Horton Hears a Who

I've never before seen a movie where the bad guy was a home schooling mom, but that's the set up for the animated version of Seuss's Horton. My husband was much amused by Carol Burnett as the kangaroo mom who stuffs her joey down in her pouch to shelter him from realities she can't understand and from the evil she seeks out to put an end to what she perceives as Horton's delusion and wrong-teaching. I don't think my unschooling friends or my sister in law will be as amused, though the former seem to have fine senses of humor.
My son loved nearly everything about Horton, including the strange inserted anime sequence which he thought successfully represented the difference between the "real" world of the film and Horton's imaginary life (his defense against my critique that that sequence and a musical sequence at the end were needless pop-culture references as efforts to expand the film), and the notion that we are ourselves living on a speck from the point of view of the universe, though he's still mulling it all over. He can't really understand what was so threatening to the kangaroo about Horton's belief in the tiny people who lived on the speck, even if that belief was wrong -- he's trying to draw real world comparisons as it's very clear to him that it's allegorical. He felt dismayed that one individual could so easily incite an angry mob.
My daughter loved that one of the animal-children imagines a world where "ponies eat rainbows and poop butterflies." She can't wait to tell her friends about that part (the social message is lost on her for now, and otherwise she doesn't find the movie as interesting as, say, Enchanted).
For my part, I find Suess's allegory on point, and as such, the movie as one of the scariest I've seen in a long time -- though I did detect a note of progressive self-congratulating I never quite feel in Seuss himself.

I'm Enchanted

You know how I feel about Disney princesses. And some of you know how I feel about the way mass culture sells us our own cynicism. Despite these strikes against it before it ever started, I fell in love with Enchanted.
Enchanted reminds me of Sondheim's Into the Woods (best musical ever -- Cinderella is ever ambivalent about being swept off her feet, and once her marriage to the prince fails, agrees to a return to a peasant life and an unconventional family: "Sometimes, I actually do enjoy cleaning.") The prince's narcissism seems pulled straight from that play, as does the movie's self-reflexivity. In the opening sequence, the (artificial) camera moves into the iconic Disney castle, into a room with a book, containing the animated adventures of Giselle, not yet a princess, soon to be a multidimensional person (with all the misery and joy multidimensionality brings).
Miss I declared it "awesome," though she also thought parts of it were scary. Little bun loved the "drama and action," though he was hoping for a less happy ending. I fell for Patrick Dempsey, which is surprising because I loathe Grey's Anatomy (sorry, fans -- maybe it's having a doctor in the house), and we all fell in love with Amy Adams. She's darling.
I cannot wait for the CD -- gotta sing that work song.

Double Feature (Featuring Racist Comments)

We went to one of the few remaining Drive-Ins this weekend for a double feature of The Simpsons Movie (do go make your avatar -- almost as fun as becoming an mm) in its opening weekend and Live Free or Die Hard a few weeks late. The plan was that Miss I would fall asleep before the Simpsons, which -- much to his grandparents' horror -- we had agreed to allow Little Bun to see, and that if Little Bun would fall asleep before Live Free or Die Hard we'd stay for it too. Unlike the time we tried to get Little Bun to fall asleep before the first movie (Ron Burgundy, which is not only not that funny, but also really really not funny at all with no sound), it sort of worked.

Miss I stayed awake for too much Simpsons, which didn't earn its PG-13 rating (the frontal nudity wasn't full, the "s*x scene" was only intimated and wouldn't be caught by anyone as young as Little Bun, and in our house the "p" word isn't a bad word), took up a cause so important to the Bloom household, and reinforced "family values" in the end, as the show often does. If you don't watch the show, you wouldn't know that Ned Flanders is often an object of derision -- his commitment to his kids is inspiring, and finally touches Bart. Two major disappointments: no big musical number (Green Day's appearance was cute, but no more than that) and too little Montgomery Burns.

Fortunately both kids were asleep by the trailers before Live Free or Die Hard. While the violence was gratuitous -- isn't that why we love the Die Hard series -- it was far less glaring or gratuitous than the film's racism. I was shocked and disappointed by McClane's references to Mai [Maggie Q] as "little b*tch Asian girlfriend" and "Asian b*tch hooker girlfriend." After she's (loose quotation) trapped at the bottom of an elevator shaft with a (large vehicle) "up her *ss" he assures her villain boyfriend that though she's dead, she'll be easily replaced. She was also half-skilled (as displayed in the film) in "kung fu" (described by McClane as the trait least likely to be found in the next Asian b*tch hooker).

It shocked me that someone wrote it (and you can see in the credits that it took a heck of a lot of writers to bring us this masterpiece). It shocked me that someone else said it, even if that someone was Bruce Willis. And honestly, it shocked me that a whole slew of people (many white, some people of color) were there on hand, as actors, director, producers, crew and no one thought "Wait -- why does he say that?!" It shocked me that if they tested it, those lines tested okay.

But it shouldn't have shocked me. I shouldn't be shocked at the racism, misogyny, exoticization/sexualization. But that doesn't justify it. Neither does the fact that McClane is a "tough guy," or that he "isn't very nice," or anything else. Perhaps the character McClane might have made racist, misogynist comments regardless of the female villain's race -- and regardless of race his sexism gleams in his decision not to shoot her, and also his subsequent decision to beat the h*ll out of her) but the fact is that no audience would tolerate it if she hadn't been Asian. Try inserting another race into those phrases and imagine whether or not there would be vocal protests. This is not to say that there are not a bazillion racist and misogynist movies -- indeed there are -- but it is to say that we shouldn't put up with it.

Other elements of the film -- including the spectacular destruction so spectacular that it makes you crave the pre-digital age of real cars crashing into real things and the way the film undercuts its own astonishing effects by showing a simulated demolition of the Capitol and also "proving" within the film that the image was, happily, only a simulation -- were far less stunning than these phrases.

The bottom line is that while we paid very little to see the movie, had I done a little homework we wouldn't even have stayed. And I actually liked Die Hard.

Delicioso!

I promised a review of Ratatouille last week, and just couldn't get to it. I still really can't, but I do want to give our quick take -- four thumbs up -- and the two caveats:

The first is that the plot hinges on a dna test, which if you read my s*x ed post below, you know wouldn't go by unnoticed by some. It isn't a spoiler (as the outcome is predictable from the very start) to say that one of the characters never knows his father's identity and bizarrely, his mother sends a letter regarding his paternity to someone else without having conveyed it to her son, just before she died.

(Not-quite-a-caveat, but if you catch that his mother is fine because she believed in the afterlife so she's good to go, and you found that moment weird and awkward, drop me a comment).

The second is that the first five minutes are filled with gunfire at rats who've invaded a home (fine) and the threat of gunfire between Parisian lovers who kiss instead (not so fine).

Otherwise, the movie is delicious, engaging with our current obsession with television chefs and cooking shows (there's a tv in my kitchen for goodness' sake) and American's underdeveloped palates (the Chef's good name is co-opted for frozen "ethnic" foods).

Better, it has turned my Little Bun into a Little Chef!

Mo' 'Gain NuhNight Bears (A Review)

Miss I and ds alike were thrilled when they realized that books had come in the mail. Books in boxes are the favorite parcel of all members of the Bloom household, and without even knowing yet who the package from Brighter Minds Media was for, the two smallest Blooms were diving in.

Miss I immediately recognized that the Care Bears Lullaby Nightlight Book was for her, even though she has no familiarity with the characters (we're a TiVoed PBS-only family, so far as my kids know), characters whom I recognized from my own childhood. But the friendly bears and the embedded nightlight made her eyes light up. She quickly discovered how easily she could turn on the light herself, an added delight. Dh started the cd that comes tucked in the book, and by the end of the book and three minute lullaby Miss I was entranced. "Mo' 'gain," she insisted. I listened as Dh indulged, rereading the few rhyming pages, as she repeated the sound effects: "gulp, gulp, gulp." He did not restart the cd, and she didn't complain (so while the song was very sweet and soothing, it may not have added much to her experience -- perhaps if it repeated, or continued with an instrumental version it might add more value for her). She asked for the book again for bedtime last night.

The embedded nightlight (which stays on for five minutes) is neat, and a vast improvement over books with sound chips (which can drive a mother crazy). The battery can be changed by a grown-up, so the book can stay in long use.

A few things I noticed in her use of the book: She very closely associates it with "Nuh-Night" and hasn't shown an interest in it outside of bedtime, but is very interested in it then (which we can contrast with her Christmas in July! in February! Redeployment of all musical Christmas books at all times) and would love to keep it with her once we've finished reading and tucked her in. But as the mother of two near-insomniacs and insomniac myself, I do wish the light glowed cool blue rather than warm yellow, as cool light promotes night-time sleep, while warm light, even as soft and dim as this, can be rousing.

Still, that a little girl who didn't even know who the Care Bears were before and owns a million books wants the "bear book mo' 'gain," seems a happy endorsement. (I read this outloud and she added, commercial ready, "I Yike It!" I think her aunt - herself a childhood Care Bears fanatic - and her cousin, more apt to recognize the characters, will yike it even more).

Little Bun was not forgotten, and he really enjoyed the The Marvel Heroes Mix & Match Storybook Brighter Minds's Lauren sent along. The book has five independently flipping panels to construct varying sentences with different villains, threats and heroes. An example: Magneto aimed the mutant evolution ray and it froze traffic but it as suddenly destroyed -- because it ran into the invisible woman's force field!" could just has easily been "at the White House" destroyed "by the Hulk's giant green fists!" His appraisal: "It's cool and I don't even watch Teen Titans." His self-directed project: Copying over the sentences he'd created onto blank paper to "keep them." Dh Yiked It! even better than little bun did. Little bun is a committed reader, so he had fun with it, but I imagine its best use would be capturing the imagination of a reluctant reader and encouraging his literacy skills.

Adoption Madness

No thanks to Criminal Minds (follow link, click feedback) for portraying an adoptee as a psychopath, inspired by the novel written by the post-modernist professor he believes to be his mother. She isn't, but as a birthmother, she is willing to die for him.
It used to be just NBC on my bad list (see L&O, L&O:SVU, and potentially Heroes, though my judgment on that one is still pending).
Whatever we do mean by Adoption Awareness this month, this isn't it.

Adoption Awareness?

I'm a little hesitant about "Adoption Awareness Month." I'm not sure exactly what it means: awareness that there are families like mine ("awareness" being about as useful as "tolerance"), promotion of adoption or placement for adoption, or advocacy for adoption reform. Maybe all of these things? It isn't exactly like Transplant or Breast Cancer Awareness . . .

But I do want to thank Sesame Street for making me cry this morning. Word on the Street is that Gina is bringing Marco home from Guatemala tomorrow, and so far it was handled quite sensitively, and she couldn't live in a better neighborhood for a multicultural family and for finding great role models for her son.

--
In my real RantotheWeek (which is a bit inaccurate, as I think they're more like Q3 or 4) I'll post about Disney and Disney Princesses (and the history behind the exclusion of black princesses later.)

Monster House - some spoilers

It isn't as if they'd named it Happy House, so no false advertisement there.

Monster House is, as ds describes it, funny, scary, weird and sad. It's the last that is most surprising, and that has ds most thrown. (Don't read if you don't want to know too much, and please do not use this review alone to make a family decision. It is very wise for a parent to pre-screen this film).

Dh warned me about the following issues, but encouraged us to go anyway, so I'm passing along the same warnings, with maybe a little more information than he gave me (it was midnight, afterall, when we discussed it):

The story involves two neighborhood boys (later joined by streetwise and private academy educated Jenny): DJ (intense and thin, with pixie-features reminiscent of James of the Giant Peach) and Chowder (round and oafish) who may have accidentally caused someone's death (Chowder: "they call it manslaughter if it's an accident."). The house across the street may or may not be haunting them (in a startling dream image, reaching its shadow hand across the street and into DJ's room as he sleeps), and may or may not murder neighborhood children on Halloween, depending on the success of DJ, Chowder and Jenny's intervention and the willingness of the adult world to cooperate with these barely pre-pubescent three (when the babysitter, disbelieving the trio, DJ his real problem, he suggests "Puberty," and the tension between the two boys is driven by their acceptance or rejection of their impending young manhood) The man across the street (voiced by Steve Buscemi) may have killed his wife, may still have her body in the basement.

I can't give any more of that away.

But I will give you this:

Seemingly well-meaning but clearly inept and disconnected parents (the father backs into his son's best friend in the driveway, though the blame falls to the child) leave their son with a manipulative babysitter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who transforms herself from Elizabeth to "Z" and brings her stoner boyfriend (Jason Lee) to the house, drunk and drinking. She tosses him out after "unwelcomed advances" (this is putting it mildly), only to search for him later.

(Chowder's dad apparently doesn't notice when he slips out of the house and remains out all night - though he is mad when he calls the next day.)

The representation of African Americans is astoundingly poor. In a seemingly all-white community, the black rookie cop (voiced by Nick Cannon) appears to have been trained more by Police Academy than by the police academy. He may be the only adult to consider the possibility that the children are telling the truth, but this is only because he is seemingly forever a man-boy, with everything that connotes, all of the American history that that reveals or hides.

The representation of obesity and difference is ambivalent: a principal figure is both adored and malevolent.

The ending is sad and poignant, perhaps too much so for a young audience. While possibly cathartic, it may also be confusing. My son followed the film up with questions about love, loss and the afterlife, and felt that all the calamity of the film resulted from the old man's inability (forty years prior) to accept loss and love again. Ds gave this example: "When we are older, and you die, I will just have to let you go and remember that there are more people to love. And when I die, those people will have to . . .".

The children's heroism is the saving grace of the film, and the end really is redemptive (many families left after thirty minutes, stuck forever, I'm sure, with the image of the haunting house reaching for that poor boy) though their heroism involves their (albeit hesitant) use of explosives and a construction vehicle parked with keys in the ignition (a fact we discover early in the film).

In the end, the film is barely this side of Goonies in terms of the fear factor. In positive ways, too, the comparison is apt, given their concerns with puberty, and their affable boy-heroes (think Chunk/Chowder).