My daily date with Shrek...

Do you remember my post about my daily date with Tarzan?  Well, the little man has now had a 4-day streak of requesting Shrek!  I am all for a little variety, and I am also very proud of my little man's fine taste in children's film.  He seems to really know when a movie has some level of interest for me, also:)

If you haven't seen Shrek (2001) (there may be 2 or 3 of you out there that fall into this category:), then you are really missing out on a great one.  The soundtrack is awesome, and my son sings the tunes all the time now (it is pretty affecting to hear your almost-two-year-old sing that Rufus Wainwright song, "Hallelujah", I will admit:).  I love the sassy donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy, and all of his fabulous allusions to adult humor (he also sings some pretty good tunes).  The characters all have famous voices, such as Mike Myers, John Lithgow, Vincent Cassel, and Cameron Diaz, as "Princess Fiona".  The princess is a perfect example of another really great aspect to this movie (the story and characters completely defy fairy tale norms)... She is really fun, and an ogre, and she rescues the fellas just as much as they rescue her, which is a switch from your typical Disney princess:)  I have to say, the best part of all is right at the end... the entire cast of characters erupts into a wild dance party, performing songs and group dance numbers that rival any Broadway show (as far as my son in concerned:).  They sing excerpts from "Like A Virgin", "Baby Got Back", "So Happy Together", "Dance to the Music", and "Feelings", just to name a few:)  I hope that you rediscover this modern classic, and that your kids like it as much as I... I mean, my son, does! (oh, yeah!  and check out the sequels, too!)

Great Gift Idea...

For those of my dear friends and movie-lovers out there, here is a really wonderful box-set that would make a fantastic gift for just about anybody on your list!  With the upcoming holidays (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way!  I was cooking all day, and I hope that you all enjoyed the food as much as I did today:), I thought that I should toss a couple of good gift ideas out there for the movie-buff on your shopping list.  This series was given to my family by my wonderful mother-in-law, who always gives us amazing presents.  We all love it, including my little kiddo.  He will watch it over and over again, which is his favorite movie-watching style, but still, it is really great to own.

*Planet Earth and the Blue Planet (2006), put out by the BBC and shown on the Discovery Channel, also narrated by David Attenborough.  This series demonstrates the most amazing achievements in natural film-making.  The documentary style is perfectly executed, and there are creatures, environments, and acts of nature captured here that have never been seen before.  The music is beautiful and mesmerizing.   Our personal favorite is the under-water half of the series (the Blue Planet).  Whether you are interested in nature, film-making, music, or science, you will find a favorite in this set (it will totally impress your eco-friendly relatives, also:).  It is captivating.  

Masterpiece Theatre

So, for the past few weeks, I have really been missing my Masterpiece Theatre flicks on Sunday nights.  My husband and I always watch, but they go through cycles of showing period- dramas, mystery series, and special documentaries.  Lately, there has been a JFK doc. series, and I have about zero interest in that!  Hah!  

To fulfill my need for BBC dramas, I netflixed (I love this verb:) a couple of past BBC classics, and I struck gold.  Pure, cinematic, period- drama gold.  I watched two films based on novels by two of my favorite 19th- century British writers.  Thomas Hardy is actually my favorite writer of all time, which often surprises some people, but I was given an early appreciation for his merits by my Uncle T., who is an avid reader and lover of great literature:)  He gave me copies of T. Hardy's complete works when I was in middle school, and I never looked back!  I hope that you all enjoy these (they are low-budget, and star very intellectual and stage-worthy actors), especially if you love the more mainstream, larger- budget films that have been made based on the works  of Jane Austen.

1) The Turn of the Screw (1999), based on the Henry James novel, starring Colin Firth and Jodhi May (you may remember her as the younger sister, Alice, in the film The Last of the Mohicans...if you remember anything other than Daniel Day Lewis:).  This film actually follows one of the creepiest patterns for ghost stories, centering around some really spooky, possibly-possessed children, and their poor, frazzled, daughter-of-a-parson governess.  Two little blond kids that behave a little too well would definitely give me cause for concern:)  James delivers ghosts and even hints at possible past sexual abuse in the novel, which is more than implied in this adaptation.  I really enjoyed this version, and thought that Jodhi May did a great job of capturing the governess' frenzy.  You may be surprised at who the real scary character turns out to be...

2) The Mayor of Casterbridge (2001), based on the amazing book by Thomas Hardy (my all-time favorite writer), and starring Ciaran Hinds and Jodhi May (again, visions of Daniel Day Lewis dance in my head:).  Ciaran Hinds has been in so many great BBC dramas, and it would be a really easy way to target some Netflix rentals to simply search out his past performances.  In this tale, Hinds plays a man who committed such egregious errors in his past, that no amount of virtue, responsibility, or good work can ever atone.  He must face his past demons in his middle age, and his life seems to collapse around him.  Truly a moral tale about reaping what one sows, and all that.  Like all Thomas Hardy stories, this one is a bit of a "downer", but it really is powerful, and well acted.  Hardy likes to find a hero in the common, uneducated people of the English countryside, and often pits them against the corruption of the elite classes.  His books always have amazing descriptions of the surrounding country (he was regarded as a naturalist writer and poet), also, in case that is your bag, baby.  I hope that you all check this one out, as Hardy is often under-appreciated:)

New in Theatres...

So, I went last night to see the new, hyped-up movie Twilight, based on the wildly-popular series of books by Stephanie Meyer (I have read them all, and they are really great:).  My husband is even enjoying them (he is just finishing book 2), and that is saying something for a mostly-popular-with-teen-girlies novel.  I had very mixed feelings about seeing a film based on a series that I have enjoyed so thoroughly, but as I had a chance to go with a fabulous bunch of ladies (you know who you are...holla!), and I really never pass up a movie-going venture, I went out on opening weekend to see the latest blockbuster.  

*Twilight (2008), directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.  Hardwicke is a really good director, and has several amazing films under her belt, especially focusing on modern, teenage themes (ie. Thirteen, The Lords of Dogtown, etc.), and has also done the production design for several great flicks, which gave me a pretty high expectation for the coolness factor of this movie.  While I did enjoy many aspects of the film (the casting was surprisingly good, except for the Rosalie and Jasper characters, and the sets were beautiful), other parts of the film were so distractingly wrong that I couldn't just enjoy the experience.  I went in with the plan of setting aside my preconceived images of the story, set up to be an optimistic viewer, and the strangest things kept getting in my way!  For a movie for the teen-set, the love scenes were totally awkward and stiff, giving only one moment to the god of chemistry, and the music (crucial to a film for this age-group) was so loud and disturbing, even through scenes of intense conversation, that I could barely concentrate on the plot at hand.  Over all, the two main characters were very well-cast and appealing, despite bad make-up and dialogue, and really bad special effects (I knew that this would be tough, given that so much of the book is Bella's internal monologue).  I am glad that I went to see this film, but I can't help but feel disappointed, considering that the film-makers got so much right, and such stupid things wrong:(  I fully expected a new vampire movie to go above and beyond the range of Interview With the Vampire, but it seems that technology has only gone backward in effect.

One more complaint, and then I will cease my whining:  Are there no natural blondes to be found in young hollywood?  I mean, is it too much to ask, in a film that requires several uber-beautiful, blonde, pale vampire characters, that one of them not have a wretched dye job?  It was as if they found the darkest haired, most brunette-y actors and gave them a bleach job from a drugstore box of Clairol!  Very strange, especially coming from the land of sunshine:)

Anywho, sorry for the downer, and I truly hope that you are able to overlook some of these flaws, and enjoy the movie.  Better yet, skip the movie, and enjoy the books!!

Spotlight on a Great Director

I think that it is really important to pay attention to film direction, as opposed to choosing films based on the actors involved.  I usually find that I enjoy several films by the same director, and often find little correlation between an actor's film choices and performances (ie.  I love Luke Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums and Bottle Rocket, but really hate him in Legally Blonde... the movies are totally different, and the roles are completely unrelated... by the same token, I love almost every movie that Martin Scorsese has ever directed, and they all carry some common elements of style that are quintessential to him, as a director.)One of my current favorite directors is completely changing the standard for special effects and has an entirely innovative style and background.  His films bring imagination to life more completely than any other, and while so many directors fail to realize a story that people already care deeply about, this man makes the story real. I find that Peter Jackson and Clint Eastwood also fit this description, but don't make quite as dramatic an impact as Guillermo del Torro.

*Guillermo Del Torro was born in 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and is one of few famous directors to ever bridge the gap between the Mexican and American film industry.  In many cases, Mexican films are remade into American films, often replacing the actors for Hollywood A-listers, and following the exact story-line of the originals (ie. El Mariachi (1992) was remade into Desperado (1995) by Robert Rodriguez, trading mexican actors for Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, who is in fact Mexican, but certainly has transcended the cultural barrier.)  Del Torro has succeeded in creating brilliant and wildly successful films, both in Spanish and in English.  His most famous, award-winning spanish-language film thus far has been 

El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth, 2006), which is amazing and magical, and feels like

 watching a dream, complete with horrifying nightmare-monsters and beautiful, mythical storytelling.  The actors are also brilliant, and bring several great Spanish leading-ladies to American attention.   I also enjoyed The Devil's Backbone (2001), which follows a very classic style of Spanish film, detailing life during the Spanish Civil War, and highlights themes of magical realism and superstition against the harsh reality and catholic traditional belief system of the time.  The film is really a ghost story that takes place in an orphanage, which also follows another of del Torro's typical themes... a child as the central, heroic figure.

I, like many Americans, have also been amazed at GdT's ability to create a perfect american blockbuster.  His direction of the Hellboy (I in 2004, and II in 2008) series captures the true magic of the graphic-novel-based story, and I really doubt that any other contemporary director could have acheived the amazing effects that these films had in abundance.  Of course, no director is complete without a few reappearing actors, such as Doug Jones for GdT.  I mean, come on, let's face it,... Jones plays about every physically complicated character in any given GdT flick, so he is pretty special and essential to both the success and the impact of the film:)

For the record, I recommend GdT to anyone who wants to see crowd-pleasing, yet intelligent films, and I really advise those who have only seen Hellboy to view some of GdT's spanish-language films.  They are even more surreal.

GdT, el Gusto es mio!

(the many faces of Doug Jones, my friends)

Tear-jerkers

I really have always loved a "good cry".  Just ask my mom:)

I am not so much in favor of the really obvious "tear-jerker" movies, like Terms of Endearment, Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes, or An Affair to Remember.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly have enjoyed those movies, and others of that ilk, but I prefer the kinds of movies that make you cry from happiness:)  I mean, I cry a lot, and during movies like Love Actually, Little Women, Babe, A Very Long Engagement, Roman Holiday, Il Postino and Four Weddings and a Funeral, all of which aren't inherently depressing or tragic movies.  (BTW.  I just listed a bunch of my all-time favorite flicks there, so go ahead and add them to your Queue... they are all winners:).  Here are two of my favorite tear-jerkers of all time, and I hope that you stock up on the Kleenexes before you get in too deep...

1) Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), directed by Robert Benton, and starring the incredible pairing of Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.  I mean, is that a dynamic duo, or what?  This movie is amazing, following a father and son, struggling to take care of each other, following the mother's sudden abandonment.  I can no longer enjoy french toast because of associations from this brilliant film.   Divorce issues are so scary, and this movie attacks the idea that mothers should always get first dibs on their children in a custody battle.  It is a total sob-fest, down to Hoffman defending the right of fathers to raise their children, and explaining why he is a good father to the court.   The conclusion is beautiful and mature, so definitely go for this one if you want to confuse your kids with sudden affection and enthusiasm about mundane daily activities:)  The crying over french toast must be really strange for my kiddo:)

2) Baby Boom (1987),

 directed by Charles Shyer, and starring the always-neurotic, mildly annoying Diane Keaton (sorry if I have deeply offended you on that one, but I can't like everybody!) and that studly Sam Shepard (btw. he writes wonderful plays... check them out!).   I really love this take on stay-at-home-mom-hood, as a SAHM myself, and I totally sympathize with the sudden isolation and need for creative outlets (making a huge homemade baby-food  corporation?  not quite... but I like to blog and make arts and crafts:).  So, the crying comes in for me as Keaton comes to love her life and her adopted daughter, despite the change in her ambitions.  When she comes home near the end, and the baby says, "Mama!", I lose it every time.  I also completely believe that any woman, given the chance, would fall in love with a veterinarian from Vermont as opposed to a Fortune-500 businessman.  So put that in your pipe and smoke it:)

Kitschy B-List Horror

The Strangers (2008), written and directed by Bryan Bentino, and starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.  As usual, the classic horror movie is never complete without a hot couple at a secluded summer home.   Terrifying and almost too realistic, The Strangers was a very suspenseful and uber-graphic flick.  I also have to add, without giving anything away (since I hate to write any spoilers), that vintage masks are the creepiest, and vacation homes are always the site of brutal murder (why buy them?).  I guess it must be the irony of being killed while on your vacation, but I have to say, I always think that the characters in this type of film are totally moronic (they always allow themselves to be separated, they never know how to fire a weapon, and they never lock the doors or have charged cell-phones).  I mean, who is that unlucky?  Maybe all of these movies rely on the worst-case-scenario, but it is usually highly amusing for me to watch the main character follow the exact path of least resistance toward their destruction:)  If you are interested in yet another psycho-killer-in-the-woods flick, then please, look no further:)