The malapert bookworm

Robert Ben Garant is in town for a benefit appearance for the Highlander Center. One of the celebrities -- in his case, comic genius -- to spring from my native soil. He's one of the few that I have some connection with. I didn't know him that well in high school; he's actually my brother's age. But he went to a high school near mine, and competed in speech and drama at the same time I did. His teacher/coach was buddies with mine, that sort of thing. We did different events, but I think he competed directly against my brother (who I guess has bragging rights thereby).

But I do have one story. I'm sure he doesn't remember me, but I wonder if he remembers this occasion. My freshman year of college, a friend and I came up to Knoxville to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which played weekly at a crappy theater on the westside. (Locals: Remember The Kingston Four?) They always had a police officer stationed there, presumably to stop any rice- and camp-fueled rioting, but really, I expect, to keep an eye on all the proto-goths and New Wavers and flaming geeks. (Which persons, history shows, are generally better behaved than their mundane-seeming counterparts. But I digress.)

Anyway, my car wouldn't start -- dead battery. The officer wouldn't help us, but then, if we were at Rocky Horror, we were obviously wierdos who had thereby abandoned any claim to the protection of law. The convenience store next door didn't have jumper cables. We were trying to figure out what to do, along Kingston Pike at 2 a.m., when a carfull of Farragut High students came over. It wasn't because they knew me; a couple of them recognized me, I think, and I them, but they were just doing the basic humanitarian thing. They volunteered to drive down the Pike in search of jumper cables. They found some, at another convenience store down the road, but the store clerk wouldn't let them take the cables off the premises.

Not to worry -- they volunteered to leave one of their number behind as surety for the cables. They came back to us in the K4 parking lot, bearing jumper cables but minus one friend. We got my car jumped off, and they returned the cables, and all was well.

The cable hostage was Robert Ben Garant. Mostly, I laugh at his work because it's hilarious. But there's a litle part of me that sometimes laughs, too, because I think about this skinny teenager hanging around a convenience store in the wee hours waiting for his friends to rescue near-strangers and come back to ransom him.

Since one of the main movies I've been waiting for opens this weekend, I thought I'd better get up to date on the (few) movies I've seen this fall!

A few weeks back, for msbitterheart 's birthday, the gals and I went to see The Duchess
( Keira Knightley sure is pretty. )

And then a few days later I saw another movie about love: "True love" this time, with a happy ending.
( Nick and Norah's Infinite Romance )

And finally, this past weekend, I took the kids to see Madascagar: Escape 2 Africa with my brother and nephew.
( They're baaaack! )

I like!

( click for awesomeness (and trailer) )

I will endeavor to separate my reaction to Samurai Girl ("An ABC Family Original Event!") from my feelings about my odious DVR, which screwed up three -- THREE! -- separate times during the three-part miniseries. (They call it six parts, probably so that they can parcel it out in hour-long blocks at some point.)

( Where are all the samurai??? )

That's right: We watched Annie last night. Hannah's in a junior version (shorter, with less FDR) at church this weekend, and she'd been really wanting to see it. Not bad -- within the genre, of course. Aileen Quinn is refreshingly non-annoying, though she is Spunky (tm) in the way you'd expect (to be fair, which the role calls for). I had no idea that Albert Finney played Daddy Warbucks. He was almost as scary as Tim Curry, the actual villain. Even after Annie has won him over, he was still pretty darn imposing. I was watching them sing and tapdance (Aileen, not Albert) in the final, exuberant circus (?) sequence, and I just kept thinking, "Holy crap! That's Albert Finney!" It was weird.

My favorite thing was watching the kids watch the movie. Sure, Hannah's the actor -- for now. But she's going to have some competition on the boards from Zeke, who rushed into the room whenever there was a musical number and sang along. Has he ever actually heard any of these songs before? Not to my knowledge, but he was picking up on the choruses like the talented exhibitionist he is. We had to play "The Hard-Knock Life" over twice. I suspect we'll be exploring the "Sing Along with Annie" DVD features later today.

It's amazing how much the '30s look like the early '80s in that movie. (Kind of the way the future in the original Star Trek looks a lot like the late '60s, with the beehives and miniskirts and sideburns and go-go boots.) Everybody seems pretty happy, too -- I'm curious how much the play (which was written in the '70s based on the original comic strip) is a self-conscious evocation of the Depression. I mean, the comic wasn't "about" the Depression; it just started then. The movie is for sure a harbinger of the whole '80s optimism "Morning in America" stuff, though, full of bright colors and an interestingly fit-looking FDR and people who dance and sing while waxing a millionaire industrialist's floors. (Me: "They sure look awfully happy to be doing manual labor." salvador_dalai: "Well, they're happy to have jobs during the Depression.")

Overall, I have to say that the experience was an enjoyable one (owing in no small part to the brilliant Carol Burnett of course). I was worried. Annie looms kind of large for me, because as a teenager in the '80s doing theater, I heard "Tomorrow" sung over and over and over again. Every little kid who auditioned sang that song. And we had a lot of kids audition -- the summer community theater plays included standards like The King and I and South Pacific and other crowd-pleasers. Later, I would look back with some nostalgia on the "Tomorrow" days, when all the precocious successors of all those kids started singing "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Mis. I wonder what kids audition with now? Probably not anything from Avenue Q.

OK, I'll admit it: ABBA music makes me feel happy. (Except for the stultifying "power ballads" like "Thank You for the Music," that is; let's stick with the dance beats, kids!) I will admit to owning ABBA Gold on CD, and I'll further admit that it replaced an LP copy. But I really, really don't get Mamma Mia.

I haven't seen it, and I probably won't, because my moviegoing opportunities are too rare to admit of marginal choices. The lure of any film which stars BOTH Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth is pretty strong, though: YUM. Still, I've had several conversations about this movie lately -- none with anyone who's seen it -- and I guess my chief reaction is neither disdain nor enthusiasm. My main reaction is confusion.

It's a romantic comedy -- got it. And it's set in Greece (here's where I start to get confused), and there's some kind of daughter-setting-up-Mom kind of thing. (Is that where the "Mamma" part comes in?) But the songs are by a Swedish band, so why is it set in Greece? Does Meryl Streep play a former groupie of Benny Andersson? I mean, does the movie have anything to do with the songs, or with ABBA as a cultural phenomenon, or is it just a random rom-com with a fun soundtrack? And, as I understand it, it's not necessarily the actual ABBA songs, right? It's kind of a revue? The whole thing makes my head hurt. Jersey Boys, that I get -- it's a play about a band, using the band's music. But what the hell is Mamma Mia?

It's enough to make me echo the immortal words of the divine Bernadette (played by the divine Terence Stamp): "No more f**king ABBA."

Come to think of it, if I wanted a good movie with a lot of ABBA, I could just watch Priscilla. Or Muriel's Wedding. Hell, Australia seems to have more to do with this music than Greece does. I could play ABBA Gold and watch The Road Warrior on mute. That'd be pretty fun.

Seriously: If you have seen this movie (or the stage play), please please explain.

Last week I had the rare fortune to see two -- two! -- movies, and on successive days. The movies couldn't really have been more different, but both were good, and the company was good, too. Spoilers below their respective cuts for Mongol and Nim's Island (movie AND book on this one).





I had seen Mongol with my girlfriends, the delightful and intelligent msbitterheart   and myystry. The next day, I was off work (yay), and I took H. and one of her Girl Scout chums, M, to see Nim's Island. H. had loved the book so much when she read it this spring that she insisted I read it at once, and I did -- aloud to her. I loved it at least as much as she did. Add Gerard Butler, one of the film's three stars, to the mix, and I'm in. What with our busy spring, we didn't have a chance to see the movie back when it came out, but lucky for us it showed up at the discount cinema!




[edited for a typo, 7/21]

Heard on NPR this morning: A 12-year-old in Manhattan and a 13-year-old in Tokyo probably have more in common than a 13-year-old in Manhattan and a 34-year-old in Manhattan.

I think that's probably true. It's not universally true that all 13-year-olds the world over have more in common with each other than with their elders. But in those countries that share a considerable pop-culture overlap... yeah, up to a point. The generational "gap" is probably not that new. My parents used to joke that they couldn't understand anything my brother and I said. We and our friends communicated, "Darmok"-style, largely in phrases from gaming, movies, TV and music. It's worth noting, however, that our language was pretty specialized; we would barely have been understood by many of our age-peers, the ones who didn't play D&D or watch Star Trek, who listened to country music instead of Adam Ant.

Now, as Wired and pretty much every other culture-watching mag avers, nerds have taken over. Anime has gone (relatively) mainstream, especially among kids. The much-vaunted "long tail" (Wired again, sorry) of the internet permits access to any number of pop-culture niches. There's still a division between the true nerds and the mundanes -- a line that keeps Hannah Montana firmly on one side, perhaps, even as Pokemon and Marvel heroes flood over from the quondam nerd side. Still, it's all "youth" culture, in the eyes of the adult media, and my parents, for instance, are equally clueless about Ms. Montana as about the Sinnoh Region and the history of Cybertron.

I wonder about that imagined 34-year-old in Manhattan... The story was about the limited-time release of a live-action Death Note movie here in the states (the franchise, now in its third film, has been wildly popular in Japan, and the manga and anime are pretty popular here, too). I expect, with apologies to the commentator, that there are plenty of 34-year-olds in New York, and elsewhere, who are crazy into Death Note. Not as many as watch Grey's Anatomy, maybe; do any 13-year-olds watch that? I'm just suggesting that there are two axes to this pop-culture divide: An age one, sure, still in place going on 60 years, if moving slightly; but also a subculture axis. Neither of these is particularly nation-based, so the statement is probably right on the money in its assertion of trans-national commonality. An otaku is an otaku, whether s/he speaks the language that gave rise to the word "otaku" or not.

Technically, "Iron Man" should be called "Gold-titanium Alloy Man," but as Tony Stark observes, that's just not as catchy.

Yes, I saw The Movie on Friday, and I'm still reeling from the awesomeness.

Spoilers below the cut!

That's the opening line of Beowulf, old-school. The new movie starts, appropriately enough, with mead.

Not very spoilery, unless you never read the damn poem.

Date night: Dinner and a movie, a birthday outing courtesy of mom-in-law's generous babysitting and underwriting! Woo hoo! Less to woo-hoo about: The movie. I was deeply disappointed in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, though it didn't mar date night at all. Afterward, and through much of dinner, salvador_dalai and I had lots of fun dissecting the movie, maybe more than we would have had if we'd spent the time reliving a movie we'd really enjoyed.

There are spoilers for the movie below the cut, and spoilers for Elizabethan history, as well, though I'm not sure those count as spoilers.

 

 Yes, for the first time in months I went to see a movie in a real theater, the kind with seats and all. Hurrah for miistry and msbitterheart! Hurrah for us making time in our insanely busy lives to get together and hang out!

Spoiler alert for movie (and possibly for book)!

In my salad days, I would have been there at midnight at the Pinnacle (O lovely theater, which I love guiltily even though it sits atop despoiled wetlands). If I'd had the forethought to have taken Wednesday (or just the morning) off from work, I'd have done it anyway, aged and decrepit as I am. But the muggle world will have its due, and so I saw it Wednesday at 6:30, with Hannah, Rob and his mom.

A good time was had by all, especially by Hannah. It's the first time she saw a Harry Potter movie in the theater (as opposed to TV or DVD), and the first time she'd read the book before having seen the movie. She was literally bouncing with excitement beforehand, and bouncing with excitement afterward. Seeing it with her made the whole thing much more fun. The crying baby a couple of aisles back, not so much. (C'mon people, I had the courtesy to leave a three-year-old at home. Maybe it's time to invest in a babysitter.)


[Minor typo edits made at 5:55 p.m.]

Allow me, after exercising months of restraint, to squee a bit at the upcoming Month o' Potter, in which we get Movie 5 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and -- the big event -- Book 7 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).

Ah, who'm I kidding? If you're reading this blog, chances are you already know all about them. We are in a mad dash to get through OotP, reading aloud to Hannah, before the movie debuts; normal bedtimes have been extended, but she is going out of town for nearly a week with her grandparents, so it's going to be touch and go. It's the first chance she's had to have read the HP book before the movie.


.

That would have been one of the lines in my movie-line quiz, had I seen The Prestige a week earlier. Wow. I really love this movie, and I can't wait to see it again. Even knowing the twists. Especially knowing the twists -- I want to see how it's different, knowing what I know.

Enough with the raving, on to the review(s): I'm doing it in two stages, one (the first cut) for folks who haven't seen it, poor benighted souls like I was mere days ago. Under the second cut will be major spoilers, so be warned.

.

minor changes @ 5 p.m. to correct some typos, no content change

I stole this idea from  saestina: You pick 12 of your favorite movies, then one of your favorite lines from each movie, and see who can ID the movies. (Extra points for knowing the character and actor.) 

1. You've got an overdeveloped sense of vengeance. It's going to get you into trouble someday. The Princess Bride, Count Rugen (Christopher Guest)

2. It comes in pints? Fellowship of the Ring, Pippin (Billy Boyd)

3. You want more mysterious? I'll just try and think, "Where the hell's the whiskey?"

4. I came to see your face so that I alone may find you on the battlefield. And it will be good of you to mark my face, Saxon, for the next time you see it, it will be the last thing you see on this earth. King Arthur, Arthur (Clive Owen)

5. What did my brother do today? He stood up and fought for his country. And what did I do? I made a papier mache lobster head. Love Actually, Karen (Emma Thompson)

6. Now, where is that monkey? I want to shoot something. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)

7. I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in a dictionary. Office Space, Peter (Ron Livingston)

8. No cat out of its first fur was ever deceived by appearances, unlike human beings, who seem to enjoy it.

9. How extravagant you are, throwing away women like that. Someday they may become scarce.

10. You mistake me, my dear. I have the utmost respect for your nerves. They've been my constant companion these twenty years. Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet to Mrs. Bennet (Benjamin Whitrow, mistakenly identified earlier as Donald Sutherland in the later version)

11. I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have. Excalibur, King Arthur (Arthur)

12. This is the most uncomfortable coffin I've ever been in.

Hey, msbitterheart: One of these is all you!

edited to add later: I just realized that only half of these are sword-centric. My interests are more diverse than I thought!

HINTS added @ 3:45, mostly to taunt salvador_dalai, who apparently thinks that nurturing young children through a day of busy summer activities of fun and learning is more important than surfing the net and thinking of movie trivia...

#12: Spoken by an actor who won an Oscar for this role.
#3 and #9 were both spoken by actors who were nominated for Oscars for these roles, but didn't win.
One of these lines is spoken by the actor who also provided the voice of Scooby Doo.
Only one of the remaining five (#3, #8, #9, #11, #12) is spoken in an American accent.
Only one of these films came out before I was born. Only one of the remaining five has come out in the last 10 years.
Two of the remaining five are "sword"-centric.
One of these remaining 5 lines is spoken by an actor playing a real person.
One of them is spoken by a non-human character.

I know I should have entitled this post something like "pregnant with laughs" or some such, but I like Knocked Up too much to do that to it. 

I also thought that I would begin by remarking that this movie, contrary to my usual proclivities, did not have a sword in it, but then I remembered that Knocked Up does indeed have a sword, of sorts, the "ninja weapon" that Ben keeps in his room. Well, it's good to know I can keep the streak going.

Oh, and: Spoilers, kind of. There aren't any big surprises.

Last Pirates post, I promise.

Took Hannah to see At World's End yesterday (Sunday), and she loved it. She scoffed when I told her her daddy had been concerned that the giant lady-turning-into-crabs scene might freak her out, informing him later, with great indignation, that she was NOT freaked out by it! She bounced in her seat from anticipation a couple of times and demanded that I tell her what was about to happen (I refused; I'm cruel that way). Most interestingly, she has apparently switched her romantical feelings from Will (the typical choice of the young, I suspect) to Jack (mmm, witty Jack!). "I have a crush on Jack Sparrow," she confessed; she was so cute I didn't even correct her ("CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow"). I asked her why she had a crush on him, and she said, "Because he's funny."

I think the girl's got taste!

I should add, for those who think she's too precocious, that after watching a couple of Jack Sparrow fanvids on YouTube, she gleefully defected to watch a bunch of reinterpretations of the Hamster Dance.

There are spoilers!

I saw three movies this weekend, an exercise in pop culture gratification unseen since my salad days, and owing this time to a drive-in double feature, and offers of financial backing and babysitting from my parents. (We took all the kids, mine plus nephew, to the drive-in, and then they kept all the kids while R. and I went out to a movie by ourselves.) Wow! That circumstance alone is noteworthy -- no, worth more than note, worth celebration and accolade!

I realized later that the three movies were all third movies: Shrek the Third, Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, all "threequels" (a word I've started hearing this summer for obvious reasons, and which I loathe). It also occurred to me that the last movie I saw in a theater was 300, so I definitely need a numerologist to get on the case here; that's a lot of threes.

On to my reviews -- all contain spoilers for their respective movies.

[Edited at 3 p.m. for minor typos and to add a tag; no content changed]