Slumdog Millionaire

I don't watch the Academy Awards, so I am in no way desirous of watching a movie merely because it did well at the Oscars. However, there are times when a movie I enjoy is nominated for something (such as the Lord of the Rings movies) and then I hope that it does well.

The movie Slumdog Millionaire did surprisingly well at the Oscars for being a foreign film with no big-name actors in it. I don't really care how well it did, but its presence in the spotlight for the last few days has reminded me that it was a movie that I wanted to see.

I love the plot: a poor man raised on the street becomes a millionaire on an Indian quiz show and then has to prove how he learned all the facts he knew. There is a problem, though. I try to keep my standards high when it comes to movies and that means skipping the R rated movies. I simply don't want to subject myself to the sort of thing that contributes to the "restricted" rating. And unfortunately, Slumdog Millionaire has that rating.

I thought, "Well maybe the rating was only because of language." I don't mind that to an extent, so I might have been willing to watch it. I looked up the movie's review on the Catholic Bishop's website and found what I was looking for:

The film contains beating and torture, fleeting rear nudity, crime and prostitution themes, underage drinking, brief scatological humor and occasional rough and crude language.

Well, that settled it. I have no interest in watching that stuff. It's too bad that they don't sell movies edited for airplanes.

Signing Time

For the last two or three years that I have been reading mommy blogs I have occasionally read posts about how great the Signing Time DVDs are. I looked at their website, but the cost was too much for me, so I would forget about it until I read the next Signing Time praise post.

Last week I was at the library and I noticed that they had several Signing Time DVDs there. I don't know why it never occurred to me to look there, but I didn't. I checked out the first one for the children, hoping that it would capture Happy Boy's attention.

Not only did it capture Happy Boy's attention, but it also caught Reeda's. This is the first time that she has EVER been interested in watching any type of film and she loves it. I have been extremely impressed with her development in the short time that we have had the DVD from the library. She now has a slightly larger vocabulary, but the main improvement is that words that she said before are significantly more enunciated than before she watched Signing Time. I am excited to see how much of an improvement she has once she watches more of the series.

Thou Shalt Not Covet

"Covet" being a word which here means to wish for longingly rather than to feel blameworthy desire for (that which is another's).

Yesterday at Costco I discovered the Elizabeth Gaskell Collection. Oh, how I want it. I wrote earlier this month about how much I enjoyed Cranford. I have also seen the two other movies in the collection and loved both of them. Especially Wives and Daughters. I have wanted to own that movie since I first saw it many years ago, but it was always fairly expensive. At Costco, however, the entire collection of movies is a mere $26.99. On Amazon it is forty dollars more. Since it is not a need, and my birthday, anniversary, and Mother's Day have all passed, I can't justify buying it. Sigh. Maybe I will be lucky enough that the library will buy the set so I can check it out.

Prince Caspian

We were able to get someone watch the children this morning, so we took advantage of $4 Saturday morning movie tickets to see Prince Caspian. I hadn't been to a real movie theater with my husband since the first Chronicles movie.

When I went to see Bella I was angry at myself for not wearing my glasses, so I made sure that I wore them this time. That was a mistake. It has been a loooooong time since I have worn them (at least a year, and maybe two) and I was not used to them at all. The movie was slightly clearer, but I came home feeling nauseous because seeing clearly through the glasses and not as clearly out the sides gave me a feeling akin to seasickness.

As far as the movie itself goes, both my husband and I really enjoyed it. In my husband's words, "The first one follows the book more closely, but this one is a better movie." He does qualify that by saying that he didn't like the song or the kiss in the last scene, but everything else was great. I could only remember the first couple chapters, so I honestly don't know how well the events followed the book.

I loved how they embellished so many things to make them look beautiful and noble. The horn, for example, is a solid piece of horn or ivory, carved with an intricate design of a bear. The children wear colorful, multi-layered and textured clothing with details on all the metalwork that they wear. Even the evil army had amazing masks when they went into battle and the boat which the soldiers used at the beginning was ornately carved. No one ever pays attention to such detail-work nowadays so it makes that era seem much more grand.

Even though this is a PG movie, I recommend screening it if you have children who might be frightened by violence. It certainly wasn't like The Lord of the Rings, but it is more than children below a certain age should see. At the beginning of the movie there is also a scene of a woman screaming in childbirth (why do they always do that!?!) which may or may not disturb some people.

The bottom line is, unless you hate books being changed, you should see Prince Caspian. And if you do hate it when that happens, don't think of it as a movie based on a book. Think of it just as cinematic art, and then you probably like it.

The Swinging Alphabet

We recently saw this Three Stooges clip and now Happy Boy sings this song all the time. He got very excited when he saw a picture of some students graduating because he associated the cap and gown with the movie. I wonder if he thought the picture was going to burst into song?

Oops!

My one year anniversary was on Monday and I totally forgot. I guess that is what I get for rarely blogging anymore.

In other news, we finally succumbed to our desire to see Season Two of Lost, so we signed up for Netflix. Now we just have to exercize the will power to cancel the subscription after the first month when we have seen the movies that our library doesn't carry.

This and That

Christmas was wonderful. There was very little stress and lots of family time. It gave me so much pleasure to see the joy on Happy Boy's face when he opened his stocking and presents. He even took joy in watching us open OUR stockings and presents. His favorite gift by far was a wind-up LED flashlight. Reeda's was a little stuffed girl gnome which my mother-in-law knitted for her.

I had requested no plastic toys (except for Duplos/ Legos) and no toys made in China. They received handmade toys, wooden toys, and educational items, so I was very pleased with that.

We watched the movie Miss Potter a couple days ago. Way back in May and June a couple different bloggers raved about it so I added my name to the library queue. Six months later it finally came up just before Christmas. I enjoyed the movie and now want to read the whole set of books. Luckily for me, Happy Boy was given the set for Christmas.

Tonight we watched the movie Freedom Writers. Except for foul language (which I actually think was appropriate given the context) it was a good movie. I suspect that many public school teachers (and especially the NEA) are like the department chair who worshiped bureaucracy rather than teachers who actually care about giving their students and education.

Some time before Christmas Reeda took her first step. It is still not a daily occurrence so we get very excited whenever it happens.

One Night with the King

My husband and I recently watched One Night with the King, the movie about the Biblical figure Esther. It is hard to articulate what I think about the movie, but I will give it a shot.

You will probably like this movie if you watch it with a blank mind. If you know absolutely nothing about the story of Esther that will be a good thing. If you have never seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that is an even better thing. If not, then those two combined make the movie lame, lame, lame.

Well, to give the movie a fair chance, I must say that in no reviews that I read did people mention the LOTR similarities. Some Christians loved the artistic license with the screenplay and some did not. In other words, what bothered me may not bother you.

First of all, the movie is actually based on a book called Hadassah, not the book of Esther. I suppose that the artistic license taken in the movie was found in the book, but I am not going to read it to find out. An example of what I didn't like was that the only reason Xerxes believed that she was Jewish was because of a Star of David which was "hidden" in her necklace.

The Lord of the Rings was a great movie, but not to be duplicated. Sigh. Too many times did the director, screenwriter, and hair and makeup artists try to duplicate it. I know it wasn't just me, because my husband felt this way before I even mentioned it. A small example is that one of the antagonists in the movie also played Denethor, the Steward of Gondor in the LOTR. He looked exactly the same. All the way down to his hair and costume. Fortunately, the actor who played both Mordecai and Gimli actually looked like a Jewish scribe and not a dwarf. That would have been an amusing disaster.

If you have seen it, what did you think?

Bella

Well, I jumped on the Catholic bandwagon and went to see the much-hyped-in-the-conservative-Catholic-subculture movie Bella. It was the first movie I have seen in the theaters since The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

When I first heard about Bella I wasn't interested in seeing it, but the more I heard about it the more I wanted to see it. Another reason I wanted to watch the movie was because I had heard that it was clean and pro-life. Those are two rare virtues in movies nowadays and I wanted to support the movie for that in hopes that more movies will be made with such virtues.

So what did I think about it? It was very, very good. It seemed a little Christian but mostly secular and I think that is a good thing. Movies that are ostensibly Christian tend to alienate non-Christians, but the movie's Christian qualities were all very subtle. I hope that the seeds of being open to life will be planted due to that.

Bella was one of those movies that cause the viewer to run the gamut of emotions. At one point I was crying from sadness and at another crying from how beautiful the scene was. Although this was by no means a comedy, there was also a little laughter as well.

At the movie's end I had a lot to think about. During the movie I was wondering what the fuss was about. Why did everyone say this movie was so good? But once it ended, I could just tell that its goodness just was. Why is it good? It just is. That probably doesn't make any sense, but I can't do any better than that.

Go see it for yourself.

Love2learn at the Movies

There is a new blog which reviews movies appropriate for families. I have already requested from the library three movies that Love2learn at the Movies has recommended, so it looks very promising.

Lost

I have recently heard several people talking (or blogging, as the case may be) about the television show Lost. While we don't watch TV, we are not opposed to TV shows.

We decided to check the first season of Lost of of the library and found it enjoyable. When we finished the first season, I went online to request the second from the library. I was disappointed to find out that three of the discs for the second season are lost or damaged, including the first one. Now that they have hooked us into becoming fans, we are left suffering from our addiction.

Into Great Silence

I first heard about the documentary Into Great Silence more than a year ago. Since then I have been anxiously awaiting its release in the US. Apparently, the reason it took two years to be release here was because the director had a hard time finding a company to distribute it. That is amazing that since has done so well in Europe, winning several awards and critical acclaim from several noted film critics.

Steven Greydanus, a Catholic film critic who started the Decent Films Guide, has a great review of it. The movie is now having a limited release here. Go see if you are lucky enough to have it in a theater near you.

Book and Movie Meme

I have seen this floating around and since I love books and literary movies, I thought I would give this a shot. I guess I still have quite a bit of reading left to do.

The instructions are to bold the books you've read and put an *asterisk* next to those whose movies you have seen.

1. Heidi (Johanna Spyri)*
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)*
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) *
4. Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)*
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)*
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)*
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)*
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)*
9. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)*
10. Anne of Avonlea (L.M. Montgomery)*
11.The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
12. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)*
13. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
14. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)*
15. Chariots of Fire (Clarence E. MacArtney)*
16. 1984 (Orwell)
17. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
18. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
19. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
20. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
21. Quo Vadis (Sienkiewicz)
22. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo)*
23. The Robe (Douglas)
24. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
25. The Story of A Soul (St. Therese)* (If you count the movie Therese.)

Since I know that Flannery reads this blog, I will tag her to do this. :)