22 Mar- "I do not call myself subject to much at all"

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

dir. Michael Mann (Heat, 1995)

CAST
Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood, 2007)
Madeleine Stowe (Bad Girls, 1994)
Russell Means (Pocahontas (voice), 1995)
Wes Studi (Dances With Wolves, 1995)
Steven Waddington (Sleepy Hollow, 1999)
Jodhi May (The Scarlet Letter (voice), 1995)
Eric Schweig (The Scarlet Letter, 1995)
Pete Postlethwaite (James and the Giant Peach, 1996)
Terry Kinney (Save the Last Dance, 2001)
Patrice Chereau (Time of the Wolf, 2003)
Dylan Baker (Love Potion No. 9, 1992)
Mark Joy (Pecker, 1998)
Tim Hopper (School of Rock, 2003)
Jared Harris (Far and Away, 1992)
Sebastian Roche (Beowulf, 2007)
Colm Meaney (Law Abiding Citizen, 2009)
David Schofield (An American Werewolf in London, 1981)

The Last of the Mohicans is easily one of my top ten favorites movies. Unfortunately, it's hard to make other people believe how awesome it is because the first twenty minutes are notoriously slow and usually folks get bored before they become enthralled in the awesomeness. Here are the reasons why I like this movie:
1) Chingachgook's awesome war club
2) Daniel Day Lewis placing emphasis on unusual syllables (he's "beholden to none")
3) Wes Studi as Magua, probably one of the best characters in film history
4) The score, by Trevor Jones

I've also read the book, but James Fenimore Cooper. I'm always interested in how books are adapted into screenplays, what stays in, what gets cut, what's changed, how the perspective moves from first person to third person. In the book, for example, the heroine Cora doesn't pair off with Hawkeye, Daniel Day-Lewis's character, she marries Duncan, the English captain she arrived in the colonies with. But in the movie Duncan sacrifices himself to save Hawkeye, Cora and Alice, which is good, because from a modern perspective Hawkeye's character is way hotter and deserves makeouts.

I've always liked Wes Studi. Magua, as a character, is one of the best. Magua first appears as an Iroquois scout for the English, but after he betrays Duncan's unit it's revealed that he was actually a Huron captive who was adopted by the Iroquois. His anger at having lost his Huron family due to the actions of Colonel Monroe have set him on a vendetta to avenge himself. He says that he wants to kill Colonel Monroe's daughters in front of him, "so that he knows his seed as been wiped out forever" and then cut out and eat Monroe's heart. But at the end, when Alice is preparing to leap off a cliff instead of going as Magua's captive, he tries to stop her. And it's not that I think it's odd that he had a change of heart, but that I think that's a very human response. It's different, when you're at war and filled with anger and murdering is almost normal, and afterwards, when the fighting is done and the resolution has been made and someone's about to die is very needless and tragic. Nobody wants that to happen. Magua: he's kind of a tragic character.

22 Feb - "I want you to punish me"

A Dangerous Method (2011)

dir. David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises, 2007)

CAST
Keira Knightly (Never Let Me Go, 2010)
Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003)
Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, 2011)
Vincent Cassel (Black Swan, 2010)
Sarah Gadon (Cadet Kelly, 2002)

Last week I invited some of the ladies in my program to go to the movies with me. I was excited because I'm not usually the social event "planner" - there's a lot of responsibility and potential disappointment in that role, even if it's something silly like going to the movies. I was nervous for a while because I waited ten minutes out front and nobody came! But then it turned out they were inside already, so good. Social activity accomplished.

I think I do not like the character of Carl Jung. He was kind of a dick. His relationship with Keira Knightly's character reminds me of a challenging relationship that one of my friends is dealing with. Not with the sadomasichism and spanking (that I know of), but in that he's giving her a lot of grief with pushing and pulling and he says that he cares about her but also that he doesn't want to be with her (or the quintessential avowal of someone truly spineless: he can't be with her). And it pisses me off because behavior like that is truly self-indulgent. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. At the end of the day you have to make a decision, and the sooner you decide the less heartbreak there is all around. That's what I think. Carl Jung: Royal butthead.

24 Sept - "We'll just send them to Madagascar"

Europa, Europa (1990)

dir. Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden, 1993)

CAST
Marco Hofschneider
Julie Delpy (Broken Flowers, 2005)

Last week my neighbor/bff asked me to go with her to the German club's movie night and this was the selection. The funny thing was that I thought this movie was hilarious, it thought it was like a comedy, but my poor neighborette did not share my mirth. She's German, so I guess it's like a too-close-to-home thing for her.

So it's a German war movie, and the kid here is Jewish, and he gets separated from the rest of his family, and he has to pass as a non-Jew in order to not be murdered. It doesn't seem like a comedic premise, but bear with me. Sometimes I'm worried that I might be sort of racist sometimes. I try not to be that way, but I think in this case I have a valid argument. I wasn't the only one in the room who was laughing.

The first point of humor is that Solly (Solomon or Solek) keeps getting left behind by whatever group he's tagging along with by a very narrow margin, this inevitably leads to him narrowly escaping demise, also by a very narrow margin. For example, Solly gets separated from his older brother due to a mix-up with some boats, but then his boat lands on the wrong shore and Solly gets taken up by some Bolsheviks and put into a communist orphanage. but then when the school is destroyed Solly gets left behind by the other orphans. At another point Solly (alias Peter) is told that he's going to have to provide some documentation about being German, and all is almost lost, but then the building is blown up and the administrator dies, problem solved!

It is also important that this is a very sexual movie, and the sex is treated very comically. On his train ride to the Hitler Youth School, an older woman seduces Solly (in the dark, of course!) fawning over his dark hair and the fact that he shares the same birthday as Hitler. "Mein Furor!" she exclaims in the throes of passion. To further emphasis the irony of  stereotypes, Solly has a dream sequence in which he and Hitler are hiding in a closet together. "He's Jewish too," Solly's dead sister explains, "that's why he hides it with his hands." "Don't tell them I'm here!" the cowering Hitler moans.

I will also say that a lot of this movie revolved around the protagonist's penis. Of course, when you're a fellow trying to pass as gentile, your dick is a big liability. Solly worried about his a lot, and by a lot I mean maybe a little bit more than any other pubescent boy. He is upset because this means he won't be able to sex it up with his girlfriend, but it turns out that she's a super-Nazi and dumps him because he isn't Aryan enough.

On the other hand, this movie does have a somber theme. Especially near the end when Solly has to face other Jews again, and explain why he is strong and rosy-cheeked while they are emaciated with loved ones dead on the ground. Solly survived, but is he a traitor? When he meets his brother again they both pee on the ground side by side, unashamed to display their true selves to the world. It was a fitting ending.

13 Sept - "I keep the bees and the bees keep me"

Robin Hood (2010)

dir. Ridley Scott (Alien, 1979)

CAST
Mark Addy (A Knight's Tale, 2001)
Eileen Atkins (What a Girl Wants, 2003)
Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, 1998)
Russell Crowe (Rough Magic, 1995)
Ned Dennehy (Jane Eyre, 2011)
William Hurt (Tuck Everlasting, 2002)
Danny Huston (The Warrior's Way, 2010)
Oscar Isaac
Matthew Macfadyen (Death at A Funeral, 2007)
Simon McBurney (Jane Eyre, 2011)
Gerard McSorley (Braveheart, 1995)
Lea Seydoux
Mark Strong (Sunshine, 1999)
Max von Sydow (The Exorcist, 1973)
Bronson Webb (Atonement, 2007)
Velibor Topic (London Boulevard, 2010)
Kevin Durand (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, 1999)
Ralph Ineson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, 2010)

Oh Wow! Lots of back-links in this cast! Although I'm surprised I haven't written about any Ridley Scott movies yet. All well, something to look forward to. I watched Robin Hood the other night with my neighbor/new best friend, and we both agreed that Russell Crowe is very, very much hot shit. By that I mean that he can shoot those arrows straight into my heart, because I've already be slain. Sure, he has his detractors, and certainly this movie did not do wonderfully in terms of revenue, but I've always loved movies like this: set in the middle ages, browbeaten hero triumphs over injustice. I love it!

Important to note is that this is not the classic Robin Hood legend, but rather a sort of prequel to that story, which is fine, because in my opinion that Robin Hood story was perfected by this guy:

Am I right?? I think so.

Other highlights include Cate Blanchett playing a pretty ballzy and not-so-maidenly Marion, plus a restrained and slowly developed romance that was pretty hot. I also liked the trio of Robin Hood's sidekicks, Little John, Will Scarlet, and Alan Adale. Except that I remember that Robin Hood had a Moorish friend (This is in Kevin Coster's version as well as Men in Tights and I think I read it in a book too) but there weren't any black characters in this movie, which I think is silly. The diversity is already canonized! It's like the work is already done for you, entertainment-cinema complex! Maybe it would have been too much of a strain to include a strong minority character AS WELL AS a strong female character. Young white males will only suffer so much of that nonsense, right?

As to why this movie didn't do so well. I think it has partly to do with marketing, partly to do with everyone remembering how piss-poor some other recent middle-ages set movies have been (I guess I'm thinking about Kingdom of Heaven, King Arthur (2010), etc.). They probably should have pushed the renovated storyline a little bit harder, because I think everyone's pretty satisfied with the whole archery-contest, Sheriff of Nottingham story.

There's also what appears to be a social commentary in there, but I've never been too good at analyzing that sort of theme.

20 Aug- "I hate most people"

There Will Be Blood (2007)
dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, 1999)

CAST

Daniel Day-Lewis (The Last of the Mohicans, 1992)

Barry Del Sherman (Independence Day, 1996)

Paul F. Tompkins (Tangled, 2010)

Kevin Breznahan (Alive, 1995)

Jim Meskimen (Magnolia, 1999)

Ciarán Hinds (The Tale of Desperaux, 2008)

Kevin J. O'Connor (Peggy Sue Got Married, 1986)

Hans Howes (Seabiscuit, 2003)

A Professor once told me that it would be possible to construct a fairly complete history of the United States using Daniel Day-Lewis movies. I have not attempted to validate his point at this time, but I will say than DDL spends a lot of time dressed in period costume.

This story, though, is very applicable in these times of exploitation by the energy industry, and industry in general. This movie is about Daniel Plainview, a turn of the century oilman who amasses a great fortune but nevertheless ends up bitter, angry, and alone. Plainview lies to the people of the community, tricks them out of their natural resources, and profits from the land they live on. There is an antagonistic relationship between him and the town's preacher, suggesting maybe that religion and business are irreconcilable (there's something about a camel and the eye of needle, dig it?). However, the preacher, Eli Sunday, never seems like a very nice guy, either, and by the end we learn that he has squandered his money, become destitute. He tries to convince Plainview to buy the very last piece of untapped land in the community.

The scenes between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview are the very best in the movie. The first happens when Plainview is getting baptized to gain the trust of a community member. The second occurs when Eli visits Daniel at the end of the film. Both of these scenes are highly emotional and intensely physical - you can tell they are throwing their whole bodies into it, and it was at this point that I decided that Paul Dano is a good actor, and not just the awkward-looking teenager in Little Miss Sunshine.

The emotional aspect comes from the anti-hero's inability to create a familial bond. Despite an obvious yearning to do so, he consistently destroys every loving relationship he creates. The first is with his adopted son, who he sends away only to call back, but then disowns him at the end of the movie. The second is with the man who impersonates his brother, who, although deceptive, we can only assume was genuine in his desire for a fraternal relationship. Finally, when Eli Sunday makes the claim that he and Daniel are "brothers," Daniel loses control entirely. For this reason he ends up alone, a loser.

30 May - "We need cultural experts, not scientists"

Timeline (2003)
dir. Richard Donner - Conspiracy Theory (1997)

CAST
Paul Walker - She's All That (1999)

Gerard Butler - Nim's Island (2008)

Frances O'Connor - A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Billy Connolly - The Boondock Saints (1999)

David Thewlis - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

Anna Friel - A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)

Matt Craven - Disturbia (2007)

Ethan Embry - Pizza (2005)

Michael Sheen - Blood Diamond (2006)

Neal McDonough - Tin Man (2007)
Stephanie Biddle - The Whole Nine Yards (2000)
Amy Sloan - A Diva's Christmas Carol (TV 2000)
Marton Csokas - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Timeline is based on a Michael Crichton novel, like Jurassic Park and Congo, but not like Outbreak. This is about a group of archaeologists who are sent back in time by a technology corporation that has been funding their research into medieval France. They have to go back to rescue their Professor, because he was accidentally left behind in a previous trip. So they are plopped down in the middle of the hundred years war the day before the big invasion, ruh roh!

What I like about this movie is the utter lack of concern for a technological explanation (A 3D fax machine and a wormhole, OK let's go!), even though that's what takes up the lion's share of any Crichton novel. I also recall that one of the big conflicts in the book was the language barrier. All the old-timey people were speaking Ye Olde Angle-ese and no one could understand what was going on, but they chose to streamline that conflict in the movie and all the English folks were as comprehensible as one of Darth Vader's generals. They didn't even blink an eye at the wonky accents of our Heroes ("We're Scottish!" Assures Gerard Butler in a sexy way)

So the good guys are the French and the English are uniformly evil. The saddest part is when Francois gets skewered by Lord Oliver because he can't hide his French accent, awww.

Conclusions: Fun! A adventure in a more esoteric time period, which keeps things unpredictable, although I would have preferred if the storyline had remained more neutral in picking favorites between historical figures (I'm sure the invading English had some redeeming qualities, The Tudors seemed to work it out, well enough.) I was also disenchanted by Paul Walker as the lead, he was far upstaged by Gerard Butler, who is a better actor (and that's saying a lot) and had a more interesting character. The romance between Chris and Kate was poorly developed and unnecessary to the plot, they should have eliminated Walker's character and allowed O'Connor to carry those scenes on her own, and stuck to the dual conflicts of rescuing the Professor and Lady Claire.

I still enjoyed it, though!

May 12- "Some people call this hell, but you're still in Oklahoma Territory"

Hang 'Em High (1968)

dir. Ted Post

CAST

Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Dollars. 1964)

Pat Hingle (Batman Forever, 1989)

Ben Johnson (Red Dawn, 1984)

Dennis Hopper (Waterworld, 1995)

Bruce Dern (All the Pretty Horses, 2000)

I got this one in one of those double feature DVD sets they sometimes sells at bookstores or in Target or something. The other movie was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which made me wonder why they hadn't chosen A Fistful of Dollars or, For a Few Dollars More to pair with it instead. I've heard of Hang 'Em High, mostly from a novel I read once about a little girl escaped from a correctional center and that was the only movie she had ever seen (seems like a macabre choice to repeatedly show delinquent kids, but whatever).

"They riddled him with bullets. They strung him up. They left him to die. But they made two fatal mistakes: they hanged the wrong man...and they didn't finish the job."

Sounds cool, right? Well, it is. Sometimes I have a hard time interpreting the endings of these old westerns, probably because the culturally salient themes aren't the same anymore. I think the point was that everybody is hunting for vengeance in one way or another. Our Hero, Jed Cooper, has a tangible scar to prove his point, but his associates, love interest Rachel, and the Judge, are also on a rampage of sorts, trying to figure out how many dead men it takes to heal a scar that no one can see.

Jed Cooper is after nine men who lynched him for a crime he didn't commit. The first one resists arrest and so Jed shoots him in self-defense. Two of them flee the territory. Another one dies in jail. Two more are killed in a shoot out after they tried to finish Jed off, and a third hangs himself before Cooper gets to him. Another is arrested and hanged for murder and cattle rustling. One turns himself in. Because that last guy is repentant, Cooper talks the judge into pardoning him and we are let with the implication that the judge is the worst murderer of the lot. Which I guess is true, in that he sentences men to die. But most of those guys of villains, and someone has to maintain law & order in Oklahoma Territory!

15 April - "They can never take our freedom"

Braveheart (1995)
dir. Mel Gibson (Apocalypto, 2006)

CAST

Mel Gibson (What Women Want, 2000)

Brendan Gleeson (Gangs of New York, 2002)

Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity, 2002)

David O'Hara (Hotel Rwanda, 2004)

Peter Mullan (Children of Men, 2006)
Gerard McSorley
James Cosmo (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 2005)
Alun Armstrong (The Mummy Returns, 2001)
Tommy Flanagan (Gladiator, 2000)
Malcolm Tierney (Great Expectations, 2012)

I haven't seen Braveheart since the first time I saw it, which was in the movie theater, back when I was...small.

I remember complaining afterward about the ending. Everyone dies? What kind of chicanery is this? What type of message are they submitting? How could they make a movie where the hero dies and then all of his friends die too?

I guess I was accustomed to classic children's fare of the day. Perhaps I was unaware this was loosely based on a true story, maybe my mom didn't tell me because at that time I was certain that, at least in the movies, good always triumphs and the hero always wins and if he doesn't get to be with his true love, well, then at least he could have married that French princess.

Of course, William Wallace... (for the sake of simplicity, let me emphasize at this moment that what I know about William Wallace and this time period is general is exclusively derived from this movie and a romance novel I nicked from my mom once called Outlander about an English lady doctor who travels back in time and falls in love with a rugged highlander only to be torn asunder by the ravages of old-timey war. Therefore, all references to historical persons living or dead, but especially dead, are to be understood as referring to the fictionalized film characters and not the real historical figure bearing the same name)

So, of course William Wallace didn't really love that French princess. I mean, he thought she was okay, but he never stopped loving his wife that was slaughtered by English soldiers. So when he was being tortured and killed, Princess Isabelle was totally sad, because William Wallace was probably the love of her life and forever and ever she'll pine over his death, but as he was being tortured and killed, William Wallace was thinking about his dead wife (which made me very teary, akin to the death scene in the wheat field at the end of Gladiator) and I'll bet that the princess did not cross his mind even ONCE. Which sucks for her, you know?

BONUS! Here's a picture of me dressed up as Braveheart:

1 Feb: "I wear a dress like this!"

Elizabeth (1998)
dir. Shekhar Kapur

CAST
Cate Blanchett (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 2008)
Geoffrey Rush (Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (voice) , 2010)
Christopher Eccleston (28 Days Later..., 2002)
Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love, 1998)
Richard Attenborough (Jurassic Park, 1993)
Vincent Cassel (Black Swan, 2010)
James Frain (Where the Heart is, 2009)
Daniel Craig (The Quantum of Solace, 2008)

Whoosh! Long cast list! TWO references to the archives, no less! Someday I hope all the movie names I refer to will be hyperlinked, except Shakespeare in Love, because that sucked.

I chose Elizabeth in honor of finishing The Tudors, but actually I still have two episodes left, and I moved Lizzy up in my netflix queue because ten days without a posting is a bit much. I could upgrade my account to have more than one DVD at a time, but I'm not made of money, and I don't have enough time to be watching all these movies anyway. I wish the "watch instantly" option had better choices.

You guys, I'm not sure this movie was so great. In fact, I wasn't quite sure what it was about, lacking a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end, and I was never quite sure if Lord Robert was a good guy or not. Here is the synopsis, as I gathered:

Bloody Mary is the Queen of England but she's old and ugly and not pregnant and nobody likes her. She's mean to Elizabeth who denies having plotted to overthrow Mary and I guess we, the audience, are meant to take her word for it. And Catholic priests are evil and burnt a friendly-looking lady, but Mary dies of cancer and Lizzy gets to be Queen anyway. In the meantime Liz is entertaining a relationship with one Lord Robert, and I'm sure if he's on the up-and-up, since he's married already and she is the Queen. The ambassadors of France and Spain are pressuring her to marry someone from their respective countries, but the French guy is a cross-dresser and the Spanish guy isn't interested is actually co-habitating. A coup attempt by Lord Norfolk is intended to raise some sort of conflict or drama, but is quickly resolved and Liz decides to marry nobody but paints her face white and acts all dramatic.

I guess I'm supposed to think: Gee, it's tough being a powerful woman and choosing between having a man or having autonomy.

Stop telling me what to feel, Hollywood.

16 Jan - "But he's so cautious. He won't go into dark places"

Lust, Caution (2007)
dir. Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005)

CAST
Wei Tang
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Leehom Wang

This movie is set in WW2-era Shanghai, and it's about a college drama club in 1940s China who discover and attempt to murder a high-level traitor collaborating with enemy Japan. The youngest member of the club, Wong, ingratiates herself with the traitor Yee's household and quickly becomes his mistress. The club gets drawn into the REAL resistance movement and the conspiracy deepens. Wong delves deeper and deeper into her make-believe role, rejecting her own true love for the farce of romance with the sadistic Mr. Yee. All of the heroes die.

You guys, this movie was super-sad. The heroine gave up everything to become the perfect spy, only to fall for her own act, and betray the people she swore to protect and die for. There's one part where the gang realizes that in order to carry on their scam, Wong is going to have to sleep with Mr. Yee. And so one of the other club members, the only one with any experience, is elected to show Wong how it's done. That's the part where Wong becomes a real outsider in the group, and her commitment to her alter-ego begins to overpower her own true self.

I think this was marketed as an "espionage thriller," I don't think that's right at all. I guess it's a "wartime romance," but a really twisted one. Lots of explicit sex scenes in here, but that's pretty much the name of the game with these foreign films. Plus, I think I watched the uncut version (it was 2:40 long)

9 Jan - "These days, dying is easy. Living is harder"

The Warlords (2007)
dir. Peter Chan, Wai Man Yip

CAST
Jet Li (Fearless, 2006)
Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers, 2004)
Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers, 2004)

Jet Li is the coolest name ever. Do you think he thought of that hiself? I think so, because his real name is more Chinese.

The story is abot a disgraced military commander who joins a band of robbers and convinces them to join the army under his command. The twist is while that guy (Jet Li) was supposed to be the ethical one, his own rotted sense of pride turns him into a real jerk. So when he starts out by executing two of his own soldiers for raping girls in a conquered city because, "everyone should be free," he ends up ordering an entire city of unarmed people be executed so he can hustle out of there and capture the next city, the rebel capital. As a result, the former leader of the robber band gets all moralistic and goes up against Jet's character. They're also both in love with the same girl (the only female character).

There's lots of really intense fighting, but I don't think an of the subsequent fights compared with the first, in which Jet Li gets stabed with a really long spear, but still kills a WHOLE LOT of guys, and then lets the spear run through him so he can kill the guy who's holding the spear. AND THEN HE SURVIVES!

Maybe it's the translation, but I thought this movie was a little heavy-handed with the metaphors. There's one scene where Jet Li walks out onto a crackly frozen lake, and some other guy goes, "General Pang! Be careful!" and then he says, "I have walked on thin ice all my life" End scene.

Lame! In that sense it reminds me of a book I read translated from Vietnamese. It was about the Vietnam War, and was all critically acclaimed and shit, but all I could think was, "Is he seriously comparing his life to a river???" For serious?!

I forget what it was called.

27 Nov - "My mother told me to be wary of fauns"

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
dir. Guillero Del Toro (Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 2008)


CAST
Ivana Baquero
Sergi López (Dirty Pretty Things, 2002)
Maribel Verdú (Y Tu Mamá También, 2001)
Doug Jones (Hocus Pocus, 1993)
Ariadna Gil

I saw Pan's Labyrinth in Ithaca's Cinemopolis a long time ago. I guess that's when it first came out, but now i can't remember if I saw it twice in theaters or not. I don't usually do that.

*Movies I saw twice in theaters*
1) Superman Returns (2006)
Tragic, and not worthwhile, I know. I saw it the first for shits and giggles, was horribly disappointed, but then I went to see it again because a boy I liked asked me to (pretending it was the first time!)

2) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
You guys, I flipped out when I saw this movie. I was so excited and happy. I had to find more buddies to watch it again and again (I might have seen it 3 times). Now I'm kind of over it. Will I go see Voyage of the Dawn Treader? Yes, because that's the best one - except for maybe The Horse and His Boy, which I don't believe they are planning to make a movie of because it's sort of the outlier in the Narnia series (Much like Farmer Boy for the Little House on the Prairie novels).

3) You know, that's all I can think of right now. Seeing movies 2ce in theaters is sort of lame. Generally, it stresses me out to sit still for that long. When I watch movies at home I have to mend pillowcases or paint my nails or something.


What was I talking about? OK - tonight my little brother picked out Pan's Labyrinth for him and my mom and I to watch together. Sucks for him because we forgot that this movie is subtitled (isn't it awesome when you don't even notice that you have no idea what the actors are saying?) and once it had started we didn't really feel like taking it out again. So I guess he was playing with his toys or something during this thing. Although occasionally he interrupted with a question so maybe he was attending more than I thought. When my older brother saw this movie, he called me and said, "So it was just a desperate fantasy and she dies at the end? That sucks!" But I say that it wasn't a fantasy, it was magic, and she goes to the magic underground kingdom at the end after she sheds her earthly body. She's not dead! She gets ETERNAL LIFE (omigosh Christ metaphor!) Here is what i submit as evidence:

1) Captain Vidal sees Ofelia talking to the Faun in the Labyrinth. He doesn't see the Faun, but he hears her shouting. There's a difference between pretending and whackadoodle crazy. Ofelia was having a REAL conversation (with a Faun that only she could see)

2) The Chalk: The Faun gives Ofelia a magic piece of chalk which Captain Vidal SEES and TOUCHES. She uses it to escape her room with a LOCKED DOOR and GUARD.

3)Ofelia disobeys the Faun. If it was a fantasy, then Ofelia wouldn't have imagined that the Faun ordered her to do something which she would refuse. OBVIOUSLY!