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Picture of a movie: Closer
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Picture of a movie: Shopgirl
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Shopgirl

2005
Twenty-something native Vermonter Mirabelle Buttersfield, having recently graduated from college, is finding her new life in Los Angeles not quite what she was expecting or hoping. An aspiring artist, she is barely eking out a living working as a clerk at the women's evening gloves counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills and thus she can barely make the payments on her massive student loans. She treats her job with a certain distance, often daydreaming as she watches the life of the rich as they shop at the store. She has made no friends, including from among her Saks colleagues, and thus lives a solitary existence, which does not assist in her dealing with her chronic clinical depression. So it is with some surprise that two men with a romantic interest in her enter her life almost simultaneously. The first is poor slacker Jeremy, who works as an amplifier salesman/font designer. Mirabelle continues dating Jeremy as only a relief to her solitary life, as Jeremy doesn't seem to understand how to treat her in the way she wants. Shortly after meeting Jeremy, she meets the second, wealthy fifty-something Ray Porter, who is the antithesis of Jeremy in almost every respect, including the fact that Ray is unwilling or unable to commit to Mirabelle, about which he is up front to her. To Mirabelle, that lack of commitment from Ray seems to be in name only, and as such she increasingly sees Ray as her boyfriend. Mirabelle has to decide if a long term future is either in the cards with Jeremy or Ray, which is made all the more complicated by an action by Jeremy to an off the cuff comment that she makes to him.
Picture of a movie: Under the Tuscan Sun
movies

Under the Tuscan Sun

2003
Frances Mayes is a San Francisco-based literature professor, literary reviewer and author, who is struggling in writing her latest book. Her outwardly perfect and stable life takes an unexpected turn when her husband files for divorce. He wants to marry the woman with whom he is having an affair. Frances supported her husband financially as he was writing his own book, and he sues her for alimony despite her financial difficulties. And he wants to keep the house. Frances eventually accepts her best friend Patti's offer of a vacation, a gay tour of Tuscany which Patti and her lesbian partner Grace originally purchased for themselves before Patti found out that she is pregnant. The gift is a means to escape dealing with the divorce, from which Patti feels Frances may never recover emotionally without some intervention. Feeling that Patti's assessment may be correct in that she has too much emotional baggage ever to return to San Francisco, Frances, while in Tuscany, impulsively ditches the tour to purchase an aged villa, which ends up being a fixer-upper. Frances has many obstacles in eking out a productive and happy life in her new surroundings, that happy life which she hopes will eventually include rediscovering romantic love. In a discussion with sympathetic real estate agent Signor Martini, Frances outlines what emotionally she wants to accomplish with the villa, despite none of those items in a substantive material sense currently being in her life. In response, Martini tells her the story of a set of railroad tracks that were laid between Vienna and Venice before an engine that could make the trek being built, a train which now regularly travels the route. The question becomes whether Frances, in going through the process, will be laying another Vienna to Venice track, and if so whether that end product emotionally will be exactly as she envisions.
Picture of a movie: About a Boy
movies

About a Boy

2002
Twelve year old Marcus Brewer lives with his chronically depressed single mother, Fiona Brewer. Both Fiona and Marcus beat to their own respective drummers. Marcus will do whatever he can to make his depressed mother happy, even if it causes himself grief. As such, he realizes that he is perceived as different than most kids, as even the self-professed weird kids don't want to hang out with him as he is the target of bullying. Part of the taunts against him are the fact that he sings and speaks to himself without even realizing that he is doing it. Meanwhile, thirty-eight year old Will Freeman is a slacker who has lived comfortably off the royalties of a song written by his deceased father, and as such has never had to work a day in his life. He is a solitary man who places himself as the first and only priority in life. He comes across the idea that dating single moms meets his selfish carnal needs. It is in this capacity that Will meets Marcus, as one of Will's single mother conquests, Suzie, is friends with the Brewers. Trying to escape his life but wanting Will to date Fiona, Marcus infiltrates Will's life, much to Will's chagrin. Will slowly begins to realize that Marcus is more than just a nuisance, but rather someone who needs some guidance navigating through the trials of adolescence and the trials of dealing with a suicidal mother, and perhaps he can be a small part of providing that direction. Conversely, Marcus may be able to show Will the path to becoming a real adult.