The shack

Tonight is the second night of Chanukah (you know, the fried foods festival). Do you remember what I was doing this time last year? That was a magical week last December when you all accompanied me to the beach, squeezing into my little shack and building sand-castles.

We all walked down to the beach once again this morning. It felt good to get out into the bright sunshine and stroll hand-in-hand through the quiet Saturday-morning streets.

Here is the cafe where we stopped and ordered our take-away lattes, because we were celebrating coffeelady's birthday. Happy birthday my little caffeinated friend!! See that little blue container on the pavement? The cafe owner leaves it filled with water, for Blue, Bryn, Tex and Clover to enjoy while they wait.


Look at that!!



This was our view from the shack.

It was a wonderful day.

Shep nachas

שעפּן נחת

To derive pleasure or pride (especially from one's children)

This Yiddish phrase summarises my feelings today.

Miss CB returned last night from a four-day camp for children with disabilities. Miss CB decided that after finishing her final exams she wanted to volunteer as a carer at this camp, and she came home glowing with happiness, completely exhausted, and impatient to share her experiences with us.

Upon opening her mail, Miss CB then began racing around the house shouting with joy. She had just opened a letter announcing that her HSC artwork has been chosen to be exhibited in next year's Artexpress.

I'm really shepping nachas over here.

Antidote

"Where The Wild Things Are"

I'm not sure that it's possible to review this film while sticking to my rule. You know the rule, the one about not comparing a book to a film. I'll give it a go, because I'm a stickler for rules, but it'll be a challenge.

This is a film which is best enjoyed by adults in the company of other adults. I suggest seeing it at an evening session on a weeknight so as to ensure that no children are in the audience. Just as the best time to appreciate childhood is after you've grown up, just as the best time to appreciate your own children is when they are fast asleep, so is this film best watched in a peaceful, silent cinema. This will allow you to envelope yourself in the fantastic world of Max and his wild friends, and it will ensure that the images of his tiny boat, his massive nest-like fort, and his feathered and furred comrades in arms, all reach their mark.

This film enters new, uncharted territory and it will take patience, concentration and an open heart to understand and feel it, much like parenting, and more specifically - much like parenting boys. Also very much like the creating, developing and nurturing of a young family. Yes, the protagonist is a young boy, yes, most of the other characters are dressed in massive monster outfits, but this is not a film for children as much as a film ABOUT children.

If there's a boy in your life that you loved or love or dream of loving, then you're guaranteed to find a connection with this film. If you are still a novice to the many mysteries of childhood then this may not be the film for you, but that's all right, perhaps you'll meet a Max one fine day in your still-unmapped future, and this film will be there for you, quietly biding its time until you sail onto its shores.



Final word: You'll walk out of the cinema mesmerised and a bit disoriented. You know that saccharine Hollywood taste in your mouth? The one that you get after seeing a Hollywood film starring children? Well, this is its antidote.

The Parent Trap

"2012" is a disaster film, so you can be absolutely sure that there will be no surprises. This is the sort of film for people who like to get what they see. Film trailers often tease you into expecting a certain movie, and then the film is disappointing first and foremost because it's simply not what you expected. A bit like real-estate ads in Sydney, you must read between the lines and realise that a "surprisingly uplifting" film is a probably a downer, and that "the funniest comedy of the year" probably has a cynical twist. But "2012" is a long film about the end of the world, loaded up with fabulous special effects and endless scenes of mayhem, destruction and panic. Simple.

This is a film to enjoy when you're tired of THINKING. You've been reading and writing and analysing all week, and now you'd like to switch off and forget about anything meaningfully deep. You'll be able to buy that extra-large popcorn because the film's soundtrack is so loud that nobody will be bothered by your jolly opened-mouthed munching. Every so often you'll turn to your partner and repeat a funny bit of the dialogue and share a laugh, and if you look around you the cinema will be packed with happy film-watchers getting what they paid for - a big, bold, fabulously ridiculous disaster film.

This film is best enjoyed in a huge cinema complex on a very busy Saturday night, the atmosphere is half the fun with this type of film. It is also helpful to have a good sense of humour, because taking the end of the world seriously is NOT what this film is about. You should be the kind of person who thinks it's hysterically funny to see the Queen of England shuffling along with her two corgis, making her way towards a huge, metal ark which will survive a tsunami. It would also be helpful if you thought fake Russian accents are very very funny, because there's a lot of that. However, most importantly, you need to be able to appreciate the cunning ingenuity of a scriptwriter who chooses to make the protagonist of the film a negligent and disorganised father who's recently divorced. This is a man who will reconnect with his children and his estranged wife only because the WORLD is about to END. That's what it takes for this family to live happily ever after.

The secret treasure at the end of this film is that you realise it's really "The Parent Trap" for adults. Like I said, take this film seriously at your own risk.



Final words: You'll come out of the cinema a bit dazed, giggling and reminding each other of the silliest scenes (so many to choose from). You might also hearken back to the 70 odd times you watched the original Parent Trap film, and make your partner laugh by singing your very own rendition of "Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah."

Intermission

There might be a delay in delivery of the next film review. The sartorialist is in town!!! Must rush off and wander the streets, just in case.

Something

"The Time Traveler's Wife"

There's something in this film for the woman looking for a romantic experience, just as there's something for the man she'd dragged along with her. But it's not what they were expecting, not even close. She won't have a really good cry, and he won't tease her about it, instead they'll both sit quietly and UNDERSTAND the story rather than FEEL it.

She'll understand that Rachel McAdams' relationship with Eric Bana is really the secret poetry of her own experiences, men are by definition absent from so much of their women's inner lives. She will understand that Eric Bana's empty clothes and shoes are much like the wardrobes of men she has known and loved and lost to death. The experience of losing an unborn baby as shown on the screen might even make her nod in wise understanding, yes, babies do travel through time far too soon sometimes. He will see the story through a man's eyes, feeling a kinship with this husband who can never fully be everything, all the time, for his beloved wife. But neither of them will lose themselves in the story, because there's something just a little too plastic, a little too simplistic and a little too neat about this film.

Rachel McAdams is not truly convincing as an artist, she's far too calm and rational and perfectly beautiful in an unappealingly airbrushed way. Eric Bana is not truly convincing as a time-traveller, sure he's sad and serious and confused, but have you ever met a traveler (whether spatial or temporal) who looked so clean and white-washed? He needed a hat, and a scruffy beard and some attitude; just as poor little Rachel needed a halo of crazy-mad, curly red hair and a curvaceous figure and a glint of madness in her eye.

Final word: You'll walk out of the cinema desperately wishing that it had been more emotional, more moving, more romantic, but you won't go so far as to say it was a complete disappointment. There was something there, it simply wasn't enough.


P.S. I've decided that all films which are based on books should be reviewed solely on their own merit. Comparing a film to a book is akin to comparing a piece of music to a painting which was inspired by that same music - an impossible and unhelpful comparison.

Four movie weekend

I think film reviews are, on the whole, useless.



First of all, they are usually written by film buffs who are enthralled with film culture and the "art" of it all. That's just fine, if you're a highly-educated film buff yourself, but the average movie-goer is not. These so-called academic/ arty/ cultured reviews usually contain a plethora of snide remarks about popular culture. I classify these as "snob reviews", and (as Kim would say) they make my neck itch. Secondly, film reviews have stopped having any effect whatsoever on the film-going public. It's all about word of mouth these days, and in this modern age word of mouth is lightning fast. It used to be the case that if you had a lousy movie to distribute you'd be able to get at least one good week out of it before word of mouth killed it off. But nowadays, the audience is busy texting their opinion of the film while they're still sitting in the cinema.



Film reviews might be more helpful, and more accessible, if they tried to determine who the target audience for each film might be, and then tried to determine whether this type of film was well-made enough to appeal to the audience for which it was made.



Now I'll give it a go. I don't think it's as easy as it seems.



"A Serious Man"

This one's great for after-movie dinner conversation. Go with your partner and another couple, and you're guaranteed to be able to steer the conversation away from their kitchen renovation, their children's school fees and their baby's adorable cuteness. You might not be able to agree on what the first scene with the dybbuk means, or how it's connected to the plot. If you're not Jewish you might not be able to understand why some of the audience found certain scenes hysterically funny, then again, even if you are Jewish you'd probably disagree on the humour. Is it funny? Depressing? Self-hating? Meaningful? Meaningless? It's all up for interpretation. This is a thinker's film, you won't lose yourself in the characters or the story, but you'll have a lot to ponder afterwards. It's entertaining in the way a well-written book is, you don't love it, but you'd recommend it to your friend the Professor of Literature.

Final word: You'll walk out of the cinema with a bemused expression, stifling a yawn, but reticent to say exactly what you thought of the film until your more clever friends tell you their opinions.



"The Invention of Lying"

This is great for a Saturday night when you need to get out of the house and detox. You don't care that it's not really that funny, and that it's not really well-acted, you want to see comedy on that big screen for at least 90 minutes. You want to eat that packet of Maltesers in a dark, air-conditioned cinema, sitting next to your partner who's munching on his choc-top like it's his last meal and he's gonna be executed tomorrow. You want to forget that you need to pay the bills, that your son is playing too much Xbox, that the dog hasn't been washed in a month and that you need to start eating more healthy shit and exercising more. You just want to tune out.

Final word: You'll walk out of the cinema with a small smile and chocolate smears on your t-shirt. You'll agree that it was an original concept, that it had some very clever moments but it just wasn't that funny. One of you might find the Pizza-Hut-box-10-commandments scene funnier than the other, but hey, that's what makes it interesting.




Coming...next post...reviews of "Time Traveller's Wife" and "2012"......


I'm rushing off now to see "Where The Wild Things Are."