First, The Karate Kid. I enjoyed the first forty minutes of this movie, but it’s pace was so slow — not slow, exactly, but definitely geared for older teen/ adult audiences so that my boys (under 10yo) were not wholely engaged. Henceforth, they asked me if we could skip over to Toy Story 3 instead — which we did, leaving my husband and daughter to finish out Karate Kid. All reports are that it was good, but didn’t tread too much new ground once you get over the obvious improvement that it was set in China and led by very good actor Jaden Smith. I think I would have enjoyed it, but I don’t for one second regret heading over to Toy Story 3…. though I was reluctant at the time.

See, I am a huge fan of Toy Story. I think it is a master class of storytelling. It constantly dug for the truths about each of those toys, and didn’t treat them as mere children’s playthings (in spite of Woody’s assertion… or perhaps he was paying a high complement). Fun fact: did you know that Joss Wheden was a credited screenwriter on the first Toy Story movie? I enjoyed Toy Story 2, too. Maybe slightly less. But I didn’t know where they could go from there. I feared Toy Story 3 would be a rehash of the plot of either 1 or 2. I didn’t think they’d let Andy GROW UP, for crying out loud.

When the boys and I sat down in the nearly full theater, and the first scene ended with Andy heading off to college, I felt sad — even hopeless! — for both the toys’ prospects and for mine as a moviewatcher. Alas, I couldn’t have been more wrong. But lets get back to that later, since I like to end on a high note.

A week later, I saw Despicable Me with my sister’s family. They had watched it the previous night and wanted to go again. That’s how much they liked it. Well, sorry sista, but I don’t think I cracked a smile once. I didn’t get it at all. In thinking about it, I’ve decided that I couldn’t like a movie about a villian who has paper-thin motivations for being bad. He actually likes tormenting a child by making a balloon animal, giving it to the child, and then piercing said animal with a pin? Really? I couldn’t get on that train. Most villains have a reason for acting evil. They actually think they are heroic. It just strains credulity for someone to enjoy meanness… and if he truly enjoys meanness, I don’t want to watch a movie about him. Plus, I kept wishing I was over watching The Last Airbender, which I had originally thought was not playing at my theater.

Speaking of which, the NEXT night I was fishing for doubt trout… no, that’s another story. I took my daughter to see The Last Airbender, the movie I had been on tenterhooks waiting for. I heard it wasn’t very good, but I had to check it out, because we’re huge fans of the Nickelodeon animated series. What can I say about it? I’m at a loss. I want you all to go see it so that they make the next two movies (and, dare I hope, tread some new ground in a fourth??) but I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed.

First, I didn’t realize until halfway through that they were only attempting to portray the first season of Airbender, so that was a letdown. It makes no sense to make a movie out of one season, really. Television seasons are set to end on cliffhangers, so that you’ll tune in after the long summer hiatus to see what happens. A movie, even a trilogy, needs more tie-up than that. The second movie of a trilogy can get away with more unfinished plot lines, but the first? Think Pirates of the Carribean, or Star Wars: A New Hope or The Bourne Identity. The first in a trilogy must be a good standalone.

Second, they removed absolutely all of the humor. Whaa? That’s like taking Harry Potter and removing the magic. Airbender is awesomely funny. The kids are kids, not little adults. They like the funny. They are the funny. It is integral to their goodness.

So, you take out a satisfying ending, tread ground the series did with more depth, and do it with nary a smile. What then are we left with? Live actors who try in vain to simulate animated expressions and postures, and computer graphic effects that are dwarfed by bigger-budget movies. I’m getting despressed. Airbender deserved better. If you haven’t, NO MATTER what your age, go put the entire TV series of Airbender in your Netflix queue. Airbender has the best mythology of any epic show since Star Wars.

Don’t believe me? Check out this fan-made movie trailer:

But back to Toy Story 3. If you pick one summer family movie to see, this is it. I’m telling you. Grab a nephew if you’re embarrassed to see it without a kid… or better yet, grab me. I’m looking for any excuse to see it again. No matter your age, you’ll laugh, you’ll even cry, you’ll be wowed and you’ll care about the outcome. And, you haven’t lived until you see what Mr. Potato Head turns into in this movie. Barbie and Ken, oh my! And Buzz, oh, Buzz. Go. See it. And comment when you get back, dahling, I’ve enjoyed our chat.

Enjoy!

I also liked the way the book was told in alternate first-person, sort of as a series of journal entries… but more like word snapshots. My son’s first-grade teacher would call them “small moment” scenes. Short but detailed. It was a great way to keep us invested in what would otherwise be a rather confusing, tangled story.

If you are the sort of person that just can’t get past the paradoxes that the whole premise of time travel deals with, then this story isn’t for you. If you can, you’ll enjoy either the book or the 2009 movie, or both.

Hey, that’s funny. I just realized that the movie’s main actor, Eric Bana, his last movie was about time travel, too — the new Star Trek.

I’ve had a hard time liking Bana since he played in the 2003 screen version of The Hulk, a movie I absolutely hated. I wanted to like it, because I liked the TV show and think the Bruce/Hulk is one of the most interesting super heroes. He’s not simply Jekyll and Hyde — good and bad. I like to think of Hulk as misunderstood. And that there are times for the use of anger and physical power, like to protect the weak and innocent, not to be a victim of a vilified military. The 2008 version looked exactly the same — Hulk vs. the military and I think that’s really boring.

(I also wanted to like the 2003 Hulk movie because of my long-time love of the movie Labyrinth in which Jennifer Connelly also starred. But I digress.)

But, in The Time Traveler’s Wife, Bana is really good, as of course is Rachel McAdams, who I liked in this performance better than in The Notebook.

Back to time travel.

It is nearly impossible to create a good story that centers around time travel, because first you have to deal with what happens when you change something in the past or future. This movie didn’t attempt to grapple with it, which makes it a little unusual. It laid out, very early and very clearly, that Henry, the time traveler, didn’t have the power to change anything significant in the past or future. Of course, the things he does throughout the movie change things as far as his relationship to his wife, but still… I could accept these boundaries and enjoy the movie within them.

This made the movie really a story about a man’s relationship with his wife.

Their relationship reminded me a bit of Lois and Clark (Superman), where she is the stability that anchors him, domesticates and humanizes him. Poor Henry, though, instead of having super-powers, has a super curse, in that he cannot control when or where he travels in time. There are some redeeming factors, though, and I enjoyed how these things made room in the story for other elements. After all, a guy that time travels at random can hardly hold down a job, so it’s very helpful that he can win the lottery so as not to be worried about money on top of his other issues.

I found it particularly interesting that the story took on infertility as a main issue. It made the otherwise rather perfect Clare more real, that she had serious issues of her own to grapple with.

So, Henry and Clare ended up being, for me, one of the more relatable couples I’ve seen onscreen. They are experiencing a great love, but not an ideal life, and I get that. Awesome love doesn’t equal perfect life. Not until we’re all behind the pearly gates, I guess.

The screenplay writer is Bruce Joel Rubin, who also wrote Ghost and several others. I liked this screenplay well enough that I’m tempted to check out his lesser-known films like My Life and even Stewart Little 2! Well, we’ll see, since he also wrote the Last Mimzy which I found rather silly.

On a more visual design note, the movie had a lovely look. You get a feel for it in the movie poster, isn’t that image beautalicious?

This movie gets four and a half nods from me!

enjoy!

Well, when you get your handy-dandy boxed set of Roald Dahl’s best-known books, you may notice a slim little dandy in the bunch called Fantastic Mr. Fox. Read it. Read it to your kids (or if you are a kid, read it to a younger kid.) It’s a quick night-time read. You can even spread it out over a couple days if you’re truly lazy (like me.)

Please, do it before you see the new(ish) film, and you’ll see why each is a genius compliment to the other. You’ll see that Wes Anderson and  Noah Baumbach (film writers) totally GOT the essence of the literary goodness that is Roald Dahl and one of his most whimsical stories. Dahl wrote about crazy, wild things, yes. But that is not why people love his books. You wanna know why people love his books? They’re about real, human characters. Human emotions anyway — even if the characters are animals. Take, for instance, the nuances in this passage from Dahl’s Mr. Fox:

Suddenly Badger said, “Doesn’t this worry you just a tiny bit, Foxy?”

“Worry me?” said Mr. Fox. “What?”

“All this . . . this stealing?”

Mr. Fox stopped digging and stared at Badger as though he had gone completely dotty. “My dear old furry frump,” he said, “do you know anyone in the whole world who wouldn’t swipe a few chickens if his children were starving to death?”

There was a short silence while Badger thought deeply about this.

“You’re far too respectable,” said Mr. Fox.

“There’s nothing wrong with being respectable,” Badger said.

“Look,” said Mr. Fox, “Boggis and Bunce and Bean are out to kill us. You realize that, I hope?”

“I do, Foxy, I do indeed,” said the gentle Badger.

“But we’re not going to stoop to their level. We don’t want to kill them.”

“I should hope not, indeed,” said Badger.

Granted, Mr. Fox is not a person; he’s a fox, but boy is he a foxy one. His rhetoric is cunning! He ennobles his trickery by placing it firmly beside feeding the hungry and in stern opposition to murder! How familiar this seems. We humans are always refining our self-story to make ourselves out to be better than we are. Especially for our shadiest deeds.

But Fantastic Mr. Fox, little book that it is, ends with Mr. Fox triumphant in his shady dealings. That would have limited any movie on the subject. Fortunately, this script and its execution landed in the laps of people who understood Dahl’s style well enough to carry the story onward to a much more satisfying emotional end. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I will say that Foxy learns more than just to give lip service to a starving family. He learns about actual nobility, not just how to talk of it.

As such, this film ranks right up there (aaaalmost) with The Incredibles as a beautiful look at a family in crisis and how they pull together instead of shattering apart.

It’s out on video now, so better get reading — and then get viewing! I give the film four and a half nods.*

I feel I should mention, however, that Dahl’s whimsy paired with Anderson’s kooky may not strike everyone’s funny bone, but it did me and mine! Are you cussin’ me?

* Note that I give Roald Dahl and every word he ever wrote a vigorous five nods! Now go read his double autobiography: Boy and Going Solo. They’re sold together in one book now I believe. His life was even more enchanting than his stories!

On the other hand, I’ve seen some very interesting (to me, anyway) pictures of writers’ writing spaces, and what they say about the author. To that idea I say: I likey! So, without further ado, I present my work desk, and some of the little mysteries that make up my writing self:

Okay! Points of interest:

1. Eyeglasses on the printer, rather than on my face, in spite of being THIS CLOSE to me. I guess I’m determined to be blind. Note that they are not tucked into their case three inches away, either. I live my life in the gaps between.
2. Left corner, two phones, both probably holding unheard messages from poor people that will not get a prompt callback, while I instead plunk those noise-canceling cordless earphones onto my ears and listen to podcasts. I prefer recorded people to live people.
3. Downstage right, sustenance, need I say more? Who quits for lunch, honestly. If you stop to eat, it’s just an excuse to avoid writing. REAL WRITERS power through. (If you know me, you’ll get the irony.)
4. General paper-messiness. This comes from having research materials, idea scraps, important notices from kids’ schools and tax documents all sharing space in my head as well as my desk. Can you believe I never (knock on nice cherry wood desk) am late with my bills? I thank Quicken. Heartily.
5. Nice cherry wood desk. Better give a shout-out to my husband for this lovely desk, which matches the one in the kitchen and is so much better than I deserve. Apparently I just need more linear feet of it. By the way, I noticed several years ago that an environment with lots of speckle in, say, wallpaper or draperies made me feel less relaxed than the lovely woody, smooth surroundings you see in this pic. Thank goodness my husband built such a house for my persnickety muse. Isn’t the clutter of papers a problem? Not so much.
6. Crumpled paper towel in front of speaker. Can you say: too lazy to get a proper box of tissues during allergy season?
7. Bright white reams of paper serving as footstool for short-legged writer. I may be pathetic in so many ways, but I am determined to send out (at least during manic phases) crisp, clean, lovely copies of my work to real live industry mavens. Heaven help me.

This is a challenge to all my lovely writer friends to write me a comment with a link to your own desk photo. I want a glimpse into the genius that is you! No straightening up first, either.

But since this is Amber’s blog, I want to share my thoughts on something that happened this week:

I should have known something really bad was coming down the pike, just around the corner, because lots of little things went wrong this week — involving pests, pulleys and policemen. Separate incidents.

I had finally gotten me and mine home safely, and just about put my house back in order, when I had a Feeling.

I went outside and stood on my porch and looked carefully at my dog, Pesto (the one I blogged about recently). She was sitting in the bed of her doghouse, awake and chillin’, the way she often does. So, I retrieved something from my car and went back inside again.

I had another Feeling.

I went back out to the porch and took a closer look at Pesto. She often sits a little funny in the back because of her advanced arthritis, but her front legs were positioned a little funny, too. I pet her black fur and rubbed her long, floppy ears. I noticed she was breathing a little heavy and had been drooling on her bed. So I stood back and called for her to come to me. She didn’t move. It was at this point I noticed her eyes. They’d lost their brightness, that cute thing the eyebrow moles do. She looked at me with sadness, with pleading.

I didn’t want to overreact. She’d gotten stuck places before, mostly in small holes around the pasture. She can’t use her back legs much so sometimes we drive the back end for her and she steers in the front. But because of the Feeling, I knew that this was different.

So, I grabbed my most logical child, my eight-year-old son, and told him I was concerned. I had him come out with me and we tried to help her up. Pesto tried briefly but collapsed again. My son suggested we give her some pain meds. It was a good idea, and the first pill (wedged in some cheese) she was able to get down — barely. The second pill took her a while to eat, and if you have ever given a dog cheese, you’ll know this is strange. Cheese comes only slightly behind fresh meat, in doggy cookbooks.

My son went to tell his brother and sister — what, exactly, I don’t know — while I grabbed a towel from the bathroom to use as a sling around her middle, so we could support her legs and get her up and walking. I removed the heavy lid of the doghouse, thankful for once that my husband builds even doghouses with extremely time-intensive features that you never thought you’d need.

With the kids watching and calling to Pesto, I lifted the ends of the towel around her middle, but it was no use. She wasn’t using her front legs at all now. The best I could do was move her into a more comfortable laying position, for which she gave me a look of gratitude before laying her head down.

That was the last time she moved, really.

I went right in and called the vet. It was 5:03pm on a Friday and I feared they were closed already. We have no doggie hospitals in backwoods, USA — as far as I know. I prayed someone would answer. A woman’s voice came on. After some time on hold, the woman told me I could bring Pesto in right now for emergency care. I knew what that meant. My kids knew what that meant. I told them anyway, that this was the end for Pesto. This brought our first wave of tears, but I couldn’t give in to it — I had to try and call my husband (who, in another unlucky turn, had lost his cell phone a few days before) and I had to get Pesto loaded into our car.

Fortunately, just as we were leaving, my husband’s car pulled in, so the family drove together. Pesto was awake on the ride, but didn’t raise her head to look around at all. My kids had their hands on her, speaking words of love and comfort. My husband said, “Well, Pesto, I guess this is what you have to do to get a car ride these days.” because the vet told us a year ago that her traveling days were over.

Once we carried her into the vet, batman blanket and all, we gathered around her on the concrete floor. The vet, a young woman with a frizzy brown bob, whose name I don’t even remember, took one look and said it was time. The words brought more tears, though we all knew the truth already. We could see the old girl was in pain. She was ready to be free from a body that had been holding her back.

It was simple, really. Peaceful. We each put a hand on her once more as the needles went in and the medicine stopped her breathing and then her heart. We knew she’d had a good run. Fourteen years! A breeder told me a month ago that after age twelve, a big hound lives on borrowed time. We’ve been ever so grateful that she borrowed that time for us.

We brought her body home, wrapped in the batman blanket, in a too-flimsy white cardboard box, and dug her grave in the drizzling rain. Now, instead of looking into the doghouse when we leave, we look into the field and say “see you later, Pesto.”

We know that it’s only an envelope under the dirt and rocks, though. We’ll see her later, running free on those horsey legs, ears flapping in a heavenly wind.

We love you, Pesto. We sure miss you. God be with you till we meet again.

Ms. Agnes dePesto, Jan 1996 – April 2010

LiveLeak.com – First Internet Home Terminal – 1967.

The only thing I wonder if they foresaw was the vast sinkhole such technology would also be for mind-numbing and even soul-destroying activities. Hmmmm!

Marley & Me

That’s what I’ve determined after seeing it for the second time last night. My daughter wanted to rent it because she thinks it is one. But I wanted to rent it because I knew better.

Because it is better than a boring old dog movie.

I won’t say I cried (on second viewing, no less) because I don’t cry at movies. But there may have been a little hard blinking.

See, Marley & Me uses a dog to take us through the seasons of life — specifically the seasons as they change from spring to summer. As a man and woman’s lives change from being about themselves to being about their family. It just happens to be told within the framework of a puppy growing into an old man-dog.

Marley provides a fair amount of the funny of this movie, but he also helps us get a window into the hearts of the main characters, Jenny (played by Jennifer Aniston) and John Grogan (Owen Wilson). Nothing really horrible happens. There’s a mild couple’s quarrel here and there, just the friction that comes from rubbing up so closely against another person’s life. That friction which rubs off the rough corners of our selves.

In a way, I  identify with this movie because it has a wonderfully talented (and beautiful, of course) woman choosing marriage and family over career, and depicts the normal ups and downs to a tee. It also shows a guy making career choices that are not only in line with his personal ambitions, but that suit the needs of his family. He’s striving for balance, and you admire him for it. I like seeing people sacrifice their own desires for a greater good. What greater good is there, really, then a happy family?

I haven’t read the memoir (of the same name) that the movie is based on, but I like the idea that a memoir can make a good story… even if it is just about people like you and me. What we do every day — choosing dependability, choosing responsibility, choosing to love others more than you love yourself — does make the world turn. We are the builders of humanity. For real, dude.

Too heavy? Well, if all you want is to commiserate about your aging dog, the movie provides ample grounds for that emotion, too. See the picture there? This is my old girl, Pesto. No, not the sauce. Though she is saucy, yeah. My husband and I, when we first got the runty little pointer mix from doggy jail, named her after the secretary character from the TV show Moonlighting. I know. We thought it was funny: Ms. Agnes dePesto.

Pesto.

She’s now fourteen years old, and I could write a book about the crazy little stories of her life, too. When she gorged herself on dog food and could hardly walk, when she jumped off the boat trying to reach the dogfish we’d snagged (we had to snag her, then), when she met each of our children and wholeheartedly opened her heart (and tongue) to them. But her last chapter is coming to a close now. Her time is near. She’s had a good run. Been a great dog. None better, I think. You forgive me the hard blinking, right?

Did you avoid seeing Marley & Me because it looked like another Benji or Beethoven? Well, go rent it. Though, perhaps it is. I didn’t see Benji or Beethoven. Maybe boring old dog movies aren’t bad at all!

I’m not going to rate this one — you may not like it at all. It’s a personal story, you’ll have to see how it hits you, eh?

In the first season, the stories dealt with logical and natural problems that would befall a small town after an apocolyptic attack, such as radioactive rain, food shortages and lawlessness. The stories were personal and real, as people dealt with the massive shift in their lives from civilization to survival.

The first season ends on a cliff hanger, and apparently the network did not renew Jericho for a second season. Fans were devastated, and took up a grassroots campain of sending boxes of peanuts to the network in support of the show. This “nuts” campaign pressured the execs to pick Jericho back up as a midseason show. They gave Jericho seven episodes to close the show (although I think they dangled renewal out there, it never happened.)

As a result, the second season of Jericho does in seven episodes what most series do over 21 episodes, so it has a fast-paced, world-coming-apart-at-the-seams feel. During the turning point episode midway through, I was shocked at the things that happened. Things they couldn’t come back from, that they couldn’t write around. It was risky, bold. It was “nuts”.

The show’s producers mentioned in the disc special features that they felt they had to be true to the story, that the fans deserved that, since they were the only reason Jericho made a second season.

It reminded me that when things are made more for the art than the business, great things can happen. Be true to the stories, to the audience, to thine own self! Not to the studio or the publisher or the agent. Or the disapproving aunt or whoever else is stifling your creativity!

And back to Jericho: I’m giving it five nods — well, maybe 4.75 but we’ll round up. Enjoy the ride, and tell me what you think!

BTW, family friendly, IMO. People die but nothing is very gruesome and there is tension without crassness. One scene mid-season 2 is harsh, you’ll know it when you see it, but it’s not graphic.

Best episode of the series is season 2, Sedition, with its WWII parallels. Wow!

Extreme Makeover: Picture Book Characters Edition | Shelf Talk >>

‘Tis sad, for those of us who pair a memory of lilting prose with the mood of particular illustrations. I was elated a few years ago to find that one of my childhood favorites was still in print, and I ordered several copies (online, not noticing the pictures much). When the box came, I was surprised to learn that my favorite little witch (and her ghost friend) looked nothing like I remembered. Here she is, then and now, The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches:

This is an awesome little picture book, in either form. Get it now for Halloween reading!

This one gets five nods from me!

Fortunately, Ira Sleeps Over has remained true. Interestingly, my favorite illustration in this book turned out to be the same one my daughter loves. There’s nothing special about the page, just Ira and his sister setting the table for dinner. The power of great images… and paired with great words, nothing better!

This one also gets five nods from me!

Sometimes, the changes are fun, though. My sister bought me, for Christmas, my number one favorite (early) childhood story, which had traditionally been one of the “other stories” in The Sneeches. It is now a standalone with glow-in-the-dark ink, no less: What was I Scared of? which is perhaps better known as “Pale Green Pants with Nobody Inside Them”. I can still recite this from memory. Thankfully, no well-meaning moneyperson has decided that the strange Dr. Seuss animals need a makeover for modern readers!

Five nods from me!

What are your childhood favorites?? Are they still around?

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