Stumbling Through Adulthood

1. Thinking about heading to New Mexico in October for the annular eclipse. And there is a total eclipse in 2026 in Iceland, I've sent an Outlook invite to the kids. Plus there is next year's total eclipse in the US, hoping to be able to get somewhere to see that. Eeek!

2. Other travel dilemma. We may be going down to Southern OR for some hush-hush doings in a few weeks. That would end Monday 24 April. IF we don't have to drive back as a result of the hush-hush doings, we may head down to California: Perry's team will be at WIRAs in Sacramento 28/29/30 April, so we could go see that. We'd need to find a place near Sacramento so dh can get some work done for some of the week. We'll see. It's hard to make plans when the big unknown is if we will have to drive back after the 24th or if we'll be free.

3. I'm trying to think about the last time I went to see a movie in the theater... it may have been The Martian in 2019 (right?). Before that, the Hobbit movies, but yeah, I'm not a habitual movie goer, in large part because I have the attention span of a fucking gnat and prefer my movies in 15 minute bites. But dh and I are thinking about catching a matinee of Honor Among Thieves some time this week. We shall see. Covid kinda makes me leery of indoor stuff, but a matinee with an N95, I'm hoping might be ok.

So hard to describe, but so very wonderful.

Music we all love, from movies we all love.

An elderly man, animated and clearly happy to be there. Always making sure to give credit to the musicians.

When he sat down at the piano and started to play, a seemingly simple tune, I started to weep. I'm not sure my eyes were dry for more than a few minutes during the whole concert, neither were Anne-Chloe's, or Perry's or Molly's.

It was... music that tugged at your heartstrings, for my children, it was the soundtrack of their childhoods, for me... well, it was as well. Chihiro, Kiki, Nausicaa, and even Ponyo, friends of theirs.

So much music, so many films tied into the moment when a young girl comes into her own, often at the cusp of childhood, and shows the person she will be when she finishes her journey.

The soloists, one so sparkly, one in flowing lavender with sparkly shoes, Hisaishi's daughter, as he told us, in accented English.

There were encores, and encores. He smiled and waved. and I don't think I've ever been to a concert that has left me so emotionally.... engaged. From sobbing through much of it, to the end, the joy and smiles of Totoro.

The screen above showed clips from the films, but also the musicians, the singers, Hisaishi. And a message of hope and goodwill, that we'd emerge happy and healthy from these difficult times.

It was extraordinary. I am glad we got to go. Postponed twice, planned in a world pre-Covid, this felt like so very wonderful.

A few images.

STOP

What she said. Just NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Don't do it. You can't make it better. You'll just make it worse.

Sob.....

I read this review of The Last Airbender on the Seattle Times website, and ended up writing the author because of this:

At least Shyamalan cast the film well.

Ummm... No!

So I wrote him, and figured I'd post my letter here:

Hi Tom,

I saw your review of 'The Last Airbender' on the Seattle Times
website, and was pretty disappointed to read this:

| At least Shyamalan cast the film well

Cast the film well? He used a majority WHITE cast to portray characters in an Asian or strongly Asian inspired world, and that's called good casting? Zuko was supposed to be White too, but after protests he changed the once-villain to an Indian.

This is not good casting. This is white-washing.

People have said it better than I can: check out a few of these
sites:
http://www.racebending.com
and
http://www.racebending.com/v3/featured/the-last-airbender-primer/

The fact that the villains and extras were all other-than-White tells me that they knew they were dealing with a story set in an Asian type culture, but the allure of White actors was... just too much.

My spouse, children, and I all enjoyed the cartoon series, but we won't be going to see the movie. My children are disappointed, but there are a few stands worth taking :) and to me, this one most certainly is. There was no reason for an -essentially- all White cast beyond... racism perhaps.

An other good post on the Last Airbender thing. These Are My Colours.

We won't be going to see the movie, won't rent the DVD, even from netflix. Maybe if it ever shows up at the library.

I'm very sad about this, because we all loved the series, the adults, and all three kids. Linnea can do a fine imitation of waterbending too. She -needless to say- adored Katara.

Maybe -just just maybe- I could excuse one of the main characters being white: maybe Katara, for the blue eyes of the Water Tribe. Maybe Aang, because the actor they picked for him does look very close to what I'd imagined... but not all three of the majors. And changing Zuko to an Indian actor, knowing he's seen as the villain for a good part of the series? Umm.... problematic at best.

So, yeah, we'll be giving it a miss. The kids are disappointed and I don't think Linnea quite gets why we won't be going, but AC and Perry do, and Perry was especially horrified when AC pointed out that they'd cast all the villains as minorities.

A comment I left elsewhere:


Normally I pay less than zero attention to the Oscars, but this year I have a friend who loves movies and follows 'em, and I'd seen Avatar... what had been bugging me for the past few days is how much the buzz seemed to be... pre-lowering the importances of any potential Bigelow win. First it was the whole "well, there never has been a woman who won, and some think it's about time" thing, and then it was the "instant runoff voting will be good for The Hurt Locker and bad for Avatar!". Both of those bothered me intensely, it was making her victory seem less important, even before she'd won. I haven't looked at coverage this morning, I hope that there is more good than bad.


Can I say that I'm thrilled for Bigelow, and pleased that Avatar did not win? Oh, I enjoyed Avatar, don't get me wrong... but it's easy fluff with a message that I happened to like. It won where it needed to win: the incredible technical prowess of that movie. (And dh's group got a "personal" thank you from Cameron, since it was their program that allowed much of it to be done. Heh)

Anyhow.

I still don't get the hoopla about the clothes, but almost everyone is in on that.... I checked out a slide show and Kristen Stewart looked by far the nicest. See, I said something nice about someone connected with Twilight!

OMG, worse movie EVER. Seriously. EVER.

I knew it was going to be bad. I've seen Core. That was pretty awful. And those comet movies. And the volcano-eats-LA movies. And Twister.

And they were all pretty bad, but bad in a way where you could at least have a good time.

This? OMG, this was so bad, the guys from MST3k would probably be speechless in horror.

Premise: a comet -remember what a comet is? A frozen chunk of rock and ice- is passing by the Earth, and it's majorly magnetic, and OMG a piece breaks off and slams into Earth, right in front of our hero, Supposedly-handsome-astrophysicist.

Great.

Supposedly-handsome-astrophysicist is married to Science-teacher-who-acts-like-a-brainless-bimbo, and has a son with trendy long hair and a bad attitude who hates his Science-teacher-who-acts-like-a-brainless-bimbo stepmother/science teacher.

So this magnetic ball of ice (not!) knocked the Earth off of it's rotational axis (10 degrees! The sun wasn't setting in the same location! Supposedly-handsome-astrophysicist figured this out all by himself, without the help of Intelligent-female-African-American-scientist!), and started to cause a supposed magnetic pole reversal.

Right.

But wait! As the poles are reversing (something that has happened, but not under these circumstances and this way), there are mini-poles created, and using electricity around these mini-poles causes them to discharge and people to be electrocuted and electronics to be fried because of EMPs. But turning off your car (or computer) when the EMP passes over you will prevent any damage. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Oh. And for some reason when these EMPs pass by? They causes pavement to open up and swallow cars, people, whatever, using special effects that make Tron's look slick and state of the art. Dh is looking for a better comparison, but no other natural disaster movie has had such horrid special effects. I mean... Dante's Peak's were better, and that movie was BAD.

Anyhow, bad to worse, to worser, and worsest.

Supposedly-handsome-astrophysicist is the son of Air Force General (wearing blue?) and OMG, manages to convince Stupid-but-loves-his-country-African-American-president that he Has An Idea and...

And just in case you needed to know when an EMP/mini-pole was gonna come get ya? The radio would start whistling. Dear god.

And the absolutely incredible visual of the Russian diesel sub being born to the surface of the Pacific by steam from vents in the Mariana Trench (it took them a few hours at most, btw, to sail in this old sub from Seattle to the Mariana Trench. Riiiiiiiiiiiigh), anyhow... that visual? I think they must have borrowed the director's son's bathtub toys.

God. That's it. I can't do this. I may have movie induced PTSD from this one, it was that bad.

It was so bad it was cringeworthy. And yet we kept on watching, because... it was so bad we couldn't believe how bad it was, and surely it had to get better?

Umm... No.

But... OMG OMG OMG!!!! Chile earthquake may have shortened days Seventh strongest quake in recorded history may have shifted Earth's axis!!! Ack! Beware of mini-poles and turn off your DVD player now before you're tempted to watch it.

Perry, AC, and I saw Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

It waaaaaaaaaaaaay exceeded my expectations.

Chris Columbus made the movie, and I expected a horror on the order of The Philosopher's Stone/Sorcerer's Stone, but I was quite surprised at how much better it was.

It starts out well: Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and Zeus (Sean Bean) meet, in civvies. Hot, both of them. Yum.

Then kid stuff, give or take a sexy Centaur (Pierce Brosnan), more kid stuff, then more hot Greek Gods and Goddesses.

The end.

Heh. Not quite!

It was fun, to say the least. The humour was obvious to anyone who has read any Greek mythology, if you haven't, you might not get some of it. The sexual innuendo was well done enough that I'm pretty sure AC got it, and it flew completely over Perry's head.

Not better than the book (which I still haven't finished, really I'll get around to it. I read the first half waiting for AC to get out of a speech therapy appointment a few years ago, (3? 4?) and it didn't catch, though I think, in retrospect that that was my problem, not the book's. Anyhow. Perry and AC complained about every single difference, of course, but they seriously enjoyed the movie. OTOH, in a "typical Chris Columbus" he didn't include some thematic bits that would be needed if the next movies are to be made. I hope they do.

Anyhow, the plot was interesting enough but didn't drag out (no endless search for horcruxes here...) and the movie itself was well made. The animation was believable.

My only beef with the movie is that the human side was lacking... no, not in opposition to the gods, but in creating, deepening, and moving relationships. Not boy-girl-kiss-kiss type thing, but Percy loses his mother at the beginning and then goes off to play catch-the-flag. Annabeth fell into place as GirlBFF much too easily (Grocer as BoyBFF was plausible).

AC/DC is always a treat, and Steve Coogan as Hades was... genius!

I liked this much much better than Avatar, as did both AC and Perry.

If you ever thought you should take Avatar seriously as a movie... see Princess Mononoke.

I hadn't seen it before. It was pure Miyazaki, beautiful, and fluid, and heartbreakingly moving. He shows growth in characters, the deepening of their understanding of the world in a way very few others even, and that includes authors of written works.

It really does make Avatar look like a cheap re-mix.

In other bits... I finished The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold yesterday. It's the first of the books on Miles (as opposed to the ones on his parents), before The Vor Game which I already reviewed. I am still hesitating as to letting the kids listen to this one. There are some tough, emotionally painful bits, some sex talk that is a bit beyond what Perry at least is ready for, and I'm not 100% sure about AC. I'll review in full if we do let them listen (won't be for a while, we've got Catching Fire of CD right now). Again a vote for the reader of the McMaster books. He's flat out awesome. His voice has made my crush on Miles even worse. Heh.

Most everyone I know has had positive reactions to Avatar, which I thought dumb but beautiful. So... expect mocking, and sorry for those who really did like it. I'm merciless when it comes to Twilight too.


see more Epic Fails

Original is here