2 New Sisflix (Plus Serendipity)

I WAS ALL set to write a post alerting my movie-loving virtual sisters to two films opening this weekend, with sisterhood figuring prominently in the storytelling, when an unexpected email arrived. It came from another sisterhood (and brotherhood) of my life: my graduate-school alumni group. A fellow alumna was asking everyone on the alumni mailing list to support a movie she was involved in producing…a movie opening this weekend…a movie I was just sitting down to write about.

Though I tend to feel like I’m not much of a joiner, not the person most likely to attend a reunion or keep in touch with a network of people who aren’t my close friends, I was oddly moved by this moment of serendipity. A stranger, but one with whom I had a common experience, reached out at the exact moment I was thinking of this film, that she was somehow involved in making…it felt like kismet. Or sisterhood.

And so, I have to ask: Have you seen Nothing Like the Holidays? I haven’t, but I will–I’m a sucker for family-at-Christmas comedies, and I happen to love Elizabeth Peña. Check her out in Tortilla Soup, one of our picks for Thanksgiving sisflix–and one I helped to produce, back in my old life. Nothing Like the Holidays, which puts a a Latino spin on the seasonal family story, also features John Leguizamo and Debra Messing, of Will and Grace fame.

Also opening is Doubt, based on the play of the same name. It stars Meryl Streep (you know, the one who’s either the greatest actress of her generation, or the queen of odd accents) as Sister Aloysius, a nun who makes Ebenezer Scrooge look positively low-key. The movie (which I haven’t yet seen) details the conflict between Streep’s character and Father Flynn, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom the good Sister suspects of having inappropriate interest in a young altar boy. The delicious Amy Adams co-stars. For the cast alone, this is a must-see.

Given the weather in the Northeast, my perfect weekend film might have to be an at-home viewing of brilliant Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (that is, if my power comes back on). That was one of our Thanksgiving picks, too, but it holds up well for Christmas (the dysfunctional part, anyway). What holiday films are you looking forward to? Anything that’s a must-see, or a run-away-screaming?

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POSTSCRIPT, 12/14/08: I made it to Doubt this weekend, and it left me…not cold, exactly, but definitely perplexed. Do you have to have attended Catholic school to really care about this movie? Isn’t there a better story out there to illustrate the need for open eyes and minds? I kind of enjoyed La Streep’s over-the-top performance, but I wish the film hadn’t been so, well, theatrical. (And I’m the one who kept telling my husband, “Of course it’s theatrical! It’s based on a play! And directed by the playwright!”) Anyone else ready to chime in?

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