The Forbidden Kingdom

So instead of a date night we made it family movie night. Which was a bit of a risk; we usually prescreen PG13 films before letting the boys watch them. Some PG13 like the Will Smith movie Legend I would have put more in the R category (lots of scary images, but I think it's the scene where he has to kill his own dog that would have bothered my eldest the most). Then there are films like this, which I would have called a PG. Bloodless kung fu violence, it's like a live action Avatar (coming soon...)

I went into it expecting some good fights but a lame story. I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it's about a white boy that gets a magic staff that takes him back in time so he can return it to the Monkey King. But they never go with any fish out of water jokes, or things are so weird in China I just don't know how to behave! jokes, which I appreciate.

Clearly Jet Li had some screenplay input. From DVD commentaries on his other films I've gotten a sense of how he thinks kung fu should be portrayed, and this movie had a very Jet Li feel to it. Jackie Chan and Jet Li both teach the boy from Boston kung fu (which takes so long he grows a ponytail; nice touch). Jackie Chan tells him how learning kung fu makes a musician a better musician, and a butcher a better butcher. Jet Li tells him kung fu is like water - it doesn't fight, it moves around its opponent and wears it down.

The girl with them has her own story line which was very good, and ended exactly as it should (I'm refraning from spoilers, can you tell?).

Plus the boys really liked it, which is always good. Jet Li plays both the stern monk and the Monkey King, who is a total giggling spaz. Fairly early on the Monkey King insults the Jade Warlord and the two fight, the Monkey King playing tricks and generally amusing himself throughout the kung fu match. Oliver leans over to me to whisper, "The Monkey King is so cool!"

I did miss a chunk in the middle of the movie when some chunk of lint got stuck under my contact lens and by the time I got to the restroom to get it out the lens was completely shredded. So I had to watch the rest of the movie like it was a Monet painting, and apparently I missed the funniest scene in the whole movie. The boys couldn't stop giggling long enough to give a coherent account of just what had happened out in the desert. Oh well, I'll see it when it comes out on DVD (about a dozen times...)

Movies in March

Those of you who know me from Backspace will recognize this Joss Whedon quote from my signature line:

"The two things that matter the most to me: emotional resonance and rocket launchers. Party of Five, a brilliant show, and often made me cry uncontrollably, suffered ultimately from a lack of rocket launchers."

I love that quote (although in my case I would say it would be emotional resonance and kung fu fights), but until last month I had never actually seen a single episode of Party of Five. I watched season one on DVD. A good show, if often painful to watch (poor Charlie; it sucks to be him).

I only saw two movies in English. The first was the latest from the Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men. I liked the level of detail they bring to every aspect of the set, to every nuance of character. It's a very well-made film. Still, in the end I didn't like it very much. There were a lot of nice moments (Tommy Lee Jones describing his dream of his father in the last scene is a particular favorite), but I guess it was just too relentlessly hopeless. I don't mind violence in films, but violence in an atmosphere of complete despair really is too much for me. So: nicely made but I won't be watching it again. If the Coens follow their usual pattern their next venture will be a comedy. (I also watched The Hudsucker Proxy for the nth time, but this time with my boys so they can understand where the phrase "You know, for kids" comes from. I'm not saying they here that a lot around here or anything...)

I also watched I am Legend. Cool premise, and again a wonderfully shot film. But. The DVD comes with two endings and I didn't like either of them. Given a choice I thought the alternate ending was the better of the two, but still. I have this problem a lot with speculative films (more so than books even when the films in question are based on books - I shall have to meditate on the caue of that) - a story that is written to pose a question always crumbles for me in the end because the ending will try to answer the original question, which is better left unanswered, as no answer can satisfy without making the question seem much more black and white than it was when it was posed. Perhaps that's why I don't have this trouble with books - filmmakers shy away from open endings, but books have no problem ending on an ambiguous note. I don't know, I'll have to think on that more.

The last four were Bollywood, and three were quite good. Heyy Babyy (and as I keep telling Quin, that spelling isn't a Hindi convention, it's a nod to hip-hop) is something I've had the soundtrack to since it came out in theaters in India, so I already knew I liked the music. But it's meant to be a remake of Three Men and a Baby, and I wasn't wildly thrilled to see it. Still, I figured at least the music bits would be worthwhile, so I picked it up with low expectations. Well, the film takes care of the bits it wanted from Three Men and a Baby in the first 40 minutes, then spends the next 2+ hours telling another, more interesting story. I was very pleasantly surprised.

On a linguistically frustrating note, I mentioned I've had this music forever, and I had printed out the lyrics in Hindi. I do this with most of these films, but I never really know what the songs are about until I see the movie and the English subtitles. My favorite song from this film is called "Mast Kalander". Now "mast" I knew already; it comes up in many songs and means a sort of intoxicating, passionate joy. "Kalander" I didn't have a clue on. So when I finally watched the film I eagerly awaited this translation.

Apparently "mast kalander" means "mast kalander". This translation was later confirmed by Quin's coworker from Delhi. It just means, well, mast kalander. I suppose it's a bit like trying to translate something like "Dance this Mess Around"; you can't do it without breaking it.

(I generally watch these movies on Wednesday nights when the boys are out at the community center, and when they come home Aidan always wants to watch the musical numbers. "Mast Kalander" has a cameo from Shah Rukh Khan, and Quin was absolutely mortified at how both of the boys perked up when he appeared. Apparently we're all getting too into these things, so he says. Then I played the title song, and when Malaika Arora Khan came on screen he shut right up. Malaika is the one who did the dance on top of the train in Dil Se. He always shuts up when she's on screen).

I also picked up Shah Rukh Khan's first film appearance: Deewana. I don't think this one really stands the test of time except for those like me who like to study actors and how they change over time. Khan as a very distinctive style, and apparently he had it in full force right from the get-go. But he's not even in the first half of the movie. I would say this is for SRK completists only.

1942: A Love Story I had gotten from one of the Post-It note recommendations. How geeked was I to see that Sanjay Leela Bhansali cowrote it and directed the musical numbers (with Farah Khan as choreographer, natch). This one is well worth seeing, a good story with some excellent songs. I wonder if Bhansali picked the music as well as directed the musical parts; it has his style of not going for pop songs, and also has a song about the sound of the rain that reminds me of other scatting, playing with sounds songs like "Dhole Baje" and "Chalak Chalak". Also, his last movie Saawariya contained images from all of his previous films; I can now account for the umbrella the main character carries; it comes from 1942: A Love Story.

Another thing from 1942: A Love Story popped up in the last movie I watched in March, a movie that immediately jumped into my top five favorites: Main Hoon Na. I've praised Farah Khan's choreography, how she works with large groups so well and finds ways for the dance to reveal nuances of the characters, so that the musical numbers are an inherent part of the story and not just some strange aside as they are in so many of these films (especially when they are all filmed in the Alps for no clear reason, as if the characters hie off to Europe to sing at each other than get right back to their hometowns to carry on with things.) So it probably shouldn't come as a surpise that the first movie she directed would have awesome dance numbers. But the rest of the movie, which she wrote and directed, is all good. I got the same feeling I had the first time I watched Jaan-e-Mann, that someone went inside my skull and took all my favorite things and whipped them together into a movie just for me. How else to explain a movie that is equal parts Dirty Dancing, Grease, Clueless, 21 Jump Street, The Matrix, and anything from John Woo, and it takes all those parts to tell a story about Indian-Pakistan relations and about family (and of course is also a love story or two)? How many of us can there be who dig on all those things? (Here's another layer: the editor of this film was a certain Shirish Kunder, who later went on to direct Jaan-e-Mann. So my feeling of similarity between the two was perhaps not so coincidental).

Plot in a nutshell: SRK plays a soldier who works under his father as security for a general who is in the process of releasing a number of Pakistani prisoners who have been in prison for decades - farmers who wandered over the border in search of water and the like. Raghavan is a terrorist who opposes any gestures towards Pakistan and his attempt to assasinate the general lead to the death of SRK's father. The general fears the terrorist will target his daughter next, the daughter who has stopped speaking to him and refuses to leave college to go into protection. So SRK is sent to college undercover as a really old student so he can protect her from the terrorist, and while he is there he can attempt to find the half-brother whom he's never met, who is also a student. College in Hindi films is a lot like high school here; they have proms and Valentine's Day dances and having a 40-year-old guy in class is regarded as odd (certainly not my college experience; older students were few but not exactly rare).

The general's daughter is best friends with SRK's brother, only because he doesn't really notice her as a girl. She was an only child, and her current hatred of her father stems from never being the son he wanted. Her attempts to be more boyish for his sake are not serving her well. And I really felt her pain when she finds she only appeals to uber-geeks and older men (of course SRK isn't following her around because he's into her, but she doesn't know that). Yes, she eventually gets a make-over, but 1) SRK gets one first (although his sweater vest and button-down shirts made him such an adorable nerd) and 2) she decides that the total girl look is way too much work and if that's what it takes to keep her guy, she'd rather be with the uber-geek.

Farah Khan rocks.

(And the 1942 connection? Well, SRK crushes hard on his chemistry teacher to the point where the man who only knows army songs at the beginning of the movie finds that every time he tries to speak to her the words become lyrics, then the men with guitars and violins hop up behind him and he's singing "Ek Ladki Ko Dekkha" from 1942, to his great embarrassment, and he can't stop).

Yeah, I loved this movie.

But to pick just one musical number to share? How about the first song, shot as one long take with scores of dancers (or more correctly faked to look like one long take with computer editing, but still impressive). How abou the closing number, which serves as the credits? What other film lets you see not just the actors with their names, but the art crew, the sound guys, the hair stylist?

No, it's got to be "Tumese Milke Dilka Jo Haal", just after the general's daughter gets her make-over, and the violins now play for SRK's brother (and you get a little peak at the first of many appearances of John Woo's birds):

Books in March

There were five of them and they were all Heinlein (I've since finished him off. Still don't really know who I'm going to plunge into next, so I'm just grabbing some random things that have been sitting around for a while. But that's next month's book report...)

All right, so namely it was The Number of the Beast, Friday, Job: A Comedy of Justice, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. I liked them all save Friday, which didn't really do it for me. From a writing stand point, it seemed to start out telling one story and ended telling another, which left me wondering how the first story ended, and what exactly was the point of the second one? Truthfully, the book never would have recovered from the early scene where our heroine gets gang-raped and one of the guys kinda turns her on (I had almost decided I could let that go when the guy in question turned up again. Blech.).

But the other four I liked. The world as myth was a cool idea, and the mixing of characters from all over the Heinlein universe was fun. I particularly enjoyed The Number of the Beast, when Hilda locked Lazarus Long in the bathroom (an act long overdue). And then there was this exchange, when the four characters realize they are traveling to fictional universes that all of them had read:

“Did Heinlein get his name in the hat?”
“Four votes, split. Two for his ‘Future History’ and two for ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’. So I left him out.”
“I didn’t vote for ‘Stranger’ and I’ll refrain from embarrassing anyone by asking who did. My God, the things some writers will do for money!”

(And I recently read that Heinlein wrote Glory Road in 28 days. Which explains a lot. I would have to do some serious debating to pick my favorite Heinlein, but on the subject of my least favorite there is no doubt that is the one.)

RIP Mr. Eko

As it turns out, goldfish aren't good for frogs:



We have two left who are still swimming about, but one is moving pretty sluggish. I don't think the odds are good. They'll probably all be dead before our preying mantis egg sac hatches.

Here's a nicer pic: my boys working together on a puzzle book without bickering. A rare, rare moment:

Looks like I need another date night...

Yes, the foreign world seen through the eyes of a white person is in my top ten lamest plots for movies (I would much rather see China through Chinese eyes, and so on). This is very much that. But it's also a movie where someone learns kung fu; like boy-meets-girl, I never get sick of that.

Best of all: Jet Li vs. Jackie Chan. Dude, I'm so there.

Man!

Worked a bunch of overtime. Didn't even quite get that nice pay check in my hands before I had cause to spend it. Our oldest cat almost cacked last week. Many expensive little adjustments later he is doing much better (even bathing himself; he hasn't done that in months!). But he will be on thyroid medicine for the rest of his days and the vet recommended he only eat soft food (so he has to be separated from the others when he eats, because they have no qualms about knocking an old man aside and taking his tasty gravy-soaked meal).

I spent every spare minute I could find last week polishing up an old piece so I could have something to send to Writers of the Future by the 03/31 deadline. Then Monday came with lots and lots of sticky wet snow. I waited for my husband to get home from work with the car then tore off to the post office. But too late; I missed the last pick up of the night and my entry will have a 4/01 postmark. *sigh*. Well at least I have a nicely polished story already in for next quarter.

I have half-finished book and movie posts for March I'll be getting to soon, plus another about homeschooling and Heinlein. So hopefully that means you'll be hearing from me a bit more in April than in the last few months. Hopefully.

On an unrelated note, apparently African frogs don't like goldfish. Or more correctly, they like them a touch too much. (File under things which weren't my idea. My husband thought the tank would stay cleaner with goldfish in it. I was dubious, more animals would surely mean more mess not less, but since the first fish looked like this the morning after we put him in the tank, and the second fish got it on day 2, we'll never know...)