which I rather like). Nicole Kidman was perfectly cast as the cold, cruel Mrs. Coulter, the villain of the piece, but she still fails to capture the character’s ability to utterly enthrall her victims–the hallmark of her persona in the novel.

Books and movies are different yes. But the film version of The Golden Compass could have benefited from Pullman’s ability to trust his audience to figure things out in their own time.

This dress is how I remember my childhood: creative, adventuresome, curious, and sometimes aesthetically misguided.

If the racks of popular retailers are any indication, girls today are discouraged from indulging in the same sort of freeform approach to growing up. The girls’ dress-up section of Target is an explosion of pink and feathers and sequins; apparently the store’s buyers feel that princessdom is the only career to which girls today should bother to aspire. At the Limited Too, almost-teens need not wait until they can wear an adult size 0 before they can purchase their first padded bra.

And that’s where The Daring Book for Girls comes in.

The turquoise (not pink) cover does include a touch of glitter, but otherwise the book relentlessly avoids stereotyping or underestimating its target audience. Among the activities outlined: erecting a tetherball court in one’s backyard, reading tide charts, and negotiating a fair salary for baby-sitting services. Other topics of interest include a history of pirates, classic campfire songs, and the periodic table of the elements. The closest the book comes to grooming advice is the diagram of how to put up your hair using a pencil.

Even the most girly of the sections avoid pandering. The listing of modern princesses includes nary a tulle ruffle. Instead it emphasizes the fact that the royals are actual people, focusing on stories like that of the African tribal princess who is dedicated to raising money to help the poor of her country.

This volume is the guidebook to the girlhood I remember.

When the man finally arrives he flashes a police ID badge at the camera, and announces himself in a stern voice: “Nicholas Angel.”

The moment is telegraphed from the first steps his figure takes down the hall, and the ridiculously long build-up to the self-important declaration accurately sets the tone for the entire movie: dry, clever, somewhat familiar, but with a slight tinge of the absurd.

The movie, by the creators of the excellent zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead, is a take on the American cop-buddy flick, as filtered through a distinctly British sensibility. The plot concerns the aforementioned Nicholas Angel (Shaun alum Simon Pegg), a diligent London police officer who is sent to work in the quaint village of Sandford because his higher-ups feel that his prolific arrests are making the rest of the team look bad. In the new precinct, Angel and his overachieving ways have a hard time assimilating; when a series of “accidental” deaths arouse his suspicion, he has a hard time convincing his new colleagues that anything is amiss.

For the first two-thirds, the movie is comic genius, of the wry-chuckle, rather than the loud-guffaw variety. The film excels at droll visual gags and understated verbal wit, such as the local man’s description of his runaway swan (“about two foot high; long slender neck”) or a recurring visual joke that uses quick-cut, disorienting, action-scene editing to show us Angel completing his arrest report paperwork.

In the last 30 to 40 minutes, however, the movie falters. The filmmakers’ sense of what, precisely, they are spoofing seems to waver; the dramatic reveal of the guilty parties seems to draw on Rosemary’s Baby, while a later scene as an Old West-gunfight flavor. And the dry humor that works so well in witty setpieces and well-turned phrases just doesn’t translate well into car chases and shoot-outs. It is, perhaps, an inherent limitation of the genre chosen to mock, but it nonetheless makes the final scenes a bit of a chore to watch (though the errant swan does make a funny guest appearance near the end).

Perhaps the best way to sum up the movie is to use Angel’s own assessment of Point Break: “It’s certainly a no holds barred, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride, but there’s no way you could perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork.”

It is Carrell’s very specific comic style–good-natured yet always perilously close to some sort of explosion; sometimes childish but, at the same time, somehow almost cerebral–that makes the film work despite the trite plotline.

His charms manage to smooth over the bumps and gaps in a sodden, hackneyed script that leans far too heavily on contrived situations and well-worn premises: large gathering of a wacky family, man in love with unavailable woman, exasperated father dealing with teenage daughters. (Though, to be fair, there was one joke about corn that had me giggling furiously.)

When Dan spots his 14-year old daughter holding hands with a boy inside a coffee shop, he bangs desperately on the window of the eatery in an attempt to interrupt their canoodling. It is an old joke–the panic of fathers at seeing their daughters grow up–but Carrell sells it. He also manages to put his own spin on such well-worn classics as accidentally seeing the object of his affections naked, dancing like an awkward white man, and reacting with displeasure to tasting bad food.

It is not worth delving into the additional nuances of the movie, in large part becase there are so few. The script studiously avoids anything like emotional depth or complexity, though the three daughters and their individual conflicts offer plenty of potential fodder. The supporting characters (with the brief exception of Emily Blunt‘s Ruthie “Pigface” Draper, a neighbor with whom Dan goes on a date) are nothing special. Dan in Real Life will not go down in history as Steve Carrell’s seminal cinematic work, but his ability to both transcend and elevate the movie he was given is an impressive testament to his abilities.

It all started off innocently enough, with the inclusion of one or two “plus-sized” girls among the aspiring models over the last few seasons. When one group of finalist models travelled to Thailand shortly after the tsunmai of 2004, there was a poignant moment when Tyra urged them all to meditate for a moment on the enormity of that tragedy.

This season, however, she takes it to new levels. Early on, the 13 finalists were introduced to the vehicle in which they will be chauffered throughout the season, a “green” people-mover bus not entirely dissimilar to the one in which I went to my senior prom. The modelettes’ first photo shoot was for a public service “campaign” on the subject of how smoking is, you know, like, bad for you and stuff; as an added bonus, during panel Tyra announced that smoking by contestants would be banned this season. Add to this the requisite woman’s department model and a contestant with Asperger’s for a fully rounded portfolio of social conscience. I would be only mildly surprised if next week’s challenge involves putting together the perfect look for dishing out reheated canned goods at the soup kitchen: “You want to look fierce, but not too light-hearted.”

This season’s bent towards the socially responsible would be more admirable, if the show didn’t so desperately want to have it both ways.

It wants to embrace a positive body image for women of all shapes, yet it wants to punish those who carry around a bit of a gut. It wants to project an image of environmental-friendliness, yet it wants to carpet the inside of the green vehicle with fake grass–a more telling symbol pop culture may never have offered. It wants to tell us how brave Asperger’s sufferer Heather is for competing on national TV, yet it certainly doesn’t want to bother to learn how to pronounce the name of the disorder. It tries to claim that the model-making process is empowering for the girls on the show, yet doesn’t hesitate to do a photo shoot depicting the aspirants as murder victims, taken down by their own jealous rivals.

Without this pretense of activism, America’s Next Top Model could certainly have been called anti-feminist or degrading. This new shallow veneer of moral impetus, however, is even worse than none at all. It says that doing the right thing is neither more serious, more arduous, or more lasting than striking a pose for the camera.

30. Danger Mouse: This droll British cartoon about a secret agent mouse and his cowardly hamster sidekick was the television equivalent of training wheels, preparing young funnybones for future enjoyment of Monty Python.

29. Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me: I have no argument for the impact or profundity of this weekly radio quiz show, but it is like audio-comfort food, and you just can’t argue with macaroni and cheese.

28. The first sentence of One Hundred Years of Solitude: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

27. Screenwriter’s Blues, Soul Coughing: This song is aesthectically pleasing, in other words, “fly.”

26. Bird Books, in general: Ever since I was very young I could easily spend a good hour or so paging through these field guides, mentally catalouging the birds I have encountered, admiring the drawings and photographs, attempting my own sketches. Why? No idea. But I just bought a new bird book yesterday so clearly my obsession lives.

25. Heroes: It has only been one season, but even if it goes wildly downhill come the fall, Heroes will have been the brilliant meteor shower that you got up at 3 a.m. to go watch with your Dad when you were eight and remember forever as the one of the most amazing and entrancing things you’ve ever seen.

24. From Here to Eternity: This movie is more than the classic embrace-in-the-crashing-surf scene. Try not to tear up when Pvt. Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) plays a bugle salute to the fallen Maggio (Frank Sinatra) or not to hold your breath through the tempestuous first meeting between Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) and Sgt. Warden (Burt Lancaster, embodying the term ‘barrel-chested’).

23. The State: Among many other reasons, for bringing us monkey research. No wait. “Research is such a restrictive term. I feel I’ve opened up a whole new arena of experimentation which I call ‘Monkey Torture.’”

22. No matter how many times I see it, I will flip to the channel showing A Few Good Men, just to hear this: “Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.”

21. Network, specifically the dialogue: The script of this movie is clearly the work of someone who simply loves the sound, the meaning, the rhythm and cadence or words.

20. Crazy, as sung by either Patsy Cline or Willie Nelson: Plaintive heartbreak at its most elegant. This song is spare, simple, and nearly perfect.

19. It Happened One Night: Once upon a time in Hollywood the double entendre was a finely-honed craft. Here, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert elevate it to a sly and sexy art.

18. Spongmonkeys: They have a pepper bar.

17. Cracker: If the crime-drama gods told me that, for the rest of my life, I could have one episode of Cracker, or the entire catalogue of all three Law and Order franchises the choice would be clear. The subtlety and the complex characters (and the British accents?) make even a little bit of Cracker infinitely more filling than an entire season of any American production in the genre.

16. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: I am still looking for the magic closet that will turn me into a mythical queen. In the meantime I will have to settle for regular re-readings of this first and best of the Narnia books.

15. Leaves of Grass: Just because.

14. Northern Exposure: If Northern Exposure were a new show today, would I like it or would I find it too full of self-conscious quirk? No matter, the talking trees, errant satellites, and especially the bohemian local DJ/armchair philosopher were irresistible to me in high school. And with that unique variety of nostalgia that high school obsessions can induce, I love it to this day.

13. This line of the American President: “My name is Andrew Shepherd and I AM the president.” Hey, I dig righteous indignation, especially as written by Aaron Sorkin (see also #22).

12. Ten: The 80s are in right now; grunge must be making a comeback soon. I am dusting off my flannels and army boots at this very moment.

11. The Green Sky Trilogy: In later years, I have come to find the books’ veiled politics a bit wearisome, yet the exquisitely sketched alternate world where the denizens glide from tree branch to tree branch on silken wings has never failed to captivate me.

10. Automatic for the People: It’s 1995. I’m feeling angsty. Lying on my bed in the dark, listening to Michael Stipe croon, “I will try not to breathe, this decision is mine…”

9. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock- “Let us go then, you and I…”

8. 10 Things I Hate About You: Unlike many other teen movies in which an outsider protagonist finds love and suddenly starts acting and dressing like his or her more mainstream classmates, in this high school-based adaptation of the Taming of the Shrew the character of Kat (Julia Stiles) gets her man, but never loses her fierce sense of non-conformity. Score one for the outcasts.

7. New Partner, by Palace Music: Just ask my college roomates if I ever get sick of this song.

6. Clue: The movie that taught us that the chief duty of butlers is to butle, and that “Monkeys’ brains, though popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often to be found in Washington D.C.”

5. Colin Firth’s performances in Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Love Actually, Girl With a Pearl Earring, and What a Girl Wants: No other actor in movies today is undone by love quite so well as Colin Firth. He plays it steely and distant and yet always clearly telegraphs the affection (whether paternal or romantic) that simmers beneath his icy surfaces. And when, in most of these films, he finally submits to his passion it is with a headlong rush that is all the more satisfying because of his previous sternness.

4. The Princess Bride: Yes, Fred Savage, the story on which this movie is base is indeed a kissing book. An awesome, awesome kissing book.

3. Sonnet #18: I probably shouldn’t even try to bother elaborating on why this most famous of Shakepeare sonnets is, you know, good.

2. Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson: I am indeed a transparent eyeball.

1. Pride and Prejudice: The mini-series, the movie, and, above all, the book. “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on the subject forever.” Sigh.

How do I know this?

It is all thanks to the Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, the astoundingly entertaining Penelope Spheeris documentary from 1988 that I just stumbled upon on IFC. The movie is mostly composed of interview clips and performance footage and some contrived tableaux that foreshadow the reality TV craze of our millennium in which so many of the film’s subjects have attempted to resurrect their careers. The musicians featured include established stars like Osbourne and Alice Cooper, as well as a host of aspiring metal bands.

There are no melodramatic voice-overs or transparent narratives of redemption; there are only the subjects, talking about themselves and their craft, prodded on by sporadic questions from off-camera.

The musicians are all big hair and oversized ego as they ponder the wonders of groupies (“I like sluts. I like slutty girls. I like girls who will take off all their clothes and dance in my face. That turns me on.”) and muse on the role alcohol, drugs, and Satan (“I like death and destruction and frenzy and hatred. Not doing it, like reading about it.”) play in their lives. As they tackle these topics, however, their uncertainty slowly bubbles to the surface and the result is a portrait of a poignant blend of youthful confidence and faltering insecurity, with an occasional soupcon of skilled musicianship and thoughtful philosophy.

In one particularly gripping scene, W.A.S.P.’s Chris Holmes floats in a pool, drinking a screwdriver and sharing stories about frolicking with naked women in his hotel room. Beside the pool, his mother sits making the occasional wry osbervation (“He’s only drunk when he’s awake.”) and mostly seeming uncomfortable with her son’s behavior. Holmes for his part tries his hardest to maintain a veneer of enthusiasm for his lifestyle, but the moment devolves into a stunning show of self-destruction as he discusses his alcohol dependency and tries to avoid thinking about why it is his drinks. His voice cracks and he evades questions, before he chugs half of a bottle of vodka and pours the remainder over his head.

Though Spheeris finds the cracks in the glamourous rock star surfaces, she also captures the energy and appeal of the heavy metal scene. Cooper and Osbourne both make rather cogent defenses of their oeuvre and the fans that are interviewed exude an almost palpable passion. The picture that emerges is complex and compelling.

And now, while I wander down to my local CD store to find some used Megadeth and Poison albums, I will leave you with the excellent advice offered to aspiring rock stars by Mr. Steven Tyler: “Be real careful, wear a rubber, and don’t do drugs.”