Movie Review: The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

The Curse of the Cat People (1944) directed by Gunther V. Fritsch and Robert Wise

Amy is the daughter of Ollie and Alice Reed, the couple married off at the end of Cat People. Ollie was originally married to Irena (Simone Simon), a Serbian woman too obsessed by the folklore of her Serbian ancestors. The folklore said she was descended from the ancient Serbs who rejected Christianity and became the Cat People, who could turn into fierce felines when angered or jealous. Irena did in fact turn into a panther-like cat a few times in the previous movie, though she died tragically at the end.

In this film, Amy is a friendless six-year old in Tarrytown, New York (of Headless Horseman fame). She has an overactive imagination and dreams up a friend to keep her company. The local kids don't hang out with Amy because her parents are overprotective and Amy's fantasy life makes her unpopular. So she sticks with her imaginary friend, who looks just like Irena! The ghost is benevolent though her presence causes no end of trouble for Amy. Her dad doesn't like her fantasies and wants to hear nothing about them. Her mother is more sympathetic but just as skeptical. Amy also befriends a reclusive, aging actress, Mrs. Farren, who lives under the care of her daughter Barbara. This mother-daughter relationship is strained because Mrs. Farren claims her daughter died as a youngster and this woman is not her daughter. Mrs. Farren's kindness to Amy only drives the (understandably) exasperated Barbara further into frustration.

As a sequel, this movie is a bit bizarre. It has the same characters further along in life. Irena's ghost is more like a guardian angel to Amy than the titular curse. Any jealousy or malice is removed from the character. The parents are typical suburban parents with some overprotective parenting, perhaps the real curse. The horror is downplayed for the most part. The Mrs. Farren/Barbara plot at first seems shoehorned in to add some spooky atmosphere (their house is pretty creepy) and tension to an otherwise mundane family drama.

A little reflection makes the purpose more obvious. Amy has difficulty telling reality from fantasy; Mrs. Farren has the same problem. Their family members have a hard time coping with the fantasies that Amy and Mrs. Farren have embraced. The parents have some support (friends, each other, Amy's teacher) to help them deal with Amy's imagination more appropriately. Barbara seems trapped in the house with little other than her mother's constant denials. She's always edgy and occasionally angry with no way to release the pressure. The movie is able to show two possible outcomes for the same situation.

The acting is superb all around. Ann Carter as Amy gives a surprisingly nuanced performance for a child under ten, especially with her in most of the film. Elizabeth Russell as Barbara gets a lot of mileage out of the minimal screen time she has and just oozes creepiness while she also gets sympathy.

Recommended--don't expect it to be more of the same from the first film. This could have easily been a stand-alone film without any "Cat People" connection.

Movie Review: The Dark Crystal (1982)

The Dark Crystal (1982) directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz

Watching The Dark Crystal is one of those happy memories from my childhood. I remember seeing it in the theater and we rented it once on VHS tape and watched it a few times over a weekend. I recently had a chance to watch it again. Did it hold up 30 years later?

The story follows the adventure of the Gelfling Jen, the last of his race. The Gelflings vanished because the Skeksis have wiped them out. A thousand years ago, the Dark Crystal was broken and a prophecy was made that a Gelfling would repair the crystal and end the rule of the Skeksis. At the same time as the Skeksis appeared, the Mystics also appeared. They lived peaceably and humbly far from the Skeksis. They too know of the prophecy, and one of them saved Jen when his village was attacked. Now that the three suns are about to come in alignment again, the leader of the Mystics sends Jen on a mission to get the missing shard and fulfill the prophecy.

The story follows Jen through the amazing world that Henson and Oz (creators of The Muppets) have created. And, to be honest, the real charm of the film is exploring their creativity rather than unpacking their mythology. Jen wanders through swamps, forests, and hillsides, finding amazing flora and fauna. He arrives at the home of Aughra, a Keeper of Secrets. She has a gigantic clock-work universe in her lab, showing the motion of stars, planets, and moons. It is still amazing to see 30 years later, as is the wide variety and sizes of puppets they use. The mythology is interesting enough but not particularly profound or original. It has the standard good-versus-evil elements along with the hero's journey to save the world.

The storytelling suffers a little bit from too many voice-overs, especially hearing Jen's thoughts, which seem obvious from what we see on the screen. Maybe the voice-overs were added for the children in the audience to help them interpret what's going on. The movie might be too scary for younger children. I was eleven when I saw it in the theater and was okay, but I don't think we'll be showing it to J or L (5- and 3-years old as I write) for a couple of years.

Movie Review: The Hobbit (2012)

The Hobbit (2012) directed by Peter Jackson

I managed to go to the very last showing of The Hobbit at our local theatre. It was in 3D but I had kept my glasses from Prometheus, so they did not charge me extra for the glasses (though there is a £2 charge for 3D movies before the £1 charge for the glasses). After hearing a lot of different reviews (some glowing, some glowering), I settled in with medium expectations.

The movie has a lot of stunning visuals and fine performances. Both the New Zealand landscapes and the CG versions of various towns, fortresses, and homes. The CG creatures (trolls, goblins, Gollum, etc.) are seamlessly woven in with the live action actors. The cast does a great job, especially Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. He has the difficult task of balancing the Tookish adventurer (his mother was from the Took family) and the Bagginsy home body he's been for most of his life. Freeman does a great job expressing his emotions and thoughts on his face without looking like he's mugging for the camera. Even CG characters like Gollum or the Goblin King are well realized and more than convincing.

Much have commented on how the story is being made into a trilogy of movies with a lot of extra material from Tolkien's other writings. In the book, Gandalf leaves the dwarven fellowship for a side quest involving a person called "The Necromancer," though no details are given in the novel. Jackson's movie sets this plot up as a b-story that looks intriguing though I am not sure how it will be tied thematically to the main story. I assume Tolkien added it so that the wizard wouldn't just magic them out of trouble all the time. I found this element pretty interesting.

The movie opens with a long sequence of old Bilbo (played by Ian Holm) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) getting ready for the party that starts the first Lord of the Rings movie. This drags for a bit and seems more or less superfluous, unless they are planning to bookend it in the final film with an extra ending. I found this element pretty uninteresting.

The movie also goes through the back story of the dwarfs being cast out of their kingdom by the dragon Smaug and their tribulations as an exiled race. Considering how tightly the history of the Ring is told at the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, this sequence drags on more than it should while explaining the motives of key characters. So there are many parts that could use a director's cut that tightens them up rather than makes them longer. Yeah, I'm saying the inevitable "extended DVD" should really be shorter than the theatrical version.

Another weakness of the film is the tone. Occasionally it has the light-hearted spryness of the novel, such as in the Bag End dinner scene. But too often it is ponderous and heavy-hearted, with long battle scenes that are more grim, limb-chopping combat than adventurous, swash-buckling fight. There are flashes of humor in some of the battles, such as the escape from the goblin kingdom, but not enough to keep the movie from a PG-13 rating or a 12 Certificate in the UK. Considering the novel is appropriate for 6- or 7-year olds, it seems an odd choice. I know that movies should not mirror their source material slavishly but the novel is so much better on this count.

One thing the film makers did brilliantly was adding in songs and music. Tolkien had lots of poetry in his writings, mostly songs sung by characters. The film captures quite a bit of this very well, from the famous dwarf song in the trailer to even the Goblin King having his solo. So maybe the extended edition can have more of that.

I don't mean to sound so negative. I did enjoy the film but considering how great the source material is, expectations are still pretty high regardless of what others have thought. I think the movie would over all benefit from a lighter tone and tighter storytelling. The performers do a great job and the movie looks spectacular.

Movie Trailer

All Hallow's Read

In case you don't want to give out computer games for Halloween, how about Neil Gaiman's suggestion?



I didn't just post this because there are zombies in the background, I think it's a pretty good idea. Especially nowadays with Nooks and Kindles and such, it would be pretty easy to give a book to someone who is close to you but not geographically close.

h/t to Sherry at Semicolon for sharing the video

Queen of England is Awesome!!

A couple from Manchester, UK, saw that Queen Elizabeth II would be in town the day of their wedding. On a lark they sent her an invitation. Turns out she was the surprise guest at the wedding last Friday! I guess she forgot to R.S.V.P. I'd forgive her for that.

Check out the story here, which quotes the bride: "Basically it was a wedding gift for us," Frances Canning told CNN affiliate ITN.

Let that be a lesson to the rest of us. If you invite someone and they don't reply, don't be surprised if they still show up!

h/t The SciFi Catholic, who had the much better blog title "...Because the Queen Rules"

Dealing with Problem Children (i.e. All Children at One Point)

We've all been there. The children hit a point where they do not want to cooperate over a simple and mundane task that wasn't a problem yesterday. Let getting dressed. Or some food that used to be a favorite is now thrown across the kitchen in disgust. What gives, kid? If you find yourself in this situation, if you have been in it before, or if you want to be ready when it happens to you (and don't kid yourself, even your precious little angel of a child will misbehave in a way that drives you crazy one day), you should read this awesome article by Rachel Balducci.

Previously I reviewed her book, How Do You Tuck In a Superhero, which is being re-released with a new cover and title: Raising Boys Is a Full Contact Sport. It'll be available September 1, 2012. You can pre-order it below.

Her blog is a lot of fun too. You've got to love a blog with this seal of approval:

Friend or Foe?

I had a very important conversation with Jacob this morning. It was about a particular person and whether he was really good or really evil.

At first, Jacob wanted to maintain that there were two different people. One person gave him high fives at the comic shop and was a nice guy every time they met. The other person was a bad guy in one of the books we've read quite often, both in Maryland and here. That book is Star Wars: A Pop Up Guide to the Galaxy, and the person is Darth Vader.

Jacob has met him twice at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis, Maryland, and both times Jacob had a lot of fun and found Vader to be fun. The second time I spent a good deal of time explaining that Vader is not a robot but I guy in a suit of armor. Jacob eventually understood. The unique armor was probably confusing. We also saw him at a 4th of July parade.

Shaking hands with the nice man in the black suit

Lucy looks a little more cautious, but she was young then.

Of course, the book paints an entirely different picture of Darth Vader, based as it is on the stories told about him in the movies. In fact, on the cover he has the sort of menacing, red eyes that he never has in real life, or even in the movies for that matter. But every story needs a bad guy. And, let's be honest, he was a very bad guy.

A depiction only a mother could love

Being a fan of Star Wars, I felt conflicted about what to tell my son. Clearly, I could have told a fib and said they were twins (which apparently runs in the Skywalker family) but that would be a lie. Darth Vader is only one person. So I explained how some people can change, and even change quite radically. Originally, he was a bad person but then he changed and became a good person. I compared him to the Grinch. We borrowed How the Grinch Stole Christmas from the library and have read it several times. In the book (in case you haven't read it or seen the delightful cartoon version, this is a massive spoiler) the Grinch's heart grows three sizes and he is inspired to be a good person. So good that he himself, the Grinch, carves the roast beast (a feast he can't stand in the least!). Jacob was satisfied with the argument.

I also am satisfied with the argument. Vader did have a change of heart at the end. He might even have led a reformed life like those two famous Christmas converts, the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge. No one in this life is so evil that he can't turn away from evil and toward the good. The turn might be difficult and involve extraordinary circumstances or new insights about what is important in life. But it is not impossible and we must hope and pray for our enemies, that they will forsake evil and seek instead the true good. Jacob (and all of us) need to learn such truths and live by them. It is a very important conversation we had today.

10 Rules for Great Parenting

Check out this highly helpful and entertaining list of ten rules for great parenting. I will share my favorite (and also possibly the most relevant to this blog):

Know where your children are
- It’s important to know where your children are at all times. You never know when they’ll need an alibi.

A very wise commenter writes:

Know where your children are, because you never know when you’ll need an alibi either…

How many mad scientist could have gotten away with it if only the hadn't been meddling and were actually providing alibis.

Flu Shots 2011

I took the kids to a local clinic to get flu shots. Jacob was understandably unwelcoming to getting shots. I talked to him the day before we went and he said, "Jacob doesn't want to get a shot." (He often refers to himself in the third person).

I explained to him that it would hurt a little bit but it would make him better. He asked what the flu was, providing an opening I wasn't sure would work. I tried to explain the flu, where your nose is runny and you lay in bed and have no energy. Auntie Gayle, who is visiting, threw in that the room feels like it's spinning. Jacob was fascinated with this idea and wanted to know more. I said it was like being on a merry-go-round or a roundabout, then getting off and feeling like everything was still moving. He said, "Like this?" and spun himself around and around. He made me smile and I said yes.

Then I tried to explain about the shot. I said, "It will hurt for a little while but that is much better than being sick for a week." He seemed convinced and comforted by the fact that I'd get a shot too and Lucy would get two shots (she also needed her delayed Hep-A shot for two-year olds).

Jacob was the first to be shot. The medical technician asked if Jacob wanted a shot or the nasal spray version. Jacob opted for the shot. I guess the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. He sat in my lap and I held his arms to keep him from sudden movements. Jacob watched her jab him with the needle, which went in quite deep. He got upset at that but didn't cry. He was very brave. The lady offered him a gummy bear as a treat for the shot, but Jacob still maintains his disinterest in sweets.

Lucy's turn was next. Learning from Jacob's experience, I covered Lucy's eyes while holding her arms so she couldn't watch the shot. The first shot was okay; the second elicited a small amount of crying. Once band-aids were on, Lucy felt better. She did not turn down the gummy bear. If she had thought of it, I'm sure she would have asked for Jacob's bear.

I went last and got the arm stick. Learning from Jacob's experience, I didn't watch the needle go in and felt a little better about that. My arm was sore later that afternoon.

I would highly recommend hiding your child's eyes when he or she is getting a shot (or multiple shots). It made things a lot easier for Lucy. I'll hide Jacob's eyes next year.

And, yes, I did take a gummy bear for being brave.

Hottest Game This Christmas in the UK

I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to a traditional English Halloween/Christmas game for the kids: Snapdragon. The game uses a shallow bowl. Raisins are thrown in and then covered in warm brandy. The brandy is set on fire. Children then try to grab raisins from the bowl and put them in their mouths, while chanting a special tune. Read more about it at State of Play. This is one holiday tradition we will have to see to believe, and see several times before any of us participate! If we do, there will definitely be a blog post about it. Hopefully with incriminating pictures!

Divide and Conquer Strategy

Jacob and Lucy were perfecting their "divide and conquer" strategy the past three days on our business trip to New Jersey. The strategy comes in two varieties: either they separate mommy and daddy and try to wear us down individually or they take turns taking shots at us. Both methods were used in the past four days.

They started off in the hotel's swimming pool. Now you may have seen the (entirely accurate) reports of snow storms on Friday and Saturday. Clearly, our hotel had an indoor pool with a hot tub on the side. Jacob loved the pool. His favorite game was Cliff Hanger, where he'd hang on to the edge and make a circuit all the way around the pool. The pool was a fairly cold on Wednesday and Thursday and was tolerable on Friday and Saturday. I suspect they heat it on the weekends when there's more patrons to take advantage of it. At any rate, Jacob didn't seem to mind the cold so much, but mommy and daddy did. So did Lucy. All she wanted to do was sit in the hot tub and play with the bubbles and foam that the jets created. Neither child should have spent a lot of time exclusively in either pool, so we had to do a lot of switching. The switching was rather unwelcome to the children, so they went back to their favorite quickly. Of course, Lucy attached herself to me and Jacob to Angie, so we parents also had to switch from pretty cold to pretty warm water and back and forth quite regularly. Eventually we had to get out and go back to the room, which was more unpopular than switching pools. Yikes!

Then we had to eat out a lot which was a big challenge. Jacob has lost all his "sit quietly and wait for the meal" skills. To be fair to him, he was sitting and waiting two or three times a day, so his reserves must have been depleted by overuse. One night we went to a Chinese restaurant. Luckily we were the only patrons, because Jacob became a wanderer. He'd go to the window to see the traffic. He'd go to the plant to see how it was doing. He'd go to the fish tank and count the fish. We should have had him count the pebbles in the bottom of the tank, maybe that would have kept him occupied. Anyway, by the time the food came, he was not interested in sitting or eating. Eventually, I had to give him a time out to get him to settle down. He never really ate until we got back to the hotel and had snack time before bed. Our best night was when we got frozen dinners (pasta & meatballs and mac & cheese) and ate them in hotel's breakfast area. Double yikes!

The coup de grace came at night. Jacob would cry out in his sleep for ten or fifteen minutes with us trying to shush him. By the time he settled down, Lucy started her shift of moaning, crying, and standing in the crib demanding attention. Usually a bottle would settle her, but one evening I had her in my lap for twenty minutes before she let me put her down. Angie and I increased our sleep deficit on this trip, because the children still woke up at their usual 5 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. times. Triple yikes!

We came back on Saturday, through more snow. Hopefully we can recover on Sunday before heading into another week of the usual life. No more pools for the foreseeable future. Meals will be mostly at home. I'll probably take the children out for snacks once or twice a week to build up their "sit and eat" skills. And having them back in their own separate bedrooms is quite a blessing. I hope we get plenty of sleep tonight. We need it!

Lucy makes a break for it! Jacob heads the other way off camera.

Letter to a New Zombie Parent

Here is an edited version of a letter my wife sent to a friend who has recently been turned to a zombie parent by her lovely first-born son. Names have been changed to fool the gullible.

Hello NEW ZOMBIE MOTHER!

It was great to talk to you today. I'm sorry that YOUR ZOMBIE OVERLORD SON isn't sleeping better. It's a problem as old as motherhood! Some people say that some babies sleep better in a more enclosed space at first. If you want to try our bassinet we can bring it over any time. I liked to pull it right next to my bed so I could reach my hand in and insert the pacifier without sitting up.

I've heard that for a lot of people that co-sleeping really makes the baby sleep better, even if they're not touching you, sometimes I think just hearing your breathing and smelling you on the sheets is helpful. We let OUR SECOND ZOMBIE OVERLORD WHO IS IN FACT AN OVERLADY sleep in our bed for many nights during the first few months. If you're nervous about safety issues you could try something like this: http://babies1st.com/p-32754-baby-delight-deluxe-snuggle-nest-sleeper-for-the-prevention-of-sids.aspx But I think that studies show that unless you are on drugs or are drinking that the baby is just as safe with you in bed as in the crib.

I always found that my babies slept better the tighter they were swaddled.  With the velcro swaddlers it's tough to get a tight fit when they're little. SENTENCE DELETED FOR BEING FAR TOO SCANDALOUS. OVERLADY, I'm sorry. Some of my friends liked this one: http://babies1st.com/m-3853-miracle-blanket.aspx And, of course, with OVERLADY it helped to attach a stuffed animal to the pacifier. This was the inspiration: http://www.wubbanub.com/

I've also heard that if you sleep and nurse in a T-shirt and get it nice and smelling like you, that you can put this in the crib to help them sleep.

Who knows, all this stuff could be superstition - one night the baby just decides to sleep for reasons of their own, and we zombie parents decide it must be because of the last desperate thing we tried :)

We all love you and will pray for your good sleep tonight!

Love,
MRS. ZOMBIE PARENT

Sisyphian Task

Jacob got some balloons last night from Uncle Brian and Aunt Teresa. He loves them* dearly. You know the old adage: If you love someone, you have to let them go. So this is where one of the balloons wound up today:

As you can see, we have a nice cathedral ceiling in our living room with an open walkway on the second floor. Too bad the balloon was too far to reach from the second floor. Aus a tool was required. Here were the three I thought might do the trick:

A fan, a feather duster and a ball walk into a bar...

The fan was useless, since any breeze it generated was too weak to move the balloon. The string moved around a little. The telescoping feather duster seemed like it would do the trick. Appearances are deceiving:

Maybe a footstool would have helped (or a tripod)

I did think about using the vacuum cleaner's telescoping wand to suck down the balloon's string and thereby get the balloon, but I feared the balloon would get destroyed in the process. That left hitting it with a small, Nerf-like ball. The sort that Lucy likes to chew on because she can get chunks out of it. Luckily this ball has joined Raggedy Ann and Andy in WITSEC, so it was fully able to serve in a covert mission while the children slept. After two hits (shamefully the number of throws was many more than two), the balloon made it to a reachable spot:

In fact, I left it for Jacob to find. After his nap, he was delighted to grab the string and pull in his balloon. All is well until the next release. Or Lucy gets a hold of it.

*I realize the use of "them" is ambiguous. Of course he loves the balloons AND Brian and Teresa.

Feeding Vegetables to the Children

One of the great challenges for parents is to get the children to eat their vegetables. I often refused vegetables as a child. Now payback has come in the form of my two adorable children/zombie controllers. Jacob is especially suspicious of any food that is colored green. Quite often he will declare the green item to be "spinach" and claim that he does not like it. We must show him some Popeye videos. But I digress. Unfortunately for them, the children's control over their parents is not absolute and we have discovered a few ways to feed them things they'd rather not eat.

Most effective is hiding vegetables in other food. Once we added diced yellow peppers to scrambled eggs--virtually invisible to Jacob, he ate them with gusto. He loves sweet potatoes, so we add in some finely chopped green beans and hope he doesn't notice the offending color. It's easy to hide some salsa (which is nothing but a Cuisinarted vegetables) wrapped in a tortilla or cooked in a quesadilla. I wonder if this is why they started putting lettuce and tomato on hamburgers and other sandwiches.

Things that are naturally vegetabled are also good to fool them. Like spaghetti sauce. As long as it isn't too chunky, the kids love it. Jacob won't usually take toppings off a pizza unless they have the offending color. Casseroles also can be loaded with vegetable goodness. Another favorite of Jacob's is a skillet dinner called Tamale Pie (from the The Best 30-Minute Recipe cookbook linked below too) that has onions and tomatoes in abundance but not in appearance. Cheese and beef are a good cover flavor for veggies.

Good luck and let us know if you have any suggestions on how to feed vegetables to children. Remember: Just because you're low on brains, that doesn't mean you have to be low on ideas.