Girl Anachronicles

A month or so ago Eze introduced me to the Dr. Who series, starting with the 9th doctor (Christopher Eccleston). This introduction coincided with the season 3 finale of Battlestar Galactica (another obsession Eze introduced me to), so I was thirsty for yet more sci-fi. Little by little, I realize I’m becoming a bigger geek than I thought myself capable of. However, the sheer and full realization of this came last night as I watched The Last Mimzy.

Think not so much in terms of storyline, but more in terms of reference. This is like putting together an old love of mine (Alice in Wonderland) and a newfound love (time traveling) linked together by an element I was called to awareness of by my brother (the Jabberwocky). The film becomes for me, then, a beautiful work of art and an enthralling sci-fi story.

So, suffice it to say (since I have no intention of spoiling the plot for anyone), I’d be incredibly happy to have an adventure traveling through time in the TARDIS along with Doctor Who #9 and Mimzy… I’d be incredibly happy and tickled pink …

A few months ago I came across a trailer that set my body hairs on end and gave me something to really look forward to. My life at that moment was a mishmash blur or Battlestar Galactica, the Sci-Fi forums and Heroes. The trailer I watched that day reminded me of all the fantastic things I was watching and reading. I would afterwards realize I am indeed a natural science fiction freak, since I ate Dune up like it was melted butter.

I failed to save the trailer among my favorites in YouTube, though, and a week later I couldn’t remember for the life of me the name of the movie. Several weeks later, someone mentioned Bridge to Terabithia in a local forum, so I went to look, just in case that was the movie… no such luck, other than it reminded me of yet another version of Chronicles of Narnia. Then The Golden Compass was mentioned, and I thought “This is it!”, but when I looked I was … well … disappointed is not it, because it truly got my attention also, but I had been looking for the name of that movie for so long, it was beginning to seem like I had dreamt it up! Besides, I didn’t recall seeing a talking polar bear in the trailer… However, I HAVE to see that! A talking polar bear as guardian to a little girl. I can feel tears galore forming under my eyelids already!

I sat this morning to breakfast with an old Wired magazine and I read a short interview with Bob Shaye talking about his latest film: The Last Mimzy… and it struck like lightning. This is it!

And lo and behold! It was!!!

Funny thing is, Bob Shaye is sort of the reason why Peter Jackson will not be directing The Hobbit, and he is also, I just found out,the producer to The Golden Compass. So there you go!

Those who know me, though, know that the selling point in that trailer for me was the whole allegory to Alice in Wonderland and the white rabbit.

I just finished watching the 1950 version of Father of the Bride. I’ve always been a Steve Martin fan, and quite liked the 1991 version he starred in, so I had to see the original version, see how the most recent one pitted up against it.

Apart from the glaringly obvious changes and updates in style (from the fact that the original movie is in black and white, down to the old-fashioned model of Osterizer we get to see in a scene in the kitchen), there are also other changes that have more to do with politics, something I found to be quite interesting to watch.

To begin with, in the original version, the Banks family has a black maid. This in itself would cause a ruckus nowaday, given the political correctness that is demanded of the media (even if events of more violent nature due to racism occur on a daily basis). Even more interesting was the fact that it is implied that the Dunsts (the groom’s family) are of a higher station, not only because of their bigger house, but because they have a white maid. I think I don’t even need to say that no maids are to be found in the 1991 version.

In the 1950 version you never see the characters get messy, unruly or dirty. The movie is carried with the glamour that characterized the 50s: mother, daughter, father, beau … not a hair out of place in their carefully lacquered coifs. The 1991 version shows most characters suffering the ups and downs of a wedding planning down to the dark circles under their eyes.

The 1950 version portrays what I would guess would be a typical 1950 family: father and mother, obviously the mother is a housewife (even though the cleaning and cooking is left to the maid). This is the kind of couple that, when he gets home, she’s up and ready in her pumps and pearls to take the suitcase off her tired husband’s hands. Both sons have leeway to leave the house whenever they please without so much as the bat of an eyelash, they’re both in school, and no one worries about them. It is never clear wether the daughter is going to college (but apparently not, she’s just being “kept”), and the father goes into a tizzy as soon as she announces that she’s leaving for a date. She’s the whole of his worries, to the point of keeping him awake at night. I think the 1991 version made the brother-sister contrast easier to deal with by making the only brother much younger than her. However, they updated the bride character by making her a young career woman who has just come back home from her solo trip to Europe (where she met her beau). Obviously, feminism has had a big hand on how we portray female characters in the media. By the way: mom and dad? Total busy wrecks, but it’s cool! They look to be a co-op couple.

The details and small stories around the wedding planning are pretty much timeless, however. Obviously, the price tag has inflated from 1950 to 1951 (pretty much! I mean … a $400 wedding cake nowadays is a steal!). But problems with the flowers, dresses, boudoir, fittings, bridesmaids, wedding rehearsals and so on will exist as long as weddings exist. However, the 1991 version tinges the situations with more than a little humor, while the 1950 version’s humor is more subduded.

One character, the caterer, was taken advantage of and exploded in the latter film, though, and I think this is what made the movie a fine candidate for a sequel. Martin Short in the character of Franck is simply fascinating, very funny, and totally un-PC! Forget the black maid, now, this guy is outrageously gay! And I think most fans of the movie totally loved him. He’s the reason Father of the Bride II exists.

There is but one very redeeming point in the 1950 version, one thing that won me over: the night before the wedding, Stanley Banks (the father) has a nightmare. A sequence fit for any 1950s horror movie, it was excellently made, I loved every second of it, and relished the fact that they found a way to fit in something so dreary in a picture that was later remade to glorify one of the scariest moments in a person’s life. I wonder why they left it out…

Steve Martin made Stanley Banks his own characteer. The hysteria and the mushy-dad moments are all his, all made in his own particular style. In comparison, Spencer Tracy’s Stanley Banks is perfectly … glum. Sorry … I’ll keep Steve Martin as a dad any day over Mr. Tracy.

But I won’t have a wedding.

Although, one can always dream a bit …

* Last night we visited a new friend’s home. We were kindly invited there to watch the Season Finale of Heroes. Our friend’s family was the kindest ever: we got well fed, and they tended to us as if we were kings. Talk about warmth and welcome in a family! It’s not so much that they had droves of platters filled with finger food, chocolate-covered strawberries and fritters. That was very nice, indeed (as was the excellent piña colada! Thanks, Rebecca!) It has much more to do with the attention, the immediate welcome, not as a guest, but as family. The warmth that enveloped me as soon as I went through the door could only be topped by the warmth I feel around my family and very close friends. It was glaringly obvious right then and there that this family is filled with love to give: as they shower each other with love and acceptance, the warmth around them grows, and we, the moths of affection, adore hovering around such a family’s glowing hearth.

** A few things that have been happening in my personal life have made me reconsider my “cyberspace presence”. Not so much that I want to run away and hide, but there are parts of me and my personal life that I want to keep out of people’s radars. I realized today (by way of a small, insignificant detail) that there are people out there that will react passionately or violently to things I say or things I do, by which I mean no harm. In this particular situation, it was someone I don’t even know, but there will be times in which it will be people I DO know … and sometimes it will be people that don’t like me, or people I don’t like. Do I want to expose one of my hobbies (internet surfing) to the possibility of scrutiny and pollution by people who would otherwise never care?

I’m a decidedly private person (after a few years in which I kept myself and all nasty details of my life in the open). I don’t want to be in the radar of just anyone who wants to be. (This blog is not part of what I’m reconsidering, though. I’m pretty sure of the things I write here and how they might look to the anonymous public who comes in to read it.) So you might see some changes soon in the things that compose my cybernetic presence…

*** Musical Erotica … Because these last few days, these two songs have been looping through my mind, perhaps little more than they should. Maybe my sensual side is calling for a renascent era … or maybe I’m turning into a full fledged wiccan hippie and I don’t know it yet …

Oh well! Here they are… (both songs are from the 1973 version – the superior version!!! – of The Wicker Man)

Willow’s Song
by Paul Giovanni

Heigh ho! Who is there?
No one but me, my dear.
Please come say, How do?
The things I’ll give to you.
By stroke as gentle as a feather
I’ll catch a rainbow from the sky
And tie the ends together.
Heigh ho! I am here
Am I not young and fair?
Please come say, How do?
The things I’ll show to you.
Would you have a wond’rous sight
The midday sun at midnight?
Fair maid, white and red,
Comb you smooth and stroke your head
How a maid can milk a bull!
And every stroke a bucketful.

Maypole Song
by Paul Giovanni

In the woods there grew a tree
And a fine fine tree was he

And on that tree there was a limb
And on that limb there was a branch
And on that branch there was a nest
And in that nest there was an egg
And in that egg there was a bird
And from that bird a feather came
And of that feather was
A bed

And on that bed there was a girl
And on that girl there was a man
And from that man there was a seed
And from that seed there was a boy
And from that boy there was a man
And for that man there was a grave
From that grave there grew
A tree

I think I finally turned into a total nature-loving, tree-hugger hippie :-\