A breezy synchronicity has defined many our movie choices this summer; a sort of "This is related to that is rather similar to the other jibes with something we've read," and so on.
For example,
Donna has mentioned "
So You Think You Can Dance" so often that the Misses and I just
had to pause a moment when it flickered across the screen a couple of weeks ago. We arrived at the program partway into a performance that was clearly inspired by India -- which led to a conversation about Bollywood, which led to the Misses' introduction to one of my favorite mental-popcorn movies ever:
Bride and Prejudice.
Yes, they loved it. I knew they would.
[Edited to add that Donna embedded a video of the SYTYCD performance in her August 8 entry. Talk about sychronicity and serendipity, eh?
Here's a link.]
Some of our family viewing selections were informed by the Misses' reading. Over the winter, for example, they read
The Folk Keeper, a beautiful book that draws on the myth of the selkies. (Younger readers interested in this myth might enjoy Susan Cooper's
The Selkie Girl.) Cut to late June: We were perusing the family film selections at our local Blockbuster, hoping to stumble upon a film treasure -- which is
not oxymoronic (as in, "Blockbuster" and "film treasure"). Just a year ago, we discovered
The Blue Butterfly in their collection, and it was
superb. This visit,
The Secret of Roan Inish attracted our attention. Rooted in the mythology surrounding selkies, this slowly unfolding miracle of a film utterly bewitched the women of Family M-mv. Beautiful. Original. Magical.
Highly recommended.
[
Related aside: While creating the link for
The Secret of Roan Inish, I saw
Fairy Tale: A True Story among the movies Amazon customers buy after viewing the entry for
Secret. This delighted me because the Misses and I also adored
Fairy Tale.]
Unfortunately, we weren't quite so lucky in our decision to watch
The Spiderwick Chronicles. While the Misses loved
the books, and I liked them well enough, all three of us were disturbed by the number of liberties the film took with what we considered essential elements of the plot.
On the other hand, we were far less critical of the way
Nim's Island, a pleasant novel with which we passed the hours of the first summer season swim meet, was translated into
film -- even though, yes, plot points were conflated, Alex Rover (the writer) was played as a caricature, and the movie spent too little time on Nim's day-to-day life (which was one of our favorite parts of the book).
[
Related aside: Four excellent novels featuring homeschooled students: Wendy Orr's
Nim's Island (read-aloud, five and up; read-alone, seven and up), Gordon Korman's
Schooled (read-aloud, eight and up; read-alone, nine and up); Katherine Hannigan's
Ida B. (read-aloud, eight and up; read-alone, nine and up); and Jerry Spinelli's
Stargirl (read-aloud/read-alone, twelve and up).]
Speaking of fairy tales and conflated plot points... we've decided that the world can likely be sifted into two sorts: those who willingly suspend their disbelief and enjoy
August Rush and those who mock those who willingly suspend their disbelief and enjoy
August Rush. We -- that is, the Misses, Mr. M-mv, and I -- are of the former sort. Besides, we haven't met a film featuring Freddie Highmore that we didn't like -- apart from
The Spiderwick Chronicles, that is.
In
his review of this unabashed tearjerker, Roger Ebert notes:
Here is a movie drenched in sentimentality, but it's supposed to be. I dislike sentimentality where it doesn't belong, but there's something brave about the way "August Rush" declares itself and goes all the way with coincidence, melodrama and skillful tear-jerking. I think more sensitive younger viewers, in particular, might really like it.
Sensitive younger viewers. Yeah. That about describes the Misses.
In the wake of the hype surrounding the release of
The Dark Knight, the Misses wanted to know a little more about Heath Ledger, which offered me a perfect opportunity to introduce them (with only one "Cover your eyes!") to
A Knight's Tale, another of my favorite mental-popcorn movies. Interestingly, they, too, realized that as compelling as Ledger is in the simple role of Sir Urlich/William, it is Paul Bettany's that is the most fully realized characterization. And thanks to his Geoffrey,
The Canterbury Tales has moved up several places on our autumn reading list.
Let's see...
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was a big hit with the Misses this summer. I knew that Miss M-mv(i) would be particularly beguiled by the descriptions of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which she visited during
our 2006 trip to New York. Our library was able to secure two different film versions of the Newbery Award-winning novel. The short story is that the 1972 film (originally titled
The Hideaways) is a dud;
the 1995 film, however, is terrific. How could it not be, though? It features Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
Zathura was another literature-fueled movie selection. Yes, our affection for the work of Chris Van Allsburg
has been duly noted, but what you may not have known about us is that
we have been known to tune in for "The Apprentice." As it happens, the Misses saw an episode with me a couple of years ago, in which the challenge was to develop a float that would promote the new movie
Zathura (based on
Van Allsburg's book of the same title). When the time came to present their project, one team leader garbled the title. Every. Single. Time. If memory serves, she was fired that evening.
As it turns out,
Zathura is one of those movies whose title
deserves to be garbled. Utterly forgettable, it's the sort of movie you pop in knowing that you will never recover that ninety minutes, so you might as well drowse in and out.
So I did. Later, Master M-mv advised me that it was "
Jumanji -- in space." I thought it was darned sweet that he kept his sisters company -- especially through a mediocre movie.
One night in July, when Mr. M-mv was away on business and the Misses were asleep, Master and I watched
another mediocre movie. Back story: I read
I Am Legend (Richard Matheson) over the winter holiday, thinking that I would catch
the new movie in theaters, but I decided to wait for the DVD. It was all right. Certainly, it was, in most respects, far better than
The Omega Man, which was also based on the novel. Still,
The Omega Man has its hokey, dated charms, and Master and I enjoyed discussing the many ways in which it went wrong, and one of the only ways in which it went right.
(Charlton Heston, of course.)
Master was moderating a forum the night I decided to watch
The Andromeda Strain, but Mr. M-mv was back in town, so he kept me company. Back story: In May or June, I had seen about six minutes of the A&E miniseries. One word:
dreadful. I mentioned it to Master, a Michael Crichton fan, and he insisted that I read
the book. So I did. By the time I was finished with this terrifically entertaining novel, I had learned that
the 1971 movie was actually supposed to be quite good. The library secured me a copy, and Mr. M-mv and I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller.
We also thought highly of
The Orphanage -- the best supernatural thriller/horror film I've seen in nine years.
What else? I read both
The Other Boleyn Girl (Philipa Gregory -- admission
here) and
Gone, Baby, Gone (Dennis Lehane) in anticipation of movie releases. Well, I finally picked up
The Other Boleyn Girl today. That and
Maxed Out will provide my viewing pleasure this weekend. (Sorry... I haven't really caught "Olympic fever," although the women of Family M-mv definitely have a case of Michael Phelps-mania. Heh, heh, heh.) I'll see
Gone, Baby, Gone before the summer is over.
And there you have it... a season in movies and their M-mv tie-ins.
[
Related aside: While it's not a movie, I thought I'd mention
Jericho here. We watched
the first season in bits and pieces over the winter and spring. Mr. M-mv and I think this show had one of the most promising premises ever. Too bad that premise was executed
so poorly. Still, once in, we stuck with it. After all, those are the benefits of watching television on DVD: You can watch as much or as little in one sitting as you want; you need not suffer the commercials; and you can
FF through the particularly bad bits. In mid-June,
the second season was delivered. It was bittersweet to watch; it is, after all, so much better in its execution. The strike doomed this show before it could even begin to enjoy its resurrection, though.
Too bad.
The Misses M-mv were counting the days until their next visit to the Bristol Renaissance Faire on the way home from last year's visit. Pressed, I'd say they would take a day at the Faire over Christmas morning.
