Week 29 – Sister Act (1992)

• Sister Act
• Released: 5/29/1992
• Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Kathie Najimy, Wendy Makkena, Mary Wickes, Harvey Keitel, Bill Nun, Joseph Maher
• Director: Emile Ardolino
• IMDB Page

Welcome back to another week of 52 Films, 52 Portraits! We have moved right through the halfway point and are almost to week 30! Craziness!

This week’s film was chosen by my aunt, Sally. Sally is married to my uncle Mark, and lives with him in Grove City, PA. She and Mark have four sons, all of whom will be appearing on this blog in the weeks to come.

Sally, Mark, 3 of their boys (Max, Kevin and Samuel), and their pups (Baxter and Toby) at Christmas ’15!

Sally was NOT one of the people that had an easy time picking a movie. It wasn’t for lack of choices – she just couldn’t decide which to choose. From the time that I told her about the project to the time that I locked in all of the answers, she had switched movies at least 2 or 3 times. I enjoyed seeing all of the different movies she considered, and many of them would have been great choices for the project.

Despite this, Sally told me that she does not consider herself to be a very big movie fan. She said that there is the occasional film that grabs her interest or is suggested to her and she will go to see it, but that she is not someone you’d want “on your team for Trivial Pursuit” when it comes to the movie industry related questions. Still, many films have made an impression on her through the years. One of her earliest movie-going memories was to see Gone With the Wind with her mother during one of its many rereleases. Her mother had been a big fan of the book and Sally can still remember seeing how excited she was to see the adaptation on the big screen with her daughter. Sharing films with your children is something that she kept with her, and she fondly remembers seeing many of the animated 90s hit films with her sons when they were children. These films include Toy Story, The Lion King and Mulan.

Nowadays, if she does get to watch a film, Sally’s favorite genre is Comedy. However, she notes that what makes others laugh aren’t always the same things that make her laugh. When she does find a film that makes her laugh, though, it’s her favorite type of movie experience. She name-checked Sandra Bullock as an actress that can almost always make her laugh, and someone whose films, especially comedic ones, are very often enjoyable for her. Moving away from the comedy genre, she also named Denzel Washington as one of her favorite performers and listed Remember the Titans as another of her favorite films and told me that she would really like to see Fences, although she hasn’t been able to yet.

Sally said that she feels that while film is a great story telling device, she almost always tries to read the book first in cases of films adapted from the page. In almost every instance, she finds that she enjoys the book more, but she does believe that film has its own merits as a story telling device. One example she gave of enjoying a film being equal to it’s source material was The Help.

As I mentioned above, when it came time to choose a film for this project, Sally changed her mind a number of times. One of the main films that she almost committed to was the Disney classic Fantasia. She told me that she just loves so many aspects of the film. She loves the animation, the music and the fact that its audience is “ageless.” She said that it is a film that she can watch over and over and still find reasons to love.

The film that Sally picked before I locked in her answer was Sister Act. She told me that she chose Sister Act because it is one of those films that is just able to make her laugh. She also loves the music and is always drawn to film and live shows that feature singing. She said that she likes Whoopi Goldberg and finds her to be a good and funny actress. She also said that she loves it because it has that timeless quality that a lot of great films have and that it is a film that she can watch more than once and still enjoy. It’s just one of her go-to movies, to the point that she isn’t even sure anymore when she saw it for the first time.

I was super excited to watch Sister Act this week. It’s a film that I grew up really liking when I was younger, but I was actually more familiar with it’s sequel. It’s been many years since I’ve seen the first Sister Act in it’s entirety, and it was as good as I remembered. It was funny and heartwarming and the music was great. I love a good fish-out-of-water story and Whoopi Goldberg really brought that to life as Deloris.

Of course the rest of the cast was fantastic as well. Maggie Smith is always phenomenal and I have a soft spot for Kathy Najimy in my 90s nostalgia loving heart. And obviously I loved Wendy Makkena as Sister Mary Robert, the mousy nun with the big voice.

Like Sally, I love musicals, so this was an especially fun film to watch because of that. Any time that I get to watch a group of people band together and overcome obstacles through singing, I’m gonna be there to enjoy it, and this film has that in spades. It’s also just so wonderfully 90s while still maintaining the timeless aspects that Sally referenced. There’s so much of the film that is so nostalgic for me, but the film as a whole could really be put in so many different decades and still completely work with just some slight retooling.

Now I want to go watch Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (which, by the way, has to be one of the best sequel titles of all time).

Thanks for joining me! Please comment with your thoughts and follow below!

Next week: Best in Show