#pieces of april

[deathtastegirl]

"corporate/mainstream" grunge

[femmewithahammer]

Some films I would recommend for anyone to watch!

(Specifically cool people)

Appropriate Behavior (2014)-Desiree Akhavan

Pieces of April (2003)-Peter Hedges

Linda Linda Linda (2005)-Nobuhiro Yamashita

Twins in Paradise (2020)-Victoria Vincent

Catscape (2019)-Victoria Vincent

Cat City (2017)-Victoria Vincent

Kiss of the Rabbit God (2019)-Andrew Huang

Lily Chan & The Doom Girls (2020)-Andrew Huang

The Sarah Vaccine (2021)- Sarah Sherman

Strawberry Short-Cut (1991)-Tom Rubnitz

Pickle Surprise (1989)-Tom Rubnitz

Tampopo (1985)- Jūzō Itami

Supermarket Woman (1996)-Jūzō Itami

Brain Dead (Dead Alive) (1992)-Peter Jackson

Bad Taste (1987)-Peter Jackson

Meet the Feebles (1989)-Peter Jackson

The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia (2019)-Jonni Phillips

May I Please Enter? (2018)- Alan Resnick

Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Combat Zone (2017)-Rachel Wolther, Alex Huston Fischer

[shiningwizard]

Pieces of April (Peter Hedges, 2003)

Series of repetitive underfunny beats elevated by some Stephin Merritt songs

[thedaveandkimmershow]

I'm gonna start easing into the Thanksgiving holiday by considering the simplest traditions that followed us into adulthood and adultier adulthood. No meaning. Just shows and movies we watch because it's this time of year.

For example, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. I always think of the movie around Thanksgiving but Kimmer refuses to watch it. So I just remember that over-the-top scene at the car rental counter where Steve Martin goes stark raving mad...

Which usually does the trick. 🤨

There's the Back to the Future trilogy. Also a viewing tradition this time of year although we don't always manage it. So it's more of an aspirational tradition.

Another aspirational tradition would be the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade depending on how it's streaming. This is more of a Kimmer tradition than mine but it's a lovely one. Sometimes we actually sit down to watch the parade and sometimes it just provides that exciting Thanksgiving Day vibe to our place while we prepare for the day.

Pieces of April with Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, and Oliver Platt, yes... absolutely. I'm pretty sure we do manage to watch this one every year.

Miracle on 34th Street, of course. And, depending on which one we watch first, the original or the modern remake, we watch the other one shortly after.

A Christmas Story. Also of course. Ever since TBS (or TNT?) started running 24 hour marathons of the movie back to back to back to back a long, looooong time ago either on Thanksgiving Day or Black Friday, I always thought of it as mostly a Black Friday movie.

Then there are the five Wonder Years Christmas episodes: "Christmas", "A Very Cutlip Christmas", "Christmas Party", "Let Nothing You Dismay", and the bonus New Year's episode "New Years". Not that they're anything close to Thanksgiving shows. This is just the earliest opportunity to watch these masterpieces.

And finally, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and The Mayflower Voyagers for a touch of the meaning of Thanksgiving as well as the history of Thanksgiving.

Okay so yeah. That's it for now. Just dipping my toe into the complexity and variation and logistics of this holiday we've always celebrated. And since during the course of our lives we celebrated in sometimes wildly different ways, it's nice to consider some of the easy traditions that followed us over the years.

🙂

[adamwatchesmovies]

Pieces of April (2003)

Pieces of April wears its indie filmmaking origins like a badge of honour and I can’t blame it. Quirky, funny, often sweet without becoming cloying and just weird enough to stand out, I’m surprised it isn’t mentioned more often around American Thanksgiving. There’s no way your family is as playfully dysfunctional as the one in this film by writer/director Peter Hedges but some of it is so out there it actually comes back around and becomes universal.

For the first time, April Burns (Katie Holmes) is hosting Thanksgiving with the help of her new boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke). This celebration is particularly important, as her mother is dying from breast cancer. As we speak, her parents, grandmother, and brother are on their way to her rinky-dink Manhattan apartment. Unfortunately, the oven has suddenly stopped working.

At first, we follow April as she scrambles to host the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. It will be a meal to remember and she wants to be sure it’s for all the right reasons. The turkey must be cooked to perfection. Not only is it the centerpiece of any Thanksgiving meal, it’s become a symbol of her adulthood. If she can’t get it right, no one will allow her to forget it. Her parents already basically think of her as a failure. Considering how crappy her apartment building looks, you can see why. Only minutes in, you understand completely the importance of this bird. If only the other tenants could too, maybe they’d be more sympathetic. Some of them are. Most of the eclectic people she attempts to quickly befriend are weirdos you instantly know will be zero help. In fact, she might've been better off remaining unaware of their existence. Some of them are a tad cartoonish, even for this movie, but overall, they generate some good laughs.

The second storyline follows Jim (Oliver Platt), Joy (Patricia Clarkson), Grandma Beth (Alison Pill) and Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.). They may act like April is the black sheep of the family, the one they failed and allowed to go astray but they’re all so alike you’d never believe she belonged to anyone else. They’re all full of the kind of surprises that feel real because they’re so absurd no one could just come up with them without reference. They make you laugh as much as the oddballs April has to ask for help but there’s also an underlying sadness in their drive. You can see how hard April is trying to get things right and meanwhile, they have no faith in her whatsoever. Despite this or maybe because of this, you grow attached to them. You want them to have this one perfect day. Realizing that they think it’s impossible is unexpectedly upsetting. It may be a very April thing to be in a spot where she needs to cook a turkey but has no oven (and that’s only the beginning of her troubles, Bobby’s got his own crazy tale) but they could have a little faith in her. Then you have this crazy thought "If it doesn't work out, maybe it won't be so disastrous. Maybe a catastrophe could be the thing that brought them together like nothing did before!"

Pieces of April shows what a strong (though not perfect) script can do when combined with enthusiasm from the director and dedicated performances. The actors and actresses give it their all and it adds up to more than the sum of the film’s parts. It’s got a couple of racy moments and some ideas you won't want the kids to hear but I could really see this one becoming a yearly tradition for the family, the movie you all watch together while waiting for that one person that’s always late to arrive. (Full-screen version on VHS, June 10, 2021)

[fashiongrunge]

Listen to the podcast on Pieces of April (2003)!

[whydotheheathenrage]

Pride of Mountain City, TN. Great songwriter and singer. RIP

[leisi-lilacdreams]

[naiad-r]

Inspired by this Twitter post.

Blonde ex-nobles that catch on fire.

Only one of them doesn't do it voluntarily.

[hinamie]

quick itfs sketch page

[nonesuchrecords]

It was 20 years ago: The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt made his Nonesuch Records debut with the release of the soundtrack to Pieces of April, the Peter Hedges film starring Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, and Oliver Platt. Merritt offers four previously unreleased Magnetic Fields tracks and the specially written “One April Day” on the soundtrack to the acclaimed film, which, like Merritt’s songs, deftly balances humor and pathos. The Independent (UK) praised his “exquisite, finely-rendered adult pop.” You can hear it here.

[starstruckodysseys]

love when tumblr just randomly adds enrichment (new buttons) to our enclosures

[mmmairon]

I fear my hands may always be stained red

[beanghostprincess]

[amelia-yap]

it's april and they are bloody fools

[marimeigh]

pranks with the strawhat pirates