New Year New (m)YOU(vies)! Update #1

  GOAL: watch 50 new movies in 2025.

• Spirited (2022)
• Recommended by some students.
• Liked: when it ended. Jkjk. It made me laugh more than once and it didn't demand much attention to follow.
• Didn't like: Surprise, it's a musical. But not a good one. I'm starting to wonder if I even like musicals. Who wrote these songs? AI? Boo. With Will Ferrel and Blake Lively's husband pairing up, I expected too much.
• This was by default my favorite movie of the year until I watched anything else.
• 4/10
• Belle (2021)
• Jazon's recommendation.
• Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) meets Ready Player One (2018).
• Liked: The beautifully animated, interesting story that integrated two fully fleshed concepts into one seamless one that at times felt a little fanfiction-esque, but is that always a bad thing?
• Didn't like: Surprise, it's also a musical. It's good enough music and it isn't too overbearing, but coming at this movie from "Spirited" made me feel a little anxious, especially at first.
  
• New favorite of the year.
• 8/10
• Elizabethtown (2005).
• One of Jazon's favorite movies.
• Liked: Roadtrip vibes and death jokes = yes
• Didn't like: Kirsten Dunst is creepy AF.
• 2nd favorite of the year.
• 7/10

• Alien Romulus (2024).
• Student "assigned" me to watch this and I feel like if I give him homework then he can give me homework too, ya know? Within reason, of course.
• This felt very much like a remake of Alien (1979), but that's not a bad thing necessarily. 
• What I liked: I liked the practical effects, which, we just don't get enough of these days. I liked the very real feeling of the sets, costuming, and props. I liked a modern re-visit to a classic, too. That's not bad every now and then and it's not like it was trying to say it was anything else. The elevator scene was bae. Sure there were lots of call backs, but it wasn't too tongue-in-cheek for me.
• What I didn't like: The timing of the suspense sequences was a little off for me. I felt it was rushed when it shouldn't be and not enough time was taken to let us settle into complacency at the beginning. I felt it was an error to have the movie launch from a place of anxiety where the main character was already feeling anxious, the jump up into alien anxiety didn't feel like as much of a leap as it could have been with a different couching story surrounding the expedition.
• 3rd favorite of the year. Better than Prometheus (2012), not as good as the original. Maybe I should watch the rest of the franchise? Maybe not though. I'll think about it.
• 6/10

A Day of Accomplishments!

1. I finally finished reading all 548 pages of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin! Wow, that only took me.... forever.
2. I got an honest-to-goodness, cancer producing sunburn! Yay for sunburns!
3. I fed missionaries! And I fed them real food, too! And it wasn't even poisoned!
4. I did one of those things that grown ups do to make little girls realize that they are loved, but never really comprehend exactly how excessive that love must be in order to actually compel a grown person to endure. You guessed it! I watched Monte Carlo with my 9-year-old cousin!
5. I wrote a blog post!

**********AND**********

6. I got a car.
7. I got a car!
8. I got a car!
9. I got a car!
10. I got a car!

Harry Is My Homeboy.

I remember when my elementary school librarian told me about Harry Potter. I thought she was telling me this huge secret, about this secretly awesome book, and I was one of the few cool people who was going to read it and enjoy the fantasy world which is Hogwarts.

Not so.

Obviously Harry Potter became extremely popular extremely fast. I feel like I grew up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. In fact, and by fact I mean fiction, Harry was born in 1980, making him actually seven years older than I am. That doesn't change the fact that when these books came out, I was about the same age as he was, and I identified profoundly with-- well, Hermione.

What can I say? I had no way to avoid connecting myself with her. I felt different from my peers as every adolescent inevitably does, I had extremely frizzy, ugly hair that I was sure even magic couldn't make normal, I liked to read in extreme excess (and not just fiction, but frankly, please don't laugh, but there was a time when I couldn't fall asleep without reading a couple pages from the dictionary), and back in the day, I was, unfortunately, a know-it-all. I guess I still am, but I really try not to be. Honest. Can I help it if I know things? And, knowing the answer, don't I have an obligation to raise my hand?

The Harry Potter Era is coming to an important, final milestone. The last movie. Of course, there is talk about how Harry will be perpetuated beyond the "original" bounds of the series, but honestly? This is it. Even if Harry Potter goes on, I've outgrown the limits of his reach. I don't read fantasy anymore. It bores me. I've discovered a wider world of reading, and hobbies that actually include other parts of my brain and (gasp!) even other people.

It's important to do things right. So, Harry's going out with proper ceremony. That's right, a Harry Potter marathon extravaganza!

So far, we've watched the first three movies, and our plan is to finish watching the other four movies that have come out on DVD watching part one of the seventh movie the night before we go to watch the last one. We contemplated going to the midnight showing, even, but decided against it in light of our collective experiences with crowds, tiredness, and equal amounts of enjoyment, and even increased amounts, in delaying a few hours and watching the movie a little later.

I'm pretty excited, but I'm also a little sad. I'm saying goodbye to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Perhaps it's time to find a new series with endearing characters, good writing, plenty of adventure, and the hero cycle on a continuous loop?

Or Virginia Woolf.

Life Is an Adventure.

Luke Skywalker bothers me.

Sometimes, in life, we are required to rapidly shift our paradigm. I do not believe that Luke thought, "Oh, I'm going to set in motion a journey today that will radically change the political surface of the galaxy, as well as infuse life into a dying religion and reunite me with my lost twin sister." And yet, that Tatooine morning, he went to buy androids from the Jawas, and the day after, never did get to the Tosche station to pick up those power converters. He didn't need to.

His paradigm shifted.

Welcome to life, Luke.

I could understand giving Luke a reasonable amount of emotional space in which to mourn the death of his aunt and uncle who raised him --- but he doesn't do that. Instead, he spends a quantifiably huge amount of time complaining about how hard his pursuit of Jediism is, and how he "just doesn't understand."

No one understands. Heck, Obi-Wan obviously doesn't understand, either. You don't hear him kvetching incessantly. He's been living a happy little hermit life (let's be honest, hermits have it made), and suddenly some punk kid shows up and roots him out of his comfortable little hut in the golden age of his life. Luke had been obviously angsting up the moisture farm for some time, desiring a radical change, and yet, he is so resistant to that change when it comes.

Perhaps we are all a little like Luke, but you don't see George Lucas making a film about me, either. Yes, life is fluid: in flux (I seriously love that word). As Gandolf puts it, in response to Frodo's lament of "I wish none of this had happened!" (a reasonable exclamation, considering the circumstance): "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Similarly, The Book of the Dead inquired of Lirael (In Garth Nix's novel by her name): "Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker?"

We make choices all the time, but how consciously do we choose how we deal with the choices which are made for us? Perhaps that is the real difference between those who are happy, and those who are --well-- miserable. I'm not sure that there is a middle ground. We pass through times of trial and stress, constantly. We pass through times of happiness and joy, only upon our deliberate choosing.

Yes, Yes. I Know. It Isn't American.

Do you ever get sick of the basic American values in film?  Do lust, explosions, and superficial plots bore you? Imagine that! It may be time to give foreign films a serious try. Here's a quick list of a few very good ones:

Kitchen Stories

This is a Swedish film about two men who become friends while one is conducting a study of the other's behavior in the kitchen. It is extremely funny, in an awkward sort of way.

Howl's Moving Castle

This is a Japanese film based on the book of the same title by Diana Wynn Jones. It's about a cowardly but powerful wizard named Howl and an insecure but loved woman named Sophie. The themes are self perception, bravery, and forgiveness. It is so well adapted to the screen, and so beautifully animated, that watching it is like reading a beautiful poem. Same goes for all Studio Ghibli films I have ever viewed.

The Color of Paradise

This is an Iranian film about a blind boy and his father, who finds it difficult to love  his disabled boy. The story is about family love, forgiveness, and God. It is poignant and full of hope. The director, Majid Majidi, also directed Children of Heaven, another favorite of mine about two siblings who share a pair of shoes.

The Road Home

This is a Chinese film about love and total fidelity. It breaks my heart in a way American films have never been able to. It is tender in a way no chick flick ever was.

Joyeux Noel

This is French film about armies during Christmas during the first world war. It will probably make you cry, even though the lip synching for the "Opera" singers is pretty off, especially the woman.

Not every foreign film is good. I have seen some truly terrible ones, truth be told, but there are some real gems waiting to be viewed, like these ones!

That is all.

I've Loved You So Long

I love listening to French. It is a beautiful langauge. This film is in French, and it is just beautiful to listen to. It is emotional. It is controversial. I'm not saying that I agree with what happened in it, but I appreciated the acting, the idea, the display of human emotion in a most extreme situation.

The White Balloon

I watched this movie the other night at the international cinema: "The White Balloon."

Well, it's an Iranian film, and it's not American at all, that's for sure. When the movie was over and everyone was leaving, I heard a lot of people saying things like "That movie was so dumb," and "there was no point!" and "nothing happened!"

Which are all sort of true.

But it wasn't a bad movie, it just was made to a different aesthetic.

It wasn't my favorite Iranian movie, that being said. But it was interesting, at least. It sort of was a snap shot of a little girl, 7 years old, who wanted a goldfish from the market to celebrate the new year, but her Mom told her that one from their pond was just fine, and just the same. She thought the ones from the market were prettier, and chubbier. She finally convinced her brother to persuade their mother to give them the money to go buy this fish, but she kept on losing her money along the way.

She was just a bratty little kid, but I really empathized with her. I felt a connection with her- what was the last American movie that I felt that with?

A Letter to Three Wives

I recently watched this movie with my roommate, Maren.

Here's what happens: three neighborhood friends are out helping with a riverboat/picnic day for the schoolkids. Just before embarking, they receive a letter from a woman who was childhood friends with all three women's husbands. In the letter, she lets the women know that she had run away with one of their husbands. She does not specify which one.

Because they're on this field trip, and this is during the pre-cell phone era, they have no way of finding out who's husband it is until the end of the day. They spend the day pondering memories they have with this woman that may indicate that it is their husband who's left with Addie.

Without spoiling the movie too much, I must say this was not what I expected from a movie of this time period. It was a movie about women, and for women. It wasn't just a comedy, or just a drama. It had legitimate statements to make about marriage.

I liked how very realistic it was. It talked about the difficulties men and women face together after marriage, like: shyness, finances, continuing to fall in love, getting along with each others' friends, and raising children. Ironically, it didn't really address trust. It was perfectly logical that these women wondered whether it was their husband: not because their husbands gave them copious reasons and histories to lead them to mistrust them, but because it was logical, and no one questioned their right wonder.

Conclusion: I recommend it.