Legion of Extraordinary Dancers

holy crap! did you see the oscars...they stunk...i am still super super mad that Inglourious Basterds got so dumped...but that is a whole nother rant...i am not happy though....i even growled at one point...and groaned at all the politics seeping out everywhere...so annoying - this is ENTERTAINMENT people!!! but one thing made me very very happy - the dance sequence the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers performed to all the score nominees...did you see it? you will be able to here: www.thelxd.com - you can view their past performances on SYTYCD and at the TED conference...

anyway - i actually heard about this long ago. our friend Iris from college is the production director of the movie. i am so stoked for her - she has busted her booty out here in LA for almost 10 years - i am really hoping this makes it for her...so go see Moments to support Iris...k? oh and also go see it because it looks amazing! you can also view the trailer for the movie on the LXD website - www.thelxd.com


i am beyond excited for this movie...for this collaboration of dance they are doing. it is truly groundbreaking and i think it can bring more contemporary and even classical forms of dance more mainstream...perhaps even more so than SYTYCD...i am not sure the release date - so feel free to comment if you know or if you have heard anything or if you even want to rant about the sucky sucky oscars...or even if you want to tell me how wrong i am and how hurt locker totally deserved it...you could have a point, especially since i didnt even see it...:)

Babies the Movie

i had seen this trailer before, but it is getting closer and i am just so excited! Babies the Movie - a documentary about 4 different babies in 4 different parts of the world...coming Mother's Day Weekend. I wish my mom lived closer because we would have had a date for sure!

Here is the trailer in case you have no idea what i am talking about...

Tell Them Anything You Want

we just watched the HBO documentary on Maurice Sendak entitled, Tell Them Anything You Want. we have verizon on-demand - if you have it to its under the short documentaries...if you don't i am sure you will be able to rent it soon...

its directed by Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs and what a great portrait of the author and illustrator. he is 80 years old now - he lives alone - never had kids - he is gay - he loved his brother and sister but still has issues about his parents. it was so interesting to hear his story and to see how they influenced his work.

it made me want to read some of his other works with a new set of "glasses".

in case you are not going to see it please continue to read if you desire, but just a warning - the following may contain bits that just may spoil it for you...because it is tainted with my commentary...

above all it made me realize how shaping our childhoods are...and just how scary that is for me as a parent...he tells about how he was "an accident" he was born in the year of 1928 - right around the great depression and his parents could not afford him, so his father made his mom take a bunch of pills and even fall off a ladder to try to abort him...what is worse is that they retold the story to him on several occasions since he was young...because it "was a good story".

another shaping experience for him was the story of the Lindbergh baby (Charles Lindbergh's 20 month old was kidnapped in their home in 1932 and found dead days later)  he was only 4 but remembers seeing a paper depicting a of the corpse of the baby and it has haunted him his whole life and in fact he became obsessed with the case. in his words (paraphrased)  it rocked him because..if a rich gentile baby could die under his parent's nose, what hope did someone like me have? (he is Jewish by the way). his book, "Outside Over There" is sort of his take (not a literal depiction) of the Lindbergh baby and definitely on my list to read...

i think it gives so much insight and depth to learn of the author and artist behind your favorite books because their experiences can not help but leak into their work and i think my take on "Where the Wild Things Are" is a little changed now knowing his story.

what a character Maurice is...what a fascinating person to happen into children's books...i am sure a psychologist could have a field day with him :) - i found the documentary to be exceptionally heartful and a beautiful portrait of a true *artist*.

where the wild things are movie review

i have been looking forward to this movie ever since i heard rumors of it a year ago and the trailer...the book was my favorite as a child...me along with millions of others i am sure! i was very skeptical how they could turn a book with a mere 10 sentences into a feature length movie...i was weary about the story and someone sneaking some agenda into it...you know how agendas get snuck into just about every children's movie...not naming names (cough...pixar...cough)- i love me some pixar, but how much of their movies are for adults? really...

anyway - i was so pleasantly blown away - by everything...the costumes of the Wild Things (which took a year to make...which took another year for the facial expressions - there is a cool article here about the making of it if you want to read more) the acting, the visual experience of the island, the fort, the world Spike Jonze created, the story...the heart of it really.

the heart of it...let me expand because this is what grabs me...max is a 9 year old boy...he has an older 15 or 16 year old sister who has crossed the brink from childhood to puberty...max is at that age - you know that age - that age where you know your childhood is going to end soon...you are not sure whether or not to believe in Santa Claus, but you still want to very bad...you still want to play with your Barbies or GI Joes or Star Wars Characters, but know you are getting a little old for it...but you still feel very much like a kid. you are still very much treated like a kid...but on that brink...that precipice...that scary unknown where everyhting is about to change and your emotions are becoming more complex...and you aren't sure how to articulate that because everyone still very much talks to you like you are a child.....*sigh*

so he has a "wild thing" in him...and explores this world where he can be the king...the parent if you will...the one in control...and finds out it isnt so much what its cracked up to be...i won't spoil the movie...i won't hype it up either, because i am sure this movie isn't for *everyone* - it is Spike Jonze after all...but it was very much for me...and very much for Bryson...he went to the movie in his max suit (i wish i had pics of it...so very cute and made other movie goers so very happy) and he gasped when Max said "Be Still!" ( i always say that to him when he is being a little wild thing and he always flashes me a big mischievous smile)

is it or is it not a kids movie? i would argue YES and NO - just like any great kids book should be! but to be more helpful in case you are wondering if this is safe to take your child to...i was not worried about Bryson because he is some sadistic kid that loves scary things...always has...fearless this one...and dreams about smores afterwards...BUT if that is not your child here are some parts that raised an eyebrow:
1. max bites his mom (not like there is blood or anything gory, but still)
2. they say "damn" (i think...i am pretty sure...they use some strong language of some sort at least once)
3. one of the wild things tears off another wild things' arm (again no blood but still)


Can't wait to hear what you all thought!!!

P.S. - Dont forget to enter my first give-away!

away we go...

we saw Away We Go last night. i love LOVE loved this movie. directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and starring John Krasinski (the Office) and Maya Rudolph (SNL) - both were so believeable...the screenplay was written by Dave Eggers (who also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming very anticipated Where the Wild Things Are) and Vendela Vida and it was just so fresh and simplistically real.

This movie had everything - great story - AMAZING cast and characters - great music and great heart. The story is about a couple who upon learning they are pregnant and that the main character's parents are moving to another country decide they can move anywhere, so they take a trip to various places meeting different family and friends to try to find a new "home". The main characters - Burt and Verona are very much the narrators in the film and introduce the audience to a variety of different types of families, parenting styles and ideas of "home".

I think this movie touched me so much because i could relate on so many levels as a new mom...pregnant with Bryson...trying to figure out what i am doing - what kind of parent i want to be - what kind of environment i want my child to grow up in. when we were pregnant with bryson we were one of the first of our group of friends to make the plunge into parenthood...i felt so isolated on so many levels...we were fairly new to long beach - didnt have a home church really - had a lot of single friends and newly married or engaged friends. our close friends who we dearly loved who did have kids moved just months after bryson was born. i am so glad that things are different the second time around and now i am surrounded by support and moms and church and MOPS and a host of other resources.

i remember being asked by a young mom shortly before i got pregnant what type of parenting style i preferred. i thought it was an odd question...she asked if i was into "attachment parenting" or if i was more into "authoritative". i hadnt really thought it through...just thought my parents did a good job...and bryan's parents did a good job...maybe we would just figure it out and take the good parts and leave the bad and make up the rest (which is pretty much what i guess has happened). at one point in the movie she meets Maggie Gyllenhaal's character "LN" and her family, who describe themselves as a "continuum family" - oh goodness she was so stinkin hilarious! they bought her a stroller, much to her disgust and she explains "I love my babies....why would i PUSH them away from me!"  - they really overplayed the attachment parents and made a point to show how condescending some can be, but they equally showed the ugly side of the opposite type of parents as well.

it started me thinking about my own beliefs...that i typically am turned off by any parent who follows a "sect" of parenting, instead of their own instincts...parenting is not a political party...you aren't one type or another and to follow a person's ideas like a manual for parenting (which would be nice and tempting sometimes) can be dangerous. it makes me think of all those parents in the 70s who followed the androgynous view of parenting - that society impacts and determines the behavior of the sexes, instead of nature and how against common sense that is...(i'm channeling Middlesex here)

not like i know what i am doing...because 2/3 of the day i dont...i am on a journey, but i thankfully have the confidence of a shared value system with my husband and church community as well as amazing parents and in-laws as role models. i think it is so scary as a parent to realize the responsibility you hold shaping a little life and i think for a while that fear seized me, which is why the support i now have i hold as invaluable and would encourage anyone feeling those same feelings to get involved in a playgroup or something where you find that support....because motherhood is not for the fainthearted...

okay - wow - this is a movie review, not a soapbox...so i will step down now and just say that this movie is brilliant and you should see it - whatever stage of life you are in - and see it with someone else and have a conversation about your own journey of finding home...whatever that means...

where the wild things are?

are you sweating in anticipation for this movie like me and my friends are? then you will love this blog...

troll 2

so i heard this interview on NPR about The Best Worst Movie - a documentary from the child actor who plays Joshua in Troll 2 - all about this horrible horror move made in 1990. it was such a great interview...a great idea about a horrible movie.

now i love me some bad movies...i LOVED mystery science theater 3000 and totally appreciate cult movies and "bad" movies, but this one really takes the cake.

bryan...not so much into it...wouldnt really tolerate it...i wish i had someone with me when i watched it because i feel like the heckling is really a part of the experience. during the interview the director even commented that part of the appeal of a bad movie is that when you experience something horrible - i.e. sour milk - you automatically turn to the next person and say, "this is horrible! taste this...or smell this..."

i truly loved how horrible a film this was, but i watched it last night and have been pondering it all day...i have a few questions about it...

1. what does this have to do with Troll (1)? the original movie is about trolls (large almost giant-like dumb mystical creatures) this movie was about goblins (small dwarf-like michevious creatures)

2. why would you name the movie Troll when the movie is in fact about goblins?

3. the ending (WARNING SPOILER ALERT) so in the end there are a family of goblins he didnt destroy that end up eating the little boy's mom...ummm...i though that they destroyed the mystical stone from stonehenge that obliviates the goblins' power...so...ummm...how did goblins survive? (maybe that is for Troll 3...hmmm...will just have to wait i suppose)

4. the double decker bologne sandwich...repelled the goblins so that they couldn't touch him...ummm yes that is my question i guess.

5. grandpa seth - he is dead but joshua the little boy sees him and talks to him...then he comes back in physical form then dies then comes back again then leaves again (for good?) ... already confusing, but at one point a goblin sends him back to hell at which point joshua asks him if he is in hell and the grandpa tells him that he is not but he has learned how to do this...and this is making the goblin catch on spontaneous fire... this is perhaps my favorite part of the movie, but also the most confusing

i am not sure why i am even trying to make sense of this movie...maybe that is part of the human condition that we try to make sense of everything. please please please rent this movie. please please please try to answer my questions. i would sleep better. or maybe i would just laugh that you actually watched this movie too. i am excited to see the documentary and also to make NILBOG shirts...cause i need one for sure!

labyrinth

my poor child...part 2...i already am turning bryson into the star wars geek that i was once...okay still am...i never turn down a viewing of the amazing trinity...he knows more characters than bryan and repeatedly hums the theme song at random, which makes me VERY happy.

so - sorry about that bryson - although it seems to connect with young boys everywhere...but to add insult to injury, being a huge Bowie fan, labyrinth is also a favorite movie of mine...i probably have seen it close to 100 times...and also will not turn down a viewing. when the family was in tahoe my niece and nephew, who are older (11 and 8) wanted to watch it since i brought my DVDs. i didnt know if bryson was ready for it...i guess it can be a little scary...seeing that goblins steal a baby and all...so i was ready to take him away and preoccupy him if needed. not needed. that boy is so strange. he LOVED coraline...LOVES labyrinth, but certain veggie tales scare him. not sure what its about...still havent figured it out...perhaps his fear of veggies in general are to be suspected.

so 2 amazing things have come of this. 1) we were in the car and the song "changes" came on and bryson said, "hey that sounds like jareth bowie" - i swear i didnt say anything. i swear i didnt say david bowie's name (i told him who the character jareth is in the movie - david bowie in real life) i swear i didnt say anything at all - he totally recognized it on his own, which i am still a little in awe over. and 2) after watching the movie again the other night he repeatedly said my FAVORITE line in the movie "nothing! nothing tra-la-la!" again - i did not tell him this is my favorite line (i had a conversation with bryan about it minus bryson not that long ago) nor did i repeat it after bowie said it in the movie. he continued to repeat this line approximately 40 times to the point that even i said, enough!

but i secretly smiled...

the darjeeling limited

let me preface this by saying that i am a wes anderson fan...truly. i loved bottle rocket, rushmore, royal tenenbaums (my personal fav minus the suicide attempt scene). the life aquatic left me non-plussed and the latest the darjeeling limited left me less than non-plussed.

i dont know if it was because i couldnt believe the brotherhood of the three...the fact that adrien brody being very much jewish and owen wilson beign very much not and then jason schwartzman thrown in there as well...and not just ethnicity but the whole interactions of the three of them...i dont know. it could also be that as soon as they left the train the journey seemed very disconnected and rambling.

i didnt care about francis and his bandages, i didnt like peter, i didnt feel sorry for jack. i guess the emotional nakedness anderson was attempting to portray fell short on me. i have been amazed with brody in his past movies, so seeing him act in such a different manner seemed stunting to me. i felt like he was compromising his ability to fit into anderson's world and it didnt match up.

i love the stylizations of anderson and this movie is no exception. he definitely creates these worlds and new contexts for reason and new rules for characterization, but in the over-planning (much like the character francis himself...hmmm) he loses out on the depth.

what threw me over the edge is when at the end of the movie *spoiler* they visit their mother in a convent. everything surrounding their mother and father is very disconnected and piecemeal, so as an audience you want some answers, but they meet her and it is the cheesiest interaction in a movie ever. i felt cheated, like when you read a book or watch a movie and the author or director ends it by the main character waking up. cop-out. the whole - lets say it with our eyes and not with words and the way too long close ups of each of the characters - i didnt get it. i didnt feel it and it pissed me off.

anyway - i wouldnt recommend it if you could tell - there were a couple funny parts and not to mention the beautiful scenery and cinematography, but overall the world that anderson created was too shallow to allow for true emotions.