Thursday Movie Picks: Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan


Welcome back to Thursday Movie Picks, the weekly series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Each week we are asked to pick three to five movies to fit that week's theme. This week we have to pick among those movies with an ugly main character who eventually becomes beautiful. I've already picked Miss Congeniality and The Devil Wears Prada before so I had to settle for these.

Mean Girls (2004)
Cady moves to Chicago from Africa, goes to high school and befriends Janis and Damian who warn her about the popular kids in high school. She doesn't care and decides to hang out with Regina George, the most popular girl, who also happens to be the ex-girlfriend of her crush. The transformation happens pretty soon but there's one. I haven't seen this in years but I really liked it when I was a teen.

Cinderella (2015)
After the death of her father, Ella finds herself at the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters and is forced to be their servant. Then a fairy godmother makes her beautiful, she meets a prince and things change. I wasn't a big fan of this version, but I liked what they did with the relationship between Ella and the prince, and Blanchett made a great stepmother. Also, the costumes are great.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
A popular kid in high school makes a bet with his friends that he can turn a pretty but ugly girl into a beautiful prom queen. I watched this movie for Chris Evans and that's the only reason I didn't regret watching it. Evans aside, the movie is dreadful. 
Published by on
Categories:

16 comments :

  1. Big Screen Small Words7 December 2017 at 15:19

    Mean Girls! I haven’t seen it recently but I would always watch it whenever I caught it playing on TV

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca8 December 2017 at 13:17

      I have it on DVD but I haven't rewatched it in ages. I should be ashamed of myself.

      Delete
  2. Brittani Burnham7 December 2017 at 17:15

    omg I love how stupid Not Another Teen Movie was! I can't believe I didn't think of it. Great picks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Birgit7 December 2017 at 17:19

    I haven't seen any of these but Mean Girls has been picked on other occasions so I should see it. I have been meaning to see Cinderella forever since I love fairy tales but I have not got around to it but I plan to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca8 December 2017 at 13:18

      I'm sure you would enjoy Mean Girls. Maybe Cinderella too.

      Delete
  4. joel659137 December 2017 at 18:07

    I liked all of these, even Not Another Teen Movie-though it's certainly no lost classic and I only watched it the once. I agree there are better versions of Cinderella (Ever After comes to mind) but the costumes and sets are amazing in this one. Mean Girls is one I watched because someone chose it one week in the picks and it was much better than I expected, I wouldn't mind watching it again actually.

    Glad you mentioned Miss Congeniality since it's one of my picks. These sort of films have been around since cinema began, I think they just an occasional break and then suddenly there is a new spate of them. Here's my three.

    Now, Voyager (1942)-Old maid Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) is a member of an extremely wealthy Boston family whose spirit has been crushed by her gorgon of a mother (a truly hateful Gladys Cooper) until during a visit to their home by kindly psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) Charlotte suffers a nervous breakdown and he whisks her away to his retreat for rich nutcases “Cascade”. While there she begins to rebuild her long suppressed confidence and emerges a beautiful swan on a cruise to South America. On the trip she meets the dashing but lonely Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid) who is trapped in a bad marriage and falls for him. But there’s plenty of bumpy road ahead for this pair and those in their sphere all executed in top flight fashion in amazing clothes set to a swooningly romantic soundtrack. A gigantic hit in its day this was the most profitable picture of Davis’s career. The ne plus ultra of Ugly Duckling movies!

    Miss Congeniality (2000)-To put it mildly FBI agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) is rough around the edges, she eats with her hands, chews with her mouth open and her idea of fashion is what’s clean that day, but having just blown a big case she finds she can’t refuse when she is recruited to go undercover as a contestant in the Miss United States beauty pageant when a threat is received. Despite many people’s doubt including pageant show runner Kathy Morningside (Candice Bergen) and the coach hired to smooth her feathers Victor Melling (Michael Caine) as well as her own obstinacy Gracie is pulled, pummeled and plucked into a beauty. While working the case she even learns to lighten up and appreciate a different outlook. Breezy comedy is a perfect fit for Sandra Bullock.

    Pygmalion (1938)-First filming of the George Bernard Shaw play where a snobbish linguist bets a crony that he can transform a common flower peddler into a great lady by teaching her proper speech. Not as grandiloquent as My Fair Lady but both Leslie Howard as Professor Henry Higgins and Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle create memorable characters. Wendy is actually more successful with her Eliza than Audrey Hepburn would later be since despite her innate dignity she makes a believable guttersnipe in the initial segment of the movie.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca8 December 2017 at 13:19

      I have not seen Ever After but now I wanna see it. Now, Voyager sounds interesting too so I'll check it out.

      Delete
  5. s.7 December 2017 at 18:47

    Mean Girls is such a fun movie! I really liked Cinderella, in fact it may be the only one of those 'new versions of classic animated films' Disney movies I didn't dislike

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca8 December 2017 at 13:21

      I suppose you haven't seen The Jungle Book, that one is really good.

      Delete
  6. Katie Hogan8 December 2017 at 00:35

    Ooooh Cinderella is an interesting pick. Quite liked this film, much better than the other live action disney rip offs.

    Yes! Mean Girls! And I was just talking about NATM...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca8 December 2017 at 13:26

      I didn't like it but it's probably my favourite of the Disney live-action movies, The Jungle Book excluded because that movie was amazing.

      Delete
  7. Getter8 December 2017 at 12:28

    I thought about mentioning Not Another Teen Movie but as you said, the best part is Chris Evans and the rest, ugh. :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca8 December 2017 at 13:27

      I know. I picked it only because I ran out of options haha

      Delete
  8. Wanderer14 December 2017 at 19:08

    Mean Girls is great.

    Cinderella, I enjoyed it and I liked what they did with the relationship between Ella and the prince too. But I did not like the costumes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sonia Cerca14 December 2017 at 20:48

      Oh, I'm sorry they didn't work for you. They were my favourite thing about the movie.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )