definitely maybe

Watched this tonight with Andrew.

Take home message? What my kids really want is for me to be happy. They want that so much that they'll sacrifice their desire to live with both their parents to get it.

the social network

Andrew and I saw this yesterday. Loved it.

where the wild things are

Don't take your six year old and his friends to see this movie.

I'm not good at reviewing movies. Perhaps it was amazingly good and I just couldn't tell. It certainly did have some good points... Anyway, here are my thoughts. Take them or leave them.

Because it was based on a little kids' book, I expected it to be made for kids. It wasn't. Not 6 year olds, anyway. They were disturbed or bored by most of it. They were laughing out loud at some of the bits - like the snow ball and dirt fights - but didn't really know what to do when these bits ended badly. At one stage I pulled out my movie tickets to check that it was PG and not M rated.

Overall, it is a movie about the sadness, anger and confusion felt by a boy from a divorced family. His mother is stressed and overworked, his father is absent and his sister is also struggling to cope. Max (the boy) looses it when his mum has another guy over and won't come and see the cubby house he has built. He puts on his wolf suit, yells, bites her and then runs away to where the wild things are. He tells a few fibs and becomes king of the wild things. The wild things are a sad, angry and confused mob who are in the habit of eating their kings when they find out he not capable of solving their problems and making them happy. Max sees in the wild things some of his own dysfunctionality, but he cannot fix their problems. He goes home to his mum who is waiting for him.

The movie offers no magical happy ending for either Max and his family or for the wild things. The only way forward is for everyone to love and be loved and try their best to get on.

The characters were very well drawn. The boy and his mother and sister were painfully believable, and so were the wild things. At points, the drama could have been happening in my lounge room. I think this made it hard for the kids to see. It was obvious they weren't enjoying it.

It felt really long. The kids thought it was the longest movie they had ever seen. It wasn't.

Visually it was good. The animation seemed well done. The scenery was not exactly beautiful, but it matched the story perfectly. I liked how Max's wolf suit was filfthy.

The line of dialogue which stood out as bad was the key line taken from the book: "please don't go, we'll eat you up we love you so." In the book, this line is a favourite. It displays the futile agression of the wild things, and Max's authority over them. He says a firm, no. But in the movie it is almost a romantic croon. Feels wrong.

Overall, I have no idea. It's a thoughtful movie. I found it to be more bearable than most kids movies. Perhaps for the older boys?

Anyone else seen it?

music and lyrics

I've held off watching this movie because I thought it would be dumb.

I've watched it now and can confirm that it is dumb.

Highlights? Um... Can't think of any. Maybe I missed them. I slept through probably a third of the movie.

Let the right one in

I watched this tonight. Ben suggested it a while back. I was a little freaked out by its 'horror' classification - the last horror movie I saw was nightmare on elm street in the early 1990s - but there were no chain saws and not really anything gruesome at all in let the right one in.

As a vampire movie, it invites comparison with Twilight. Both are beautiful movies. Both have an underlying sadness about them. Both movies are sympathetic to the plight of vampires, they are not really the baddies. They don't want to hurt people, it's just that they need to eat... Both involve an attraction between a vampire and a non-vampire. Both movies have limited dialogue.

Contrasts? Let The Right One In has a 12 year old female vampire, whereas Twilight has a 17 year old male vampire. This, of course, means that the sexual tension is turned up much louder in Twilight. LTROI is more about friendship - which is nice. The striking thing about LTROI is that apart from the main characters (who are 12) and the school bullies, the rest of the cast is middle aged. I wonder if the writers did this so that we wouldn't care so much when they get killed?

Another interesting contrast is in the outcomes of each movie. Oskar is a better kid because of his contact with Eli the vampire. He learns that he doesn't want to hurt people, even if they hurt him. Bella, on the other hand, is much weaker at the end of Twilight. She wants nothing but Edward and to be with him forever and ever...

No doubt I'll think more about Let The Right One In in the next few days. I actually stayed awake for the entire movie (which is rare) and even enjoyed it. I give it 4 and a half stars.

Have you seen it? What do you think?

he's just not that into you

Andrew and I watched this last night.

Here's what we learnt:

• most relationships start in bars
• a girl will do just about anything to be in a relationship
• a single girl will make out with a different guy each weekend
  
• if a girl is into you, she will sleep with you. If she's not slept with you after a few weeks, it's not going to happen
  
• no man wants to be married
• all women want to be married
• if a guy stops making out with you when another girl calls, he's not that into you
• if a guy is into you, he will make it happen
  
• if the guy doesn't make it happen, he's not into you
• the bar man understands
• I am the rule, not the exception
  
• married guys are dicks
  
• the best couples are those not married
• adultery is exciting but in the end futile (best just get divorced)
• divorce is a good option
  
• a good marriage will only happen if you understand you don't need to be married
  

twilight

I watched twilight tonight. How could I not after reading reviews like this?

I loved it.

As a chic flick it has it all: an impossibly good looking guy who is impossibly attracted to an impossibly good looking girl with whom a relationship is impossible. Add an impossible amount of smoulder - vampire lust as well as regular sexual lust, heroic selflessness, superman-type rescues, great scenery and very nice camera work and you have the perfect movie.

(Why am I writing this? I think I'll go and watch it again.)

A few thoughts.

It's okay for this to be a great movie for girls to watch. It's not necessarily bad just because it's fun and girls get into it. (But it might be.)

The reasons why Twilight sucks us in are legitimate*. It taps into what we really want and what we should want.

• We want a guy who is painfully in love with us. Who loves us so much that he'll deny himself for us and suffer on our account. Of course we want that. We should want that.

• We want to be able to say 'I'm not afraid' and 'I trust you completely' as Bella did. And that's right.
  

• With Bella we long for something more. Another world where the impossible is possible. Now is the time of waiting. We groan with her and we should.

Of course Edward doesn't exist. Mr. Darcy doesn't either. But still we dream of him and our dreams are legitimate. For we are longing for another.

So what of the claim that Twilight is tacky and harmful girl porn?

Maybe the books are tacky - over adjectivised, gushy, sentimental (I don't know, I haven't read them) - but I don't think the movie was. I'm no film critic but I really enjoyed it. Girl porn? Maybe. In the same league as Austen and Bronte and Sea-change. Presents an ideal male for us to lust after, with whom our spouses cannot compete. Harmful? Depends on how you take it and what you do with it. My current thinking is this: Don't deny that you want Edward Cullen. Admit it, but learn to see that lust as an expression for a much deeper longing. And moderation.

I might go watch it again.

* Last year I had a few posts on why Mills and Boon novels work for women. Similar stuff.