Contest: 10th Anniversary “Princess Diaries” Original and Sequel
Posted on June 10, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Has it really been ten years since Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews starred in The Princess Diaries? It is a delightful movie about an awkward teenager who discovers that she is the heir to the throne of a small but charming and delightful country, based on the books by books by Meg Cabot
I have one copy to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “princess” in the subject line and tell me your favorite princess in movies, books, or real life. Don’t forget your address! (US adresses only.) I’ll pick a winner a week from today. Good luck!
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(1937) Adriana Caselotti was a teenager when Walt Disney called her conductor father to ask him to suggest a girl who could sing operatically to play Snow White in the first feature-length animated film. Caselotti, listening in on the line, began warbling over the phone. Soon she was singing “Someday My Prince Will Come” and dancing with Sneezy, Sleepy, Doc, Bashful, Grumpy, Happy, and Dopey. As Disney likes to say, it’s still “the fairest of them all.”
Rocker Phil Collins’ daughter Lily is radiant as Snow White and Julia Roberts has a lot of fun playing the evil stepmother in this colorful update. In this version, Snow White is the one who rescues the prince (Armie Hammer) — with a sword, not a kiss. And be sure to watch through the end for a Bollywood-style dance number.
This one is worth watching just to confirm that it actually exists.
Actress Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre was a labor of love for all involved and it shows. Every one in the series is superb and this is one of the best, with a luminous Elizabeth McGovern (of “Downton Abbey”) as Snow White and a steely Vanessa Redgrave as the Queen. Pop star Rex Smith is very appealing as the prince.
Amanda Bynes stars in this updated version set on a college campus where the mean girl sorority president checks her status on the school’s “hot or not” website and a virus poisons Sydney’s Apple laptop. When she is booted out of the sorority, Sydney ends up living with seven “dorks,” including one who is sneezy, one who is sleepy, one who is grumpy, etc. Sydney learns how to make friends by letting her own dork flag fly.
Diana Rigg is a deliciously evil queen in this version, part of the Canon series of fairy tale adaptations.
Sigourney Weaver as the queen.
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and children! Here are 10 great movie mothers every family should enjoy. Many were based on real-life mothers, with stories and screenplays in some cases written by their grateful families. And don’t forget my all-time favorite, Mrs. Brown in 
) appears with Katharine Hepburn in the 1933 version, Mary Astor (also one of cinema’s best movie mothers in 
) appears with June Allyson in the 1949 version, and Susan Sarandon is Marmee to Winona Ryder’s Jo in the 1994 version. (Don’t forget to read the book, too!)
Cecily Tyson plays a mother who keeps her sharecropper family going after her husband is sent to jail in this beautifully filmed and tender story.
Another tribute to a real-life mother and an Oscar-winning role for Sally Field as a Depression-era widow whose indomitable and inspiring spirit instills resolve in her family and friends.
Some of the best mothers come to us after the women who gave us birth are gone. Glenn Close is perfectly cast in this made-for-television adaptation of the beloved book about a woman who answers an ad from an 18th century homesteader who needs a new wife to care for his children. Followed by two sequels.
One of America’s most remarkable real-life mothers is brought to life by Myrna Loy as Lillian Gilbreath, a pioneering engineer in the early 20th century who raised a dozen children. Be sure to see the sequel and read the books, too. (Not to be confused with the silly remakes that have nothing to do with the real story or the original movie versions.)
There is no more devoted mother than Mrs. Jumbo, whose love for her big-eared elephant baby demonstrates that parental love is not just for humans.
is the story of four different families at Thanksgiving in this film from “Bend it Like Beckham’s” Gurinder Chadha. There are several great mothers in the movie but the one on this list is the fabulous Mercedes Ruehl as Lizzy Avila who knows that part of caring for your family is respecting and caring for yourself.
The mother I want to point out in this film is not the impossible (but irresistible) Aurora, played by Shirley Maclaine, but her daughter Emma, played by Debra Winger. Emma makes mistakes. She has a tendency to be headstrong (inherited from Aurora) and careless. But she is utterly devoted to her children. She says goodbye to her sons, with hastily applied make-up so that they will not see how sick she really is, and she gets right to the essentials, understanding what they most need to hear and what they will most need to remember.