Monday Movie ~ 50 Shades? Better = If I Were You

All the chat about Marcia Gay Harden just now centres around her role in a movie currently doing the rounds Fifty Shades of Grey , "an erotic romance" adapted from the novel of the same name by British author E. L. James, first installment in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Sigh - oh another of those. Cinema-going is getting more and more like a dragged-out annual mini-series experience these days.

We won't be seeing Fifty Shades of Grey - we can see 'em every day just by gazing upon the downy covering atop our dearest one's noggin. If this review at The Rambling Curl is a fair assessment, we'd be giving the movie a wide berth anyway!

Marcia Gay Harden is, I understand, one of Fifty Shades' pivotal characters. We watched her a few nights ago doing a great turn in a little known film now available on Netflix: If I Were You. This was a rare occasion when both husband and I enjoyed a film with equal enthusiasm. If I Were You is fun, serious and insightful all at the same time. Oddly, very oddly I thought, is the fact that Rotten Tomatoes' professional reviewers, 12 of them - 11 male, gave the movie a hefty thumbs down. The one exception, by gender and opinion, a single female critic, liked it. Hmm. Thereby could probably hang a different blog post - but I'll not bother.

If I Were You is certainly not a chick-flick in the usual sense of that description. The film has elements of farce and some darkish humour all wrapped around a serious theme of infidelity. Marcia Gay Harden carries the movie as wife of a philandering guy. Opening scenes depict her as a hapless, fairly helpless woman probably in her 40s, whose better half, she discovers, turns out to be less better than expected. She gradually develops a spine in some rather unconventional ways, in the process also teaching her husband's "pretty, ditzy young thing" a few lessons along the way, as she learns some herself. The theme is not the straightforward love triangle plot you might expect from what I've written so far. There are several unexpected twists and turns.

If any passing reader intends to seek out the movie on Netflix or other outlet carrying it, I'd advise to just watch it "cold", without reading up on plot detail. I suspect that's the best way to experience this film. We watched it that way, found it almost accidentally, when searching for a movie without beaucoup guns, violence, and CGI-ridden slam-banginess. If I Were You has no guns, no CGI, no violence, but many laughs and wry, chuckle-worthy moments.

Because sometimes Monday is for music, and I know a song of the same title as the film discussed above, here's "If I Were You", written and sung by a favourite artist, k.d. lang. After her song there's a brief interview with Jay Leno.

Diana Krall

After writing about k.d. lang yesterday, a comment from a blogging buddy led me to think about about k.d.'s fellow-Canadian singer, Diana Krall. A quick look at Diana's chart (14 November 1964, Nanaimo, Canada, time unknown)
shows some similarities with k.d.'s.
(12 noon chart shown)



Both singers' charts have an emphasis on Scorpio and Virgo, both have Venus (planet of music and the arts) in its home sign of Libra, and within a degreee of each other-Lang @ 18.57*Libra, Krall @ 19.55*Libra.

Whereas Diana Krall sticks to jazz interpretations, k.d.'s style is wider ranging, more contemporary and a little nearer to the popular market, but neither is exactly mainstream. They are both of the generation with Uranus and Pluto in Virgo, and both undoubtedly have a distinctive sound - passionate, sexy, yet still delicate. A sound liable to bring on goosebumps and curled toes. Scorpio/Virgo/Libra is a potent mix!

Here is Diana Krall singing my favourite, Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You". I think she sings it better than Joni.



and here, with Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are"

k.d. lang

There are very few singers whose albums I could play from beginning to end and enjoy every second of every track. k d lang is one of them.

She was born Kathryn Dawn Lang in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on 2 November 1961. Astrotheme gives a birth time of 2.03am.



Journalists frequently harp upon the fact that she's gay. It's irrelevant. She is an exceptional songwriter and performer, a powerful voice capable of great passion, but allied to a certain delicate sensitivity - a rare combination.

Her natal Sun lies in sexy and passionate Scorpio conjunct dreamy, imaginative Neptune, along with dynamic Mars all in 3rd house (an Air house related to communication). Her Virgo (perfectionist, workaholic) ascendant, has powerful Pluto, ruler of her Scorpio Sun close to it, with Moon and Uranus also in Virgo. This Virgo cluster must outweigh Scorpio in overall astrological strength. k.d. was included in my Virgo Dominant video.

k.d. lang blends passion and eroticism with delicacy. Mercury and Venus, conjunct Libra, add sweetness and tact to the mix. Jupiter and Saturn lie close together in common-sense Capricorn, and bring business sense to her more passionate side.

k.d.'s natal planets form a bowl configuration, spanning only Capricorn to Virgo - here is the focus which has earned her success and fame. As for polarities, her Yin(female, negative) beats Yang (male, positive) by 8 to 2.

I'll try to relate factors in her natal chart to remarks gleaned from an on-line article and an interview.

"Always an experimenter, she resists neat categorization.(Moon conjunct Uranus the rebel and innovator) But her sincerity(Virgo), charm(Libra), and compelling(Pluto, Scorpio) voice continue to attract a wide variety of listeners."

"A natural iconoclast, she has for years eschewed the use of capital letters in her name." (Moon conjunct Uranus).

".... while her musical interests have continued to evolve, in keeping with the vastness of her talent, some things about her remain consistent-her honesty, for one.(Virgo planets and Saturn in Capricorn)

"Performing is like being possessed sometimes, because when I sing and it's really on and it's Zen, I have nothing to do with what's coming out. Honestly, I don't. All I do is provide the channel. Because the voice is not really mine at all". (Sun conjunct Neptune in Scorpio - mystery, illusion, psychic phenomena)

"I want to be huge, huge, huge as an artist, but it doesn't have anything to do with fans. It's because I want to say something. It has to do with touching people. It has to do with spreading this goo that's coming out of me" (Sun (self) and Mars(dynamism) in 3rd house of communication, Pluto on the ascendant)

"I'm trying to make art that my mother will like, but to be contemporary and progressive at the same time. It's not easy." (Moon conjunct Uranus wants to be progressive, but Jupiter and Saturn in Capricorn lean towards more traditional themes)

One of k.d. lang's songs can be heard on the Virgo Dominant video linked above.
Here are two more, via YouTube. You can feel the Scorpio and Pluto in her own song, "Sexuality", and in Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"!!