Happy Halloween!!

 Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are back to watching and sharing about comfy cozy (and sometimes, chilling) movies for the fall season. Feel free to join in with us!! Our link will be live for a whole week after we post about a movie. You can read Lisa’s post about Dracula here! This week was a wild card freebie week!

This week’s comfy cozy movie is Practical Magic, starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Diane Wiest, and Stockard Channing, all of whom are perfectly witchy witchy.

First, let me say that this movie had the best 90s vibes! It took me right back to my youth, being a teen/young adult in the 90s. The clothes alone – my own wardrobe could have stepped out of this movie back then, and was a blast from the past to see again onscreen. I mean, those dresses. I would have worn mine with Dr. Martens though. And those shorts with that tee? I think I had so many of those type shirts back then! I would probably still wear the green dress and cardigan look there honestly.

This image is from Pinterest by way of the Nightswimming Tumblr.

I was always more of a Sally than a Gillian.

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, let’s go on.

Quick summary: Raised by their aunts after their parents’ death from a family curse, the sisters were taught the uses of practical magic as they grew up. As adults, Sally and Gillian must use their magic to destroy the evil spirit of Gillian’s abusive boyfriend before it kills them.

This movie is about, well, witches. The Owens women have always been witches, and everyone knows it. Growing up Sally and Gillian were shouted at by kids in the street, and watched their eclectic aunts, Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet, meddled in the love lives of others, mostly upon request.

They also lived under a family curse, one that states that any man that they fall in love with will die young. Love to Sally looks too dangerous, unpredictable, and tragic, and she vows to never fall in love. Gillian on the other hand is her complete opposite, and can’t wait to embrace that roller coaster that they see played out before them in their aunt’s kitchen whenever the lovelorn come calling. Sally even casts a love spell on herself, creating the perfect man who can never exist, full of qualities like two different colored eyes, one blue and one green and who can flip pancakes in the air, because if the perfect man can never exist, then she is safe and can never fall in love. Or so she thinks.

The sisters go their separate ways in life, with Sally living a quiet life on the island with her aunts, and eventually getting married and having babies, and swearing to live normally and without magic. Gillian is off on wild adventures, but the two keep in touch, writing long honest and open letters to each other. While they are not close in distance, they are close in spirit.

And that is my favorite part of this movie. Their sisterhood, their relationship. They are each other’s ride or die, the one you would do anything for. They are there for each other, and in one of my favorite parts of the movie, Gillian returns to town for just one night, when she senses her sister needs her, and they spend the night just talking and talking and laughing. When Sally wakes up the next day her sister is gone, like it was all just a dream.

This movie is full of cozy aesthetic – the big old Victorian, the beautiful garden, Sally’s shop, the cozy looking cardigans, the quaint village (full of jerks but whatever it is pretty),cats, the fact that Gillian never wore shoes, that GREENHOUSE, eating cake for breakfast, and of course midnight margaritas! (fun fact: they all were actually drunk in that scene) Just so many quirky weird little things. I love that kind of stuff.

But then there is the other side of the coin, as there always is. Darkness, anger, grief, sadness. The balance that is life, ups and downs, good and bad. And the real magic is how we get through those times, with help from those we love, from our family, from our friends.

Is this a great movie, on par with Rear Window? No. Was it a fun movie from my youth? Yes, 100%. Billy and I loved rewatching it together the other night (because you KNOW I dragged him to the theater to see it with me in 1998), and joked about getting up for a midnight margarita at 8pm but then opted for ginger tea instead. Ah the difference time makes.

And remember: “Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”

If you watched anything this week link up with us! This week is wild card week! This link will be open for a week.

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Next up: Skylark. This movie is free to watch streaming on Roku!