Anxious to see this movie

I don't think it has been released in the U.S. Too esoteric? I'll bet there are as many Morris dancers here as in Britain, doggone it.

Two Movies

I used to love going to movies. I'd go to movies every night of the week, sometimes even double features! Lately, I don't know. I'm tired of going and being disappointed. Watching them at home, there are so few that inspire me. Even when I enjoy them at the time, I hate myself in the morning. But I can't always be the wet blanket, so this weekend I agreed to rent a movie with my younger daughter on Friday night, and go out to see a movie with my eldest tonight. Here's the rundown:

Taking Woodstock -- "Based on a true story", a tale about the small town that hosted the Woodstock festival in 1969. This had gotten so-so reviews, and having lived through the sixties, I was prepared to hate it. Surprisingly, it was altogether enjoyable. Accurate? I doubt it. But fun and poignant at the same time. I think what saved it was the fact that, where the film maker could have been extremely heavy-handed with the visual imagery and the hippy stereotypes, instead it was handled with a very light touch. So you could laugh about the theater troupe doing Chekov in the nude, instead of sink into your chair and squirm with embarrassment. And the best part? When the protagonist's father, a Russian Jewish immigrant, called someone a schnook. I haven't heard that word -- haven't even thought of it -- since my parents died.

An Education -- A screenplay by Nick Hornby is reason enough to see this one. Takes place in 1961, the story of a 16 year old English schoolgirl who takes up with an older, more worldly man. I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling it for you, but it is definitely well worth seeing. Well acted, entertaining, thought-provoking …

Both movies are recommended.

For your enjoyment ...

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. A spellbinding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short.



(Hat tip to TR for sending this my way. I love it!)

When I think of Hillary Clinton ...

...and believe me, I try not to, I most often think of this Japanese cartoon called Pom Poko. Why? Well, maybe this sentence from Wikipedia will illuminate things:

It's worth noting to Western viewers that prominent testicles are an integral part of the Tanuki [raccoon] folklore, and they are shown and referred to throughout the movie, and also used frequently in their shapeshifting.

Got that? Prominent Testicles. Except in the English dubbing, they are called "pouches." They use them in the most interesting ways. If you want to see a truly strange and goofy movie, that will have you turning to your companion more than once and saying "euwwwwwww" or "Huh?", then Pom Poko is the movie for you.

And try not to think of Hillary.
(And what made me think of this, you ask? I was riding my bike and thinking about war mongering, actually. And it just took off from there.)

The Red Balloon

We have a tradition at my school that I just love: each Wednesday for the last month of school, a colleague of mine shows international children's films to our students. These films are usually radically different from anything most of the kids have seen before; some of them are in black & white, some of them are subtitled, one was in Portuguese with no subtitles, so the kids had to figure out what was going on.

Today's film was the 1956 French classic The Red Balloon. The kids were squirmy for the first few minutes, but then they were captivated. It really is a wonderful movie, deserving of all the accolades it has received.

I had seen it many times before. Each of my own kids went through a period of time when it was a favorite. Today, however, I saw it through a new lens, perhaps because I am reading the book Suite Francaise, which was written by a French woman in 1942 during the Nazi occupation. 1956 was not so long after the end of the war, and Paris looks pretty war-weary. The war also would explain why Pascal, the hero, lives with an elderly woman (his grandmother, presumably) as well as the large gang of ruffian street-boys who ultimately pop the red balloon.

It made me kind of sad too, because the Paris it depicted is long gone. I first visited Europe when I was 9, in 1968, and that Europe is long gone too.

Anyway, if you have not seen The Red Balloon, it is way more than just a sweet children's movie. Check it out sometime.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (and I don't like them!)

Speaking of Robert Redford (yes I was, at the end of my previous post) his first Sundance Theater just opened here. Anticipation of its coming put a small locally owned movie theater out of business; they saw the handwriting on the wall. Movie tickets at Sundance cost $10 plus a $3 "service charge" even when you walk up to the box office 5 minutes before the show starts because "every seat is reserved." (That may be par for the course in big cities, but it is unheard of here.) Now the hoi polloi of our fair city can enjoy independent films in a rarefied setting and congratulate themselves on how they are patrons of the arts. (Yes, I know I'm being cynical and unfair. But I'm feeling curmudgeonly.)

Sigh. I miss the old Majestic theater in downtown Madison, with its broken down seats, precariously hanging chandelier which we always sat under on the off-chance it would fall so we could sue them and never have to work again, brewers yeast to shake on your popcorn, and every night a double-feature of independently made, vintage, or art films all for a couple of bucks. That was before independent film making was big business, raking it in for the likes of Robert Redford, and there were art cinema houses in just about every college town. It was big excitement when the Majestic would publish their monthly calendar, which was stuck with magnets to many a refrigerator around the near east side of Madison.

Oh jeez, I'm turning into a codger. My 18-year old daughter, who is planning to study film production in the fall, does not believe that once upon a time her mom really loved movies. Were the movies themselves better, or just the environment?