Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

All I can say is, if you go, don't forget the tissues.

Two things...

First, Elizabeth Taylor has passed away at the age of 79. The other day I was excited to find my favorite movie of hers in the $5 bin at the store - National Velvet. She's very young in that movie. Her youth and energy are so immediate and palpable, and I always think about how, when she made that movie, she had her whole life ahead of her. It's sad to think that a legend is now gone, but today I'll unwrap my $5 prize and see her again as she was when it all still lay before her.

Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney in National Velvet

Second, the movie Jane Eyre will be in out soon. I never really liked the book, classic though it is. It was always a little too dark and creepy for me, and I didn't really like the love story. But, of course, I will go see the movie - the trailer makes it look very good. And I'll probably revisit the book. Maybe I'll be cajoled into seeing what all of the other admirers of Jane Eyer see.

Library of the Early Mind

I just found out about this film and it sounds very interesting. It's called Library of the Early Mind, a documentary film exploring children's literature. It's set to be screened in October, 2010 at Harvard University.

You can see a trailer for the film here, at the documentary's blogsite.

It looks like it includes lots of interviews with authors, illustrators, and publishers of children's literature. I'd really like to see this one.

How to Train Your Dragon

The early commercials I saw advertising this movie left me not wanting to see it. But when I read a good review in the paper last Friday, and then my daughter came home from seeing it with her boyfriend and gushed about it, I decided to give it a try.

Wow! I would recommend it to anyone. I've only seen it in 3D, but I've heard that you won't be disappointed if you don't see it in 3D. The animation is wonderful, and the flying sequences actually take your breath away - not just because it's a whopper of a ride, but because it's actually downright beautiful. No kidding. And I liked the story too, mostly because Hiccup - the boy hero - is so wonderful, his story, his predicament, his expressions, the whole thing.

And we have a little gray cat that has big, green eyes just like the dragon : )

I know this is a kid's movie, but this was one of the best movies I've seen, visually and story-wise, in a long time. Probably since Julie and Julia.

I'm terrible at summing things up, so what I will say is that the animation was absolutely stunning, and the story was terrific, and it actually touched me.

The 3D ticket is pricey, so try to catch a matinee and save a few bucks. Even if you pay full price, though, you won't be disappointed.

The Secret of Roan Inish

If you have never encountered this movie before, I would highly recommend it. It tells a beautiful tale about family and the pull of love - and there are many kinds of love, not just romance, although you'll find that there, too.

If you're the kind to sit by a fire telling an listening to tales, then this movie is a must. Roger Ebert writes about it here, and really gets to the crux of the film's meaning. Here are two quotes from his piece:

"The secret of John Sayles' "The Secret of Roan Inish" is that it tells of this young girl with perfect seriousness. This is not a children's movie, not a fantasy, not cute, not fanciful. It is the exhilarating account of the way Fiona rediscovers her family's history and reclaims their island. If by any chance you do not believe in Selkies, please at least keep an open mind, because in this film Selkies exist in the real world, just like you and me."


"One can easily guess how this legend could have been simplified and jollied up in other hands - how it could have been about cute little Selkies. But legends are, after all, told by adults, not children, and usually they record something essential to the culture that produces them. What this legend says, I think, is that the people who tell it live on the land but live from the sea, so that their loyalties are forever divided."

Don't know what a selkie is? Watch this movie and wonder no more.

We own a VHS version of the movie. I'll have to upgrade to a DVD version. It's available from my library, and lord knows that I make use of my library so much that my library card is smoking, but this is one of those things that I want to have for my very own.

The soundtrack is also very nice, sometimes while listening to it I want to get up and dance a jig.

So find this gem at your library, or rental store, or purchase it. If you have a fanciful mind, you won't be disappointed.

Julie and Julia

Okay, I just saw the movie - Julie and Julia.

All I can say is that now it's my favorite.

I went online to reserve Mastering the Art of French Cooking at my library so that I could make Beef Bourguignon, but apparently lots of other people have the same idea. I'm number 16 on the waiting list for the book.

In the meantime I'll have to re-open Julia's other book, which I actually own, The Way to Cook.

I used to like to cook.

The Illiad, Troy, and Brad Pitt

Last night I happened to turn on the TV and what should appear on the screen but my favorite fight/battle scene of any movie - the fight between Achilles and Hector in the movie Troy.

When the movie first came out I was so disappointed in the choice of Brad Pitt to play the legendary warrior Achilles, that I almost didn't go see the movie.

But, as you can see, Brad Pitt was a very nice choice indeed:

In fact, just about all of my favorite scenes in the movie have Brad Pitt in them. Not just because he happens to *ahem* look good, but because of the way the action plays out.

And I must say, too, that Eric Bana was a superb Hector, Hero of Troy:

In the scene where Achilles challenges Hector before the walls of Troy, the two actors didn't use stunt doubles. It was all them.

Now, I've never actually seen combat between two actual warriors before, but if I ever had, I think that it would go something like this:

Before I saw the movie, I got a hold of Robert Fagles' translation of The Illiad and read it. It reads almost like a regular book and not an epic poem written thousands of years ago. I would highly recommend this translation.

And I may be strung up by purists for saying this, but I think that the movie did a very good job of "modernizing" the tale. I think I like what the script writers did with the epic characters to bring some actual humanity to them instead of merely presenting them as iconic warriors, queens, kings, etc.

And lastly, but not leastly, I liked Brad Pitt's pronounciation of Patroclus, his cousin's name. It sounds almost like Patrick, with the emphasis on the 'a'. Somehow that was touching to me, that he pronounced it that way, and not in the grand way with the emphasis on the 'o'.

Anyway. That's my take on Troy and Robert Fagles' translation of The Illiad.

Favorite Halloween Movies

Here are some movies I like to watch when it gets to be fall-like and Halloween-y out:





Dracula with Bela Lugosi. My favorite part is the Count's reaction when he is offered a cigarette from a case with a mirror in the lid.











The Mummy with Boris Karloff. Ardeth Bay is the scariest looking mummy ever.







Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. Whenever I see fall leaves blowing down the street I think of this movie. It's lots of fun and creepy too. What's not to like about two lovable old aunts who poison lonely old gentlemen with homemade elderberry wine?












The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr. My favorite thing about this movie is the old gypsy woman.








Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy. This is an Abbot and Costello spoof of The Mummy. When I was little I thought the mummy's name was Clarence. I wondered why somebody from ancient Egypt would be called that. When I grew up and saw the movie again, I realized that the mummy's name is Claris.





Hocus Pocus. I can't put my finger on why I like this movie. Maybe it's because the witches are so funny, or because of the black flame candle, or because of Billy the (un)dead boyfriend, or Binks the cat who used to be a boy and has lived for hundreds of years. It all comes together in a very entertaining Halloween movie.


As you can see, I tend to lean toward the old classics. I also like I Married a Witch with Veronica Lake, and Bell Book and Candle with Jimmy Stewart (interestingly enough, in this movie about witches there is an actress whose real name is Hermione G., but the G doesn't stand for Granger, it stands for Gingold).

Well, Happy October to you. I'm going to watch a few of these movies this month.

Go Speed Racer!

I saw the movie Speed Racer yesterday. At first I didn't want to go because the previews I saw made it look kind of stupid. I was a big fan of Speed Racer when I was little and I didn't want my childhood memories of joy to be ruined by a bad movie. My husband convinced me to go see it when the paper gave it an A- in its review.

So we went.

It was great! Go see it, but not if you're prone to epilepsy.

When I was little I couldn't ever quite figure out if Trixie was Speed's sister or his girlfriend. I concluded that she must be his girlfriend, but I was never 100% on that. Thankfully the movie has cleared that up =^..^=

Really, though, it was a good movie- even for an old fan - they didn't let me down.

Now they need to make a good Johny Quest movie!

Magical Gardens

Please check out this picture (larger one here). I found it while doing a quick search for late August blooming plants in Ireland on Google. This blog came up in the search with a page of August entries. I have since placed this blog in my 'interesting links'.

The image conjures up stories of faerie and magic. Doesn't it? What story does it stir up in you? Childhood memories? Come on - we all had imaginations at one point to do this image justice. It makes me want to sit down for story time.

According to the windywillow blog, the picture is from a garden in Cornwall called Heligan Gardens (more about the gardens here)and the scupture is by one Alan Thomas. It's called the mud maid.

Why was I googling late August blooming plants in Ireland? I was revising a manuscript and suddenly wanted/needed to know what one could find blooming in late August in Ireland. Although when I found the windywillow blog I became a little side-tracked, and then my husband came and suggested that we go do something, and that was the end of revising for the day.

One of the things we did was rent the movie Into The Wild. My husband had a small projection screen and projector that he had checked out from the library at the university where he teaches. He needed it over the weekend for a presentation. We ended up setting it up in the living room, and with the help of his laptop and the stereo, we had a really nice little movie theatre. It all worked so well that now he wants a big screen TV and surround sound =^..^= The movie was really good, by the way. I would recommend seeing it if you haven't already. And the book is supposed to be excellent too.

Weeping Camels

I saw a movie recently that I would highly recommend. I found it at my library in the foreign films section. It's called The Story of the Weeping Camel. But wait! Don't click the link yet! Read on first.

You will never forget this film if you see it. I'm hesitant to say more about it because I checked it out of the library with only a look at the front cover and not so much as a glance at the blurb on the back. So all I knew about it was that there were two people riding furry camels on the front cover, and below them a TIME magazine quote, "A truly beautiful film the whole family ought to embrace!" Because I knew nothing about it - only that I wanted to be taken somewhere far away - as the story unfolded I was mesmerized, entranced. And when the ending unfolded, it was magical.

It may have felt exactly the same if I had read the back blurb ahead of time, but somehow I feel that it was all the more powerful because I knew absolutely nothing about it. If you do want to read more about it, click the link above.

The only thing that I would caution about is one agonizing camel birth scene. It had me writhing in empathy.

This film is one of those rare things that can remind us that many beautiful and magical things still exist in this world despite all of our modern progress.