Compass, Legend, Bourne, Toxic Family…And A Rant
What an interesting weekend.
Saturday I worked, got a lot of busyness done, and then took the Princess to see The Golden Compass. Which was an okay film–the panzerbjorn armor was NOT all it could be, and the book was ever so much better. On the other hand, Daniel Craig is SO PRETTY, the witches were exactly what they were supposed to be, daemons were cool (but not nearly featured enough in every scene) and the kid playing Lyra was all right. She wasn’t the sort of child star one wants to smack. The Princess was mighty happy and cuddled up to Mummy during scary scenes, and she’s still digesting the film. The steam-punkiness of it was a nice visual treat. I’m still waiting to see how they handle the Gay Angels later on in the series.
I also went and took the Princess to spit in the face of the Religious Right. How dare they get all “het up” over the movie without even bloody seeing it or reading the Pullman books? They just have to have a new crusade every once in a while, or they start turning on their own.
But enough of that, we all know my feelings on fanatics.
Behind the cut: a long post including reviews and a Rant.
I came home to the Muffin motioning frantically to me from the door to the garage. “Make yourself scarce,” he said in an undertone. “Your mum just left not ten minutes ago. She was loaded for bear.”
Needless to say, I left. I retreated to a safe zone, called in a lifeline, and ended up going out to a second movie that night, which was half-planned but became a necessity once I had to stay away from home.
Some people are just toxic for you, even though you love them. You cannot like them and you cannot be around them. I made the decision not to engage with my parents a while ago, and it’s done me no end of good. The abuse issues are more workable when I don’t have them on me undoing all my careful restructuring every few months. Maybe I am really the black sheep they told me I was, but there is so much difference between what my parents value–conformity, orthodoxy, keeping up with the Joneses and keeping the facade of perfection up–and what I value–cooperation, individuality, nonviolent dispute resolution, anger management–that I just don’t ever see us meeting.
I don’t like that my house no longer felt safe, because my mum might have still been in the area and might have come back. But I DO like that I had lifelines, that the Muffin acted as a buffer (and was glad to do so) and the stress didn’t immediately running for the fridge and every junk food I could cram into my gullet.
Enough of that. The second movie I saw on Saturday was I Am Legend. As an adaptation of a Matheson book, it was all right. As a remake of The Omega Man, it was kind of okay. (I have this distressing yen for Charlton Heston, and I LOVED The Omega Man.)
Where this movie really excelled was in showing Nature reclaiming New York, and studying agoraphobia, claustrophobia, and the deconstruction of a human psyche during long periods of solitude. Will Smith did a bang-up job of showing how a person copes with long-term isolation and constant danger. (He also has yummy shoulders, and did I mention that I have a long-standing Will Smith fetish? I just find him marvelously attractive. He looks like he could make a woman laugh–in a GOOD way.) The director did a bang-up job of reversing a lot of assumptions about urban space.
The only problems I had were:
1. Neville as a scientist would not have made the assumption that lack of basic self-preservation caused the infected male to expose himself to sunlight. The creature’s posture clearly showed aggression, but in the context of the situation it might have occurred to Neville that the infected weren’t as lacking in social structure as he might have thought. Still, under prolonged stress, the ability to think critically and frame hypotheses does suffer, even with adjustment and coping mechanisms in place. Also, the creatures setting a trap for him should have disabused him of that notion in a hurry, and he should have remarked upon it. At the very least it’s a major plot hole.
2. Please. Were we really supposed to be scared of CGI Gollums jumping around? It would have been better had we never really seen the infected, just glimpses a la the first crowd scenes in Dawn of the Dead. The infected just weren’t…scary enough, except for when Neville had the experimental one strapped to the table. And re: #1, Neville, honey, if they’re still wearing clothes, some vestige of humanity remains. Yanno?
3. Soldier. Scientist. Everyman. Neville as a character doesn’t have a lot of gray in him in this movie, even though he has to take care of the dog. *sigh* Heston did Neville better as a profoundly conflicted man.
4. The sudden injection of God and religion at the end turned my stomach. But there was an explosion just afterward, so it evened out.
But all in all, very nice. Though I am never sitting in the second row back from the screen EVER again, my neck will not forgive me. It wasn’t my fault–those were the only seats open; an 8pm show on a Saturday night after Opening Day for the film? No seats. I should have known better. Which means it kind of was my fault.
I got home, fell into bed, and slept like a log to recover. Sunday we got the last Bourne movie on DVD and watched it. Greengrass as a director is fine for documentary, but the shakycam action was too much in the theater, it plays much better on the small screen. And of course the “Bourne again” jokes were flying fast and furious.
And now for the rant.
Each time I went to the theater on Saturday I was treated to a five-minute recruitment film–a music video shot by Three Doors Down for the National Guard. Even before a film meant for nine-year-olds (The Golden Compass) they showed it. Now, I am never buying another Three Doors Down album ever again. EVER.
I come from a military family, my grandfather, birth father, and stepfather were in the armed forces. So if you’re planning on calling me a traitor, think again. I stand firmly behind America’s soldiers AND the National Guard. I have several friends in the Guard, as a matter of fact.
I am enraged, simply furious, angry far beyond belief at the fact that the US military, with its proud traditions and self-sacrifice, has been trampled on and betrayed by the Bush Administration. And I was furious to see recruitment videos happening in the movie theater before a movie intended for preteens. WTF, people? What is WRONG with you that you think this is OK? And what is wrong with Three Doors Down for letting themselves be a part of this?
The Bush Administration lied and connived to get our soldiers sent to Iraq, which has turned into a Vietnam-esque morass. They are continuing to lie and connive to escape responsibility even while our mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters die in the sand. They have lied to us the public about casualties, they have lied to the National Guardsmen about deployment length, and have stretched the Army and the Guard to the limit, robbing Americans at home of the full protection of the Guard during natural disasters–like the flood that just hit Chehalis and I5 here in my home state.
Not only that, but the Bush Administration has slashed funding for our veterans and denied them proper health care when they come home battered and wounded. And they have even betrayed our veterans by not allowing them a proper homecoming, banning pictures taken of the coffins so the US public can’t see the true cost of the Administration’s greed.
There was just so much wrong with the recruitment video. SO MUCH WRONG. And that I had to sit through it twice in one day made it worse. I wouldn’t have minded QUITE so much if it had been in front of the R-rated movie. I can see appealing to the 18-30 male demographic I Am Legend was obviously intended for; it’s a time-honored recruitment technique. But putting it in front of the frocking Golden Compass?
Invoking the most honorable traditions of the American National Guard and the American military when the Guard and the military have been so egregiously betrayed is just short of criminal. Participating in a recruitment video for the benefit of an Administration that has betrayed our troops and sent them into a meat grinder to die is ethically reprehensible. Putting that recruitment video in front of a movie intended for preteens is irresponsible at best and criminally cynical at worst.
And that’s all I have to say. Let’s just say I was perturbed.
All in all, an interesting weekend. I hope not to have one like it anytime soon. That much emotion is exhausting. Although on the good side, I got the mass-market box set of His Dark Materials for the Princess, so she can read them for herself.
And so off I go about my Monday. See you soon, dear Reader…
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