Midterm Week, Movie Week

Last week was midterms at my school. With this being high school, midterms mean basically nothing except that our current grades are emailed to our parents, sent home with us at homeroom, and mailed to our house. (Trees, you're being well spent.) Because this midterm not only marked the half-way point of the trimester, but also the whole school year, I decided to treat myself to a little movie marathon. I just got my laptop back from the laptop repair place, which was there for the sole purpose of fixing the CD drive so I could play movies, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to watch all of the freaking movies I got for Christmas.

Wednesday: Revolutionary Road

It's definitely well written, directed, and acted out, so it's a good movie. Revolutionary Road is just really sad, though. I mean, even with Leonardo DiCaprio in it, it was just not a very happy movie.

Thursday: Something's Gotta Give

I've actually been meaning to blog about this movie for a while. I started one up in September, but couldn't really pull anything good from the little amount I had written. The truth is that it's just a good, quirky movie. It's pretty much just a romantic comedy for older people. I'm guessing they'll be able to relate to what happens with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton's characters better than maybe I did, because they have heart attacks and children and taxing jobs and stuff.

Friday: Midnight in Paris

So, yeah, I've blogged about this one already, but I still don't get why my sister and mom don't like it. I think it's a great movie and pretty much everything else I said in the other post, which pretty much sums it all up.

Saturday: Dr. No

I would have to say that old James Bond is so freaking classic that I like it better than current James Bond (sorry, DCraig). Even when someone shoots a gun and it sounds like a knock on a door or when Bond flips someone over in such a believable way, I just love this freaking movie and the whole franchise.

Sunday: (Break for Golden Globes)

Monday: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

I'm not talking about the 1999 film starring Johnny Depp. That's just Sleepy Hollow. Nor was this a movie I got for Christmas. This was just a ridiculous play I was in in eighth grade (way back when) and had been avoiding watching for three years and then tried to but my laptop wouldn't play movies. Now that I could watch it in the privacy of my own room, I bit the bullet (is that an actual saying?). I laughed and cried the whole time just because of how awful it was. It was really bad and Johnny Depp wasn't even in the movie. Needless to say I immediately burned the film after finishing.

Tuesday: Star Trek

This is one of those movies which I watched only for the attractive men but stayed for the crazy ass plot and humor. And I think I watched it about five times in February of last year alone.

So a very productive few days, over all.

I've got 99 problems and emotional scarring is one of them

I don't think I've ever mentioned how good my parents are at what they do. Not their jobs, but raising me and my sisters. Once my mom left my sister in the HyVee parking lot when she was really young. My dad once picked up our overweight cat and sat her onto my bare leg, for which I still have a scar from her claws. A few years ago my other sister was challenged by my father to ride down a steep hill, covered with bumps and trees which led straight to a busy road, on which she wiped out. And one time my parents double-teamed the three of us by taking us to see an emotionally-scarring movie.

My mom was out of the house and my dad told my sisters and me to get into the car; we were going to Menards to get our grandpa a gift. Of course, three young girls didn't want to spend their day at a tool store, so we whined and complained but still ended up in the Mercury Sable. On our way to Menards, our dad suddenly pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater and told us, guess what? We were going to see a movie! My sisters and I squealed with excitement (eh, probably); which movie were we going to see? Chicken Little? Zathura?

"Nope." my father said. "We're going to see King Kong!"

We just sat quietly for a second or two.

"Um, what?" I'm pretty sure each of us asked. Our astonishment came from the PG-13 rating. I mean, while my older sisters were twelve (with the bravery of a six-year-old) and fifteen at this time, but I was only nine and we all still thought the movie was rated-R. We asked if we could see something else.

"Your mom's already in the theater waiting for us. She bought the tickets this morning."

So we were stuck.

To this day I still have no idea why my parents thought it was a good idea to take their young daughters to a movie rated because of "frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images", especially since my mom made me sit on her lap the whole time and kept covering my eyes when someone's head got bitten off by a giant caterpillar or something.

King Kong was okay, though. The three hours (seriously, Peter Jackson? Three hours?) of these filmmaker characters fighting some big-ass bugs and the infamous gorilla and that infamous gorilla fighting some dinosaurs wasn't a complete loss of time and innocence. After all, Adrien Brody was in it.

I still would've rather seen Chicken Little.

I've got 99 problems but Disney ain't one of them

It's true that my childhood was filled with ball sacks of Disney movies. Like, tons, but a few of my favorite animated movies when I was a kid (and now even) weren't Disney at all. Instead, I watched The Road to El Dorado (2000, Dreamworks), The Prince of Egypt (1998, Dreamworks), and Anastasia (1997, 20th Century Fox). These movies have basically two things in common: their awesome soundtracks and blatantly obvious historical inaccuracy.

Take, for instance, the story of Miguel and Tulio, two Spaniards in the sixteenth century looking for the Lost City of Gold, El Dorado. They find it, are mistaken by the natives for gods, and reap the rewards. Then there's the movie interpretation of the Book of Exodus, the second in the Bible, which takes some liberties in changing a few things. And lastly, the story of the last Romanov, Anastasia, which is actually based on an urban legend which says that the last emperor of Russia's daughter survived the whole family's execution.

I mean, I think the stories are really cool and fun and also slightly misleading but who cares? No one wants to watch a boring documentary about an urban legend that's totally fiction; they want to watch an adventurous movie about two people who find a city full of gold or a lost princess who's reunited with her grandmother in Paris or, you know, Moses doing crazy shit.

The thing I love doing with children's movies, besides watching them again and again, is singing all parts of each chorus song in my best impression of each character. Not only is it super fun to do, but I'm pretty sure it's completely painful to listen to.

These three movies are made through their songs. Elton John worked on TRtED and helped write my favorites: "The Trail We Blaze" and "It’s Tough to Be a God". Composer Hans Zimmer worked on The Prince of Egypt and arranged both instrumentals and some songs with lyrics, like "Deliver Us" and "All I Ever Wanted". Anastasia pretty much had no one of recognition arrange or compose anything, but it still had some darn good songs such as "Once Upon a December" and "In the Dark of the Night".

So there's probably a great, decently poetic and moving, message to come out of this post and I'm just too lazy to get it into words. Let's just keep it with:

You should definitely not judge a movie by it's obvious flaws but instead by it's amazing music.

Beautiful.

Well it's not like we expected her to find anyone...

It starts when we’re young. We have a blanket we can’t go to sleep without. Our stuffed animals are our best friends. We have an attachment to inanimate objects.
It’s completely normal for kids to have it. There comes a time, though, when each kid grows up. They go all Toy Story 3 on their once-cherished teddy bears and safety blankets. And, sure, maybe there’s the occasional pep-talking a car through a blizzard, but most interaction for adults comes from real people: classmates, comrades, elders. (Although in this day and age it’s pretty likely to also come from a tiny beeping rectangle in your pocket, amiright?)
In 2007, Ryan Gosling starred as the title character in the dramedy, Lars and the Real Girl. Quite far from his dangerously handsome, romcom roles, Gosling plays the socially inept Lars who falls for Bianca, a lifelike blow up doll he ordered off the internet. Lars’ brother (Gus), his wife (Karin), and the whole town are completely shocked and somewhat disturbed by his affixation. The ending is a total downer that pretty much made me reassess everything in my life.
The first time I watched LatRG, I was pretty weirded out…and sad. I felt bad for Gosling’s character, who was so reliant on this plastic bag filled with air. I mean, if he was like, twenty years younger and the object was perhaps a less-creepy, less sex-dolly version of Bianca, there would be no movie; it would’ve been a normal story of a boy and his beloved Barbie. (Get your gender-typed ass out of here.)
I don’t want to get into the psychology of it all, but the story of Lars’ life reminded me of my own. I mean, I don’t still talk to my stuffed animals; actually they’re all in a plastic bag in my basement, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure my nineteen year old sister, Karalee, still does. She has three main stuffed animals: a creepy, giant baby named Dill from Rugrats, a panda bear named China (racist), and a blue bear aptly named Blue Bear. I guess she also has some weird whale, stingray-thing named Kenzo and a carrot named Carrotlee. They must go to college with her because I don’t see them a lot. The rest of her childhood stuffed animals sit on a shelf on the opposite side of her room as her bed; she sits them so that they don’t face her. (God forbid they should watch her sleep.)
Of course, this doesn’t mean my sister will become the female version of Lars. But, actually, she loves this Japanese TV series called Absolute Boyfriend, in which this girl signs up for a trial and gets a robot boyfriend in the mail and he’s like, the perfect mate. Holy crap, does this mean I’m Gus?

Insert Pun About Christmas Here

Tradition is a word used a lot this time of the year. Obviously people have traditions during different times of the year, but Christmas is so big that it’s hard for anyone one year to just be like, “Oh, I think I’ll skip everything about Christmas this year.” It’s not like in the movies where the hard-working, non-observant parent tells the kid they won’t be home for Christmas and the squirt whines, “But it’s a traditioooonnnnn.” Even my helluva-inconsistent family keeps some things sacred in December.

For a few good years now, my family and I have had the tradition of, after Christmas Eve service at my church, getting Tomaso’s Pizza and watching a movie together. The pizza, I’m sure, is just so that my mom doesn't have to cook/put anything from the freezer in the big, hot box in the kitchen I don’t go near, but the movie is just something to keep the fam together for a little while during the most hectic season of the year.

These movies rarely have anything to do with the next day, although I’m pretty sure what we had in mind when this tradition was made is that every year it would be a Christmas movie. (But frankly, the only two holiday movies we owned would’ve gotten old very quickly). Since we usually need a consensus on the choice of movie, it can definitely take a while to choose one. (Ah, the traditional Christmas Eve pre-movie fight.)

A Christmas Story and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (both eighties movies that my parents swore were the bee’s knees when they showed us that were really just weird, if not slightly disturbing and awkward) were included in the first few years, I think. After that we ventured out to Over the Hedge, Wall-E, and Up. This isn’t a time for hard-hitters, but it’s still nice for us to all sit together and all of that sappy shit. Also, the fact that we’re pretty much just sitting and staring at a screen drastically minimizes the chance we’ll start fighting. After the movie ends everything is free game, though. (Ah, the traditional Christmas Eve post-movie fight.)

Traditions are a pretty awesome thing. They let us reflect on the good times we’ve had and, for all of you obsessive-compulsives out there, set up a pattern that shouldn’t be messed with. Otherwise you get things like silver Christmas trees, which are just a crime against nature.

Only a Last Resort

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live as equals with walking, talking bears? Well then maybe you should reassess your goals, because I, for one, have always and had a glimpse into what this life would be like when I watched Disney's The Country Bears.

I had seen it before, a few times actually, when I was younger. Even then I knew that it was an absolutely ridiculous movie. I mean, it's just Earth, but with some very evolved bears that are just like humans. Like humans, they speak the native language, wear clothes (except for pants, sometimes), and start bands.

The movie starts out with Beary, a young bear questioning his place in his family full of humans. For some reason he leaves without notice to go and see his the sight of his favorite band's, The Country Bears, last performance at Country Bear Hall. Beary finds out that the hall is about to be demolished, so he sets out again to get the band back together with hopes that they can play and save the building.

Being the first time I've watched it I-don't-know-how-many years, I was actually pretty surprised at how much it wasn't completely eye-gougingly bad (except for the music. That was still awful beyond belief). Even though TCB is rated-G, that didn't stop anyone from writing in jokes like how one of the bears “never got off the honey”, which I enjoyed. I think that the epic-ridiculousness of it added to the humor.

And okay, yeah, it's not a “thinker” like Inception or V for Vendetta, but you have to get past the fact that this so simple and filled with politically-incorrect bears who live like humans (now that I think about it, it's super disturbing. I mean, bears are still mauling people today and this movie just shows them living together. It's not a nice thought or hope for the future; it's just creepy) and just watch it. Or don't. I'm definitely not recommending anyone to watch this, because you'll probably end up coming to my house with armfuls of rotten tomatoes.

So maybe you shouldn't watch The Country Bears. And maybe you shouldn't show your kids because it's pretty freaky and possibly scarring. But if you ever just don't have any plans on a Friday night (as I often don't), don't spend it crying yourself to sleep; go ahead and watch the movie and you'll feel better about your life immediately because it's bound to be better than the writers' after The Country Bears came out.

Mom, you watched that last week...

In my basement there's a shelf stacked with dozens and dozens of movies that cover every genre and star almost every known actor and actress in Hollywood. Yet whenever my mom wants to watch a movie during the weekend, she pretty much always chooses the same two: The Mask of Zorro (1998) and The Mummy (1999).

I get it; we all have our favorite movies. But isn't there a point (possibly somewhere between the sixth and seventh rewatch in a year) when we just get sick of the same movie over and over? I mean, hell yes, I love Blood Diamond, but if I watched it more than once or twice a year I think I would just get sick of it. Seeing Elf even once a year is bordering on too much. My mom seems to have some immunity to this, though.

I interviewed her to try to find out what was up.

As it turns out, I'm an awful interviewer. Not only was I unprepared to the point where I kept repeating the same question over and over in different ways, hoping something new would come up, but I also didn't figure anything new out.

Pretty much the reason my mom watches The Mummy and The Mask of Zorro so often is because, “They're exciting...I like Antonio Banderas”. (Ummm, who doesn't?)

I asked her why she bought each movie in the first place. “I bought [The Mask of Zorro] because it was cheap. It's got...historical fiction and it's funny and there's romance it in and action and adventure.”

When asked what her favorite thing about The Mummy was, she said “the mummies”. (How fascinating!)

My mom claimed that she actually doesn't watch Zorro that often, which I totally don't believe. I've only watched it with her half of the times she has and I can recognize the soundtrack from a different room. (Okay, maybe I've seen the movie a few too many times.) She said her favorite movie was more along the lines of Ever After. (All right, that's a pretty good one she watches a lot, but it's way too far into this post to add it in.)

So whether it's just an immunity to getting tired of the same movie over and over or maybe just my mom getting too old to remember what the movies are about, I didn't figure a lot out. As she said, “You suck at this for sure.”