12 Movies Challenge: 'Morning Glory'

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist.

by Julian Spivey
In December I saw something called the “12 Movies Challenge” on Facebook. The premise was that you would have 12 months to watch 12 movies recommended by 12 friends. I don’t often participate in such social media challenges but being a movie buff I felt this might be an interesting way to get out of my comfort zone a bit when it comes to watching movies.

My Facebook buds gave me some films that I’ve been meaning to watch and I pretty much front-loaded those on the list – though not explicitly stated in the challenge rules I am opting to watch one film a month.

A Best Picture winner like “Out of Africa” is an obvious choice for me to get to at some point – that point is now going to be March of this year. But there are certain movies I’m not really looking forward to all that much – I’m looking at you “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” my August selection. Then there’s the acclaimed stuff that isn’t really up my alley like the anime feature “Spirited Away,” which I’ve scheduled for November. That will truly be me getting out of my comfort zone.
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Here are the 12 movies recommended to me and the months I’ve assigned myself to watch them:
 
January: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (1983)
February: “Till” (2022)
March: “Out of Africa” (1985)
April: “Legally Blonde” (2001)
May: “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006)
June: “The Birdcage” (1996)
July: “Morning Glory” (2010)
August: “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (1966)
September: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006)
October: “Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975)
November: “Spirited Away” (2001)
December: “The Last Laugh” (1924) 

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Photo: Paramount Pictures

​I’m not going to lie, my recommendation for July in my 12 Recommended Movies Challenge is the one I’ve been dreading the most all year simply for the fact that out of all 12 movies recommended to me at the end of last year, it’s the only one with a “rotten” rating (55 percent) on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, that doesn’t mean a whole lot – I’ve enjoyed movies with “rotten” ratings before and I certainly didn’t enjoy “The Devil Wears Prada” in May despite it having a “fresh” rating among a consensus of critics.

I take critical assessment seriously as someone who wants to watch as many good movies as possible and doesn’t like to spend time on the rest, but ultimately we’re going to like what we like and dislike what we dislike.

When it comes to director Roger Michell’s 2010 workplace/romance comedy “Morning Glory,” written by Aline Brosh McKenna, I found myself agreeing with the critics on this one. I didn’t enjoy it for a few reasons I’ll get to in a bit, but let’s start with the positive … Rachel McAdams.

I haven’t seen McAdams in too many films. I saw the stupid Rob Schneider comedy “The Hot Chick” and the overly dramatic sob story “The Notebook” in high school half a life ago. I saw her in “Wedding Crashers,” also many years ago, but until looking at her filmography now I had no recollection of her being in the movie.  In fact, I hadn’t seen McAdams in anything since Woody Allen’s 2011 Best Picture nominee “Midnight In Paris,” which I liked quite well but don’t remember much about McAdams’ performance.

As morning show producer Becky Fuller in “Morning Glory,” McAdams is very lovely. She’s funny, she’s interesting, and she’s more than capable of pulling off the performance of such an authority figure when the film lets her, we see this almost from the start when she fires Ty Burrell’s chauvinistic, perverted co-anchor Paul McVee in her very first staff meeting. At this point in the film, “Morning Glory” felt like it might be a fun workplace comedy about a smart, hardworking woman coming into a job and saving it – and part of the film is that – I just wish it had been the only focus.

Once the rom-com part of the story comes in with Patrick Wilson’s Adam Bennett, another producer at the IBS (really, guys, don’t y’all know what that stands for?!) Network, the movie loses its way a bit – and idiotically turns Becky into a bumbling fool. Can one be a strong, hardworking woman and a bumbling fool in certain situations? Yes, I imagine so. But, for me, those aspects played against each other.

But that wasn’t my biggest issue with “Morning Glory.” My biggest issue is Harrison Ford and some of the most egregious, unbelievable over-acting I’ve ever seen committed to film. I don’t even know that Ford was just miscast in the role. But for some reason, he chose to play his gruff newsman Mike Pomeroy far too aggressively. Yes, the character is a grizzled serious news reporter, but I half expected Ford to break out a line of: “Get off my set!” in the same vein as he does as the President of the United States in the action film “Air Force One.”

I don’t feel like “Morning Glory” gets enough use out of Diane Keaton as the long-running co-host of the morning program a la “The Today Show,” but with much worse ratings. Her trying to one-up Pomeroy, especially with the final goodbye of the broadcast, was one of my favorite parts of the film though.

“Morning Glory” was recommended by my friend Cassey, for whom it’s a feel-good movie. I’m sure it is for a great many viewers – one of the first things you see when you Google it is: “Funny, Feel-good and wry.” If it’s a feel-good watch for you too, please enjoy it.

My August recommendation will be the 1966 comedy “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” starring Don Knotts. I enjoyed Knotts’s Emmy-winning performance on the classic ‘60s TV series “The Andy Griffith Show,” but I’m curious to see how that slapstick lunacy translates to feature length. I see the script was written by veteran TV writers Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, who wrote some of my favorite episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show” and “M*A*S*H.” That’s promising.