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To manage her many intrigues, the lovely Lady Mary definitely could use what my new fave writer Brené Brown calls a “move a body” friendship. Until this week, I’d never read Brené Brown’s theory of what makes the truest sister bond, but thanks to my fellow travelers in my (amazing) Mondo Beyondo “Dream Lab” online course, I’ve seen the light. You’ll have to read Brené’s explanation for yourself; I can’t possibly do it justice. But trust me: with just a teeny soupçon of dark humor, she imagines the bleakest scenario in which we might call upon our sisters for help, the one in which we need and deserve support without judgment.

How far would you go, could you go, have you gone for the sisters in your life? Do you know who your move-a-body sister friends are? It’s worth pondering, before you need them. Watch some great TV, study up with Brené, and chime in.

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Let me start by saying: I lived for the show, even as I rolled my eyes at its absurdity. And I really, really hated the first movie, which I thought made no sense, and had no heart. But this movie? Granted, it’s an unwieldy, high camp mash-up of The Wizard of Oz, Ishtar, a Bollywood spectacular and a commercial for the United Arab Emirates tourism board. It’s way too long. Its politics, if you can call them that, have all the sophistication of a Muck Boot. Even so? It spoke to me.

Maybe it’s the fact that Charlotte and Miranda, the two characters whom I most closely resemble (c’mon, you know you’ve played the “which Sex and the City girl are you?” game) are now mothers struggling, not always successfully, with juggling the exhausted ambivalence and fierce love that dominate the years of mothering small kids. Maybe that storyline has become tired, but not to me: I thought the film’s empathy for both of their struggles was compelling and authentic.

Maybe it’s the ballsy way this film really, really let Samantha out of the box, so to speak: Her libidinous behavior is outrageous to the point of dangerous and appalling, and that also rang true for me for a highly sexual woman confronting the not-so-sexy parts of aging.

But I think most of all, I liked that in this film, Carrie is finally let off the hook, and the audience with her, of being held up as some sort of representative every-woman, which she so clearly is not, and has never been. Most of us are never, ever going to be Carrie Bradshaw, live in Louboutins, and marry Big. And that’s ok. She’s living an original life, and so should we, whatever slings, arrows, wrinkles and wrong turns that may bring.

Whatever flaws you can find with this film, despite its absurd foray into the lives of the unimaginably rich, I don’t think it can be accused of being shallow. (And given that the first film was exclusively about shopping, that’s saying something.) Good for you, girlfriends.

(P.S.–TSP’s youngest sister, Anastasia, took a look at the feminist aspect–or not–of the SATC brand in this post.)

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From Poppy de Villeneuve's "You Are Everywere"

PROLIFIC PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILMMAKER Poppy de Villeneuve is at it again. Back in March we highlighted her first film for T , the New York Times style magazine. (All five parts of that film, The Park, are here.) Now she’s  released another, You Are Everywhere, a stripped down, meditative, surprisingly intimate view of last year’s Coachella music festival. Like much of Poppy’s work, the film seems deeply influenced by Richard Avedon’s photographic collection, In the American West (one of my favorite art books, as it happens). Enjoy this poetic film, and for more on Poppy and her influences check out our profile of her and sister Daisy, an accomplished illlustrator.

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'Thelma and Louise' is on my must-rewatch list this spring

I‘VE BEEN TRAVELING, a lot, lately, and can’t wait to settle back into what passes for a normal routine back on the home front. But my husband’s going to be out of town for work on and off for a while. Can you guess what that means? It’s all about control.

Remote control. The clicker. You see, my lovely husband tends to drive the DVD train around our house. He manages the Netflix queue, he tends to pick more of what we watch, and though his tastes are broad, they’re not, you know, a broad’s. So while he’s away, I’m planning a major indulgence in sister flicks of every genre. I’m pulling some favorites from our own comprehensive list here on TSP (you have visited the Sister Flicks list over in the Sisterpedia, haven’t you??) but I’m always looking for more ideas.

While I queue up all six seasons of Sex and the City, can you help me add some new/old favorites I may have forgotten? Bring ‘em, sisters. I’m making the popcorn.

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SHIRLEY MACLAINE MAY be more famous these days for metaphysical musings than for movie stardom, but I can’t forget her indelible performances in some of my very favorite sister flicks. (Terms of Endearment? Steel Magnolias?) Today, for her 75th birthday, I want to toast Shirley MacLaine in a way I didn’t really have the chutzpah to do properly the one time I met her. Once upon a time, you see, I worked in Hollywood.

I mostly made movies for cable television, a few good, others, not so. I was not powerful, by anyone’s definition, but it’s an occupational hazard of working in film or television to encounter celebrities, some so-called, some the center of paparazzi-madness. I had many meetings with people whose fame ranged from slightly over the hill (I remember a particularly odd afternoon spent with an aging TV cowboy and several cast members from Dallas) to stratospheric (Brangelina, anyone?)

Near the end of my tinsel-town tenure, the company I worked for acquired the television rights to the first (and, I am pretty sure, the only) feature film ever directed by Shirley MacLaine. Somehow, the completion of the deal necessitated a dinner with my boss, our (lovely) PR guy, Shirley, and me. My 40-something boss was (presumably still is) a nice guy who couldn’t decide whether he was starstruck (Sweet Charity! Terms of Endearment!) or vaguely embarrassed to be seen at a star-packed restaurant with (instead of a starlet?) a legendary actress who still had unbelievably great legs but was now better known for new-age enthusiasms than sex appeal.

I spent most of that evening not enjoying my chopped salad or the opportunity to mine the wisdom of a great actor about what it was like working with Bob Fosse, starring with Jack Lemmon in possibly the greatest comedy ever (The Apartment–you have seen it, haven’t you??), hanging out with the Rat Pack, or getting her big break working with Alfred Hitchcock. I didn’t even figure out how to work in a question, or seven, about what it’s like to be Warren Beatty‘s sister. I worried, instead, about whether my boss would embarrass himself, or worse, me; whether or not I was dressed appropriately for the occasion (what is the prescribed wardrobe for dinner with a movie star, anyway?) In other words, I worried about what Shirley would think of me.

What in the world was I afraid of? I should have kicked up my heels like Charity and enjoyed the experience. Maybe that would have livened up a night that had to have been as tedious for Miss MacLaine as it was anxiety-ridden for me. Today is Shirley’s 75th birthday, and as my gift to her, I’d like to offer an apology for failing to enjoy her company while I had the chance. I’m going to try to take her advice and grow a bit more sage with age.

On the other hand, maybe I’ll get a second chance in the next life? In the meantime, check out our take on some of Shirley’s greatest roles, in our Sister Flicks Master List.

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Inspired by two recipes I found at this terrific sister cooking blog, and this other terrific sister cooking blog,  I concocted my own version, which was happily devoured by (almost) everyone in my family. (There is no accounting for 7-year-old taste, but apparently, other children will eat it, because tortilla soup also made the 2008 MomFaves top 10 mom-favorite recipes list.) Do you make this Mexican-American classic? How? Tell your sisters, please, because one of the rules of sisterhood is that we share our best recipes.

(P.S. That silly clip? It’s from a movie I helped to produce, in my old life. Have you seen Tortilla Soup? How about the other movies in our sister flicks master list? Check ‘em out, and let us know what you think. Laughter doesn’t have to be confined to the kitchen, after all.)

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WRITER AND ARTIST Stephanie Tames has an amazing story about sisterhood on the downslope of life in today’s Washington Post. Humor and disappointment both factor into Sister Act, her remembrance of a shopping expedition with her two older sisters. Read it, laugh, and weep. For more about Stephanie and her artwork, visit her website. According to the Post, she’s working on a book–can’t wait to read it.

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A FEW WEEKS BACK, Margaret Roach and I started talking about dark movies–the depressing, emotionally draining, deeply resonant ones that aren’t always what you want to take on, but can be just the ticket for certain moods. Well, with apologies to T.S. Eliot, we’re about to enter the cruelest month, the hard, cold days of February. (Even the radio weatherman today said, “If you can just get through the next month, you’re home free.”) What time could be better for some dark and stormy cinema?

I’ve written before about my affection for the 70s period piece The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee, and based on the novel of the same name by Rick Moody. There’s always the ultimate hipster sister movie of all time, Sofia Coppola’s debut film, The Virgin Suicides. Or for some laughter in the dark, you might try the brilliant and black comedy, The Opposite of Sex. Or take Margaret’s suggestion and rent Sweetie, director Jane Campion’s moving masterpiece of dysfunctional sisterhood.

What dark movies suit your dark days?

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LEGENDARY ACTIVIST LAWYER William Kunstler is now the subject of a documentary, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which opened today in Park City, Utah. This is no ordinary biography, though. The film is directed and produced by two of Kunstler’s four daughters. Sisters Emily and Sarah Kunstler, who were teenagers when their father died, say that “Making this film has been a magical way of bringing him back to life.” Since 2000, the sisters have had their own production company, Off Center Media, which produces award-winning documentaries about injustices in the criminal justice system.

Kunstler, who was called “the most hated and most loved lawyer in America” by The New York Times, came to fame defending the Chicago Seven, charged with inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. You can watch the trailer for the film here.

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We decided to watch it as a family movie for the last night of “vacation,” and oh, what a thrill. Though the film isn’t literally about sisters, it is all about sister-friends. Donna, the mamma of the title, has her best friends (and former girl-group singing partners), Tanya and Rosie, with her for moral support during the wedding of her daughter, Sophie (who also has her BFFs close at hand.) Meryl Streep has never looked more beautiful, or, it seems, had such fun with a part, and Christine Baranski and Julie Walters are beyond hysterical.

While the plot is ostensibly about Sophie’s search for her father’s identity, the appeal of the film is in the delirious joy all these women feel at singing and laughing and soaking up each other’s company (not to mention the glorious Greek sunshine). I couldn’t stop laughing and singing myself, and as a bonus, my kids liked it so much that they were dancing along with every musical number. Mamma Mia! may just find you running off to iTunes to download ABBA’s greatest hits–don’t say I didn’t warn you.

OTHER FILM LINKS ON TSP:

• TSP master list of sister flicks
• TSP holiday sister-flick list
• ‘Persepolis‘
• ‘Nothing Like the Holidays,’ and ‘Doubt’
• ‘Secret Life of Bees,’ I’ve Loved You So Long,’ and ‘Rachel Getting Married’

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