I recently
got around to finally seeing 2014’s TheTheory of Everything (yep, I’m only 9 years behind the times) – damn good
movie! Who knew the life of Stephen
Hawking would produce such a sweet/bittersweet love story? The charm of that love story really came from
the chemistry and talent of the two stars – Eddie Redmayne (Stephen Hawking)
and Felicity Jones (Jane Wilde/Hawking) – whatever nominations/awards they
received, they 100% deserved. I really
enjoyed the early parts of the movie when they were in college together - it
put a genuine smile on my face.
There were a
couple of other parts that made me chuckle and flat out laugh as well…
First, when
the Jonathan character shows up and shows a clear interest in Jane, Stephen is
looking at him like “Who the hell are you moving in on my woman? If I could get out of this wheelchair, I’d
create a new black hole with my foot in your ass!”; and then later, when the
character of Elaine shows up and shows a clear interest in Stephen, Jane is
looking at her like “Bitch, who the hell are you moving in on my man? I’ll come at you like a spider monkey!” But, eventually, proving that real life is indeed
crazier than fiction, Jane ended up with Jonathan, and Stephen ended up with
Elaine.
Second,
there were two great scenes that showed Stephen Hawking – genius mind though he
was – was also just a regular ol’ guy as well…
First Scene:
he’s rolling about in his wheelchair, with a homemade mask over his head, while his computer voicebox is repeating the Dr. Who line “Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!” – hilarious!
Second
Scene: When Elaine found that he had an
issue of Penthouse magazine in his mail, his voicebox responded “That’s for a
friend!” – I laughed so hard at that – classic dude response, and yeah, it
didn’t work for him either – haha!
Now, I
sure hope I don’t come across as some “creepy guy”, but the real highlight of
this film for me was that I was just completely charmed by Felicity Jones. She has the sexiest little overbite with her
two front teeth that, combined with her great British accent, just melts my
heart. And if that isn’t fantastic
enough, every once in a while she has a slight lisp which makes the
aforementioned sexy traits 10 times (possibly 10.5, I didn’t take time to do
the precise math) more endearing. So,
yeah, thank you Felicity for being you – this old turd in America thinks you’re
a delight…career pinnacle, right? 😄
So,
naturally then, I had to do a quick Google of Felicity’s filmography to see
what other movies/shows she’d been in – and I instantly had an “aw jeez!”
facepalm moment due to an obvious oversight.
Here I am, a lifelong Star Wars
nerd, and I completely forgot she played Jyn Erso - the main character in Rogue One - for shit’s sake! That movie is only my 3rd favorite
Star Wars movie behind only the first two classic movies from the Original
Trilogy…yep, “Dumbass Award” for this guy.
So, now that
I knew I’d seen her in two movies,
what other movies were available for me to discover? Well, thanks for asking…the ones I’ve found
and have now seen so far are as follows (I’ll probably reveal spoilers, so read at
your own risk):
Chalet Girl – 2011 Rom-Com about a
working-class British gal (Felicity’s character) who gets a summer job working
for a family of elite snobs in the Austrian Alps…and she just so happens to
become a pro snowboarder along the way.
Not a movie I would have sought out to watch if not for my “Felicity
discovery project” – but you know what? – I actually enjoyed it. Snowboarding scenes in the Alps were great; it was a nice story; and Felicity was fantastic in the main role.
Albatross – 2011 film that, I gotta
say…was a little disturbing. Felicity
played the daughter of a famous author who was still living off his past
success, and now under constant ridicule from his wife. Well, this beautiful 17-year old girl comes
to work for them and while he helps her develop her writing skills, decides it
would be a good idea to help her with some “hanky panky skills” as well (can't believe I just used the term "hanky panky"...*soaks in the rare moment*...ok, then). Dude...not cool...that shit will get you thrown in jail
for a loooooong time in this country...just sayin’. Anyway, Felicity played more of a side
character really, but she also shared a major story arc with the main girl, and
again was great.
Like Crazy – 2011 romantic drama that
was really great – but the two main characters drove me “like crazy” while I
watched. Felicity (Anna) and the late
Anton Yelchin (Jacob) play a couple who meet in school in the US. Anna is from England, and Jacob from
California. Due to visa violations, Anna
can’t move back to Cali even after they marry – so they unmarry. They have this extended “on again, off again”
relationship throughout the movie – even as each of them meet someone else who
really cares for them. But hey, the
heart wants what the heart wants. I
gotta say though, at first I was rooting for them, but as the whole “on again,
off again” repeated itself, I wanted to grab both of them and say “Hey, it’s
time to shit or get off the pot! You’re
hurting other people now. Damn.” And here’s the kicker, the movie ends with
them back together but you can tell the spark has left, so it was all for
nothing…are you shitting me? Now, this
was no depressing ball-buster like BlueValentine (seriously, that fucking movie, great though it may be, is 2
hours of a way too realistic force-fed shit sandwich), but dammit, can I just
get my “happily ever after”?…movies are for escaping from the crap realities.
Felicity was
fantastic though!
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding – 2012
film that I just plain did not like. It
bored the hell out of me…seriously, this was the type of movie that you would
only go see if your girlfriend/wife dragged you to and you thought you might
get rewarded with a little “afternoon delight” afterwards. However, every scene that Felicity was in was
absolutely fantastic! She looked extra
stunning in this.
Breathe In – 2013 film that is kind of
similar to the aforementioned Albatross, but Felicity plays the main object of
attraction/affection and her character (Sophie) is at least a law-abiding 18 years. So, anyway, Sophie is a musically gifted
exchange student from England who comes to stay with a family in the US. The dad/husband is also a musician, and is
going through a bit of a mid-life crisis.
His wife tries to control him and does things he doesn’t want to do, so
when he meets Sophie – who also plays music, and is nice to him (unlike his
wife) – he basically wishes he could go back to when he was younger and relive
a new life with Sophie (a real "Sophie's Choice" there, am I right? Ah-ha-ha-ha...Anyone? Anyone? *taps mic* Is this thing still on?...but I digress). There’s some
obvious sexual feelings going on there as well, but it never fully plays out
that way. It’s a great film, and once
again, Felicity was fantastic.
On the Basis of Sex – 2018 film about
the "Notorious R.B.G." (US Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg) in which
Felicity played the title role.
Surprisingly good! Mainly about a
court case that, in helping to get equal rights for a man, actually helped
bring more equal rights for women – rock on!
When you see some of the back-ass-wards stupidity here in the US, it’s
amazing sometimes that we can even tie our own shoes in the morning…but we keep
on truckin’. Anyway, Felicity was
fantastic – but it sucked that she had to do a bland American accent in this
movie when her natural British accent is such nice ear candy.
The Aeronauts – 2019 adventure film that saw
Felicity (Amelia) team up again with Eddie Redmayne (James)…and once again,
they had great chemistry together.
Really enjoyable film, based off a true story, about Amelia and James
taking flight in what was the world’s largest gas balloon in the 1860’s. There are some great action sequences in this
one featuring vertigo-inducing camera angles.
Broken record but – Felicity was fantastic!
After now seeing
Felicity and Eddie be so great in two movies together, it made me think about
another charming and talented duo who also did a couple of movies together –
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman (Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, Notorious from 1946; and the 1958 rom-com, Indiscreet). It’s the latter type of those two movies in which I’d like to see Felicity and Eddie hit the
trifecta – I think it would be fun to see them in a “battle of wits” + “wacky
hi-jinx” style rom-com where they’re each trying to gain the upper hand in the
relationship, only to find that, in the end, they really need and love each
other – lots of laughs and a happy ending.
I’d go see that…hell, I’d like to write that.
As for other
movies I think it would be great to see Felicity in – if Hammer Films starts
making more movies again, I think it would be cool to see her in a good ol’
scary flick; I also think it would be cool if she played a crazy character in
the next Quentin Tarantino film (he said he’s doing one more at some point!);
or maybe a cool role in a James Bond film – she could be a prim and proper British
schoolmarm on the outside, but in reality is a feared crack-shot assassin who
could knock the dew off a frog’s pecker from 1000 yards away (or 914.4 meters
if you prefer)…and maybe have a cool (beautiful but deadly) name like Millicent
Marigold or Ivory Oleander. Now that I
think about it, that character would also work in a cool Tarantino film…hmmmmm…now that I
think about it some more, it would work even better for a stand-alone movie
series all its own.
My
(re)discovery of Felicity Jones may have just led to the discovery of an idea
for a new book series for me…shit-fire, I need to stop writing this blog entry and get
to work on jotting down some more ideas for this story!
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