The Holy Land of Tyrol/Bergblut

or

For some reason, I think they look better in the German poster.

Don't ask me why, I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days.

So, the baby is teething. This leads to a lot of hanging out with him at night, when he only wants to sleep in a very specific position in my arms. This position is not good for sleeping myself, but it is good for watching strange foreign movies with the sound way down. I like to pick foreign films for the reason that I can have the sound nearly off and still understand what everyone is saying. (God bless subtitles.) And I like to pick strange foreign films because watching them with Henry always leads to the inevitable "foreign films end too abruptly fight," followed by the "we could have watched Avengers, Lord of the Rings, or pretty much anything else cool instead fight." And I'm too tired for that mess right now. 

Hence, me and the baby watching this strange little gem about a Bavarian woman who marries beneath her, and thus has to move to Tyrol with her new husband and learn to fit in there during the Napoleonic Wars. Spoiler: It isn't easy. 

Not that anything appears to be easy in Tyrol. This state in western Austria is known as the heart of the Alps, and it rivals Poland for most popular place to invade and trade between powerful neighbors. During the time of the movie, this involves Germany and France. And let me just say, I am glad that the baby speaks neither because the slurs going on were not polite. (If you wanna know more about Tyrol, Wikipedia has you hooked up.) 

The movie was by turns sad and heroic and joyful, and the energy stayed mostly on our main lady, Katharina. Her growth from young scared wife to strong confident medic was really neat to watch. I suppose anything else would give too much away, but there are a lot of nice twists and turns that don't end predictably or too tragically. Which is impressive, given the overwhelming presence of war that pervades the whole movie. And the views are out of control beautiful because, umm, Alps. 

Don't wait until you have a teething baby, see Bergblut now! (If you are using Amazon Prime to stream it, look for it under its English name.) 

It's a Wonderful Life

"No man is a failure who has friends."

And no mom is a failure who has a movie-loving son. 

So, I have seen It's a Wonderful Life untold times; most of them on snowy Christmas eves while I frantically wrap gifts and giggle as Henry's Mr. Potter impressions get bigger and bigger, the more egg nog he consumes.  My oldest son has seen up to the lassoing-of-the-moon scene for 6 years in a row, at which point the sugar crashes, his little body gives out, and he retreats to visions of sugarplums. Neither of us have ever seen it on the big screen, so we decide to head over to the Michigan Theater today and watch it. It was magical and I could wax poetic for hours. Believe me, I could; it's one of my favorite movies. However, I thought it would be more fun to let my son do this one, given that it was his first complete viewing. Here's what he has to say:

1. Mom let me have candy, which was awesome. I picked Dots and I like them all, but Cherry is, by far, my favorite flavor. 

2. The theater was really pretty. Mom says it is called Art Deco, which I guess means art decoration for short. And it was really decorated, lots of lights and gold stuff. 

3. A man was playing the organ before the movie and that was really good. 

4. Mom, are you gonna number everything I say? Why? Oh, alright. I guess it does make it easier read. OK, go ahead.

5. The beginning of the movie is funny. Well, sorta funny. When that old sad man was hitting...what? Oh, right, when Mr. Gower was hitting George, that wasn't funny at all, but the rest was pretty funny. 

6. Esp. when the dance floor opens up and they all fell in the swimming pool. That was so funny and the best part of the whole movie! I wish our school had a floor like that.

7. Uncle Billy has a pet crow and that is really nice.

8. The middle part is pretty hard to understand, except Clarence does some magic and then George is happy again, even though he is going to jail. He's kinda happy he is going to jail, which is weird, but maybe he is just happy that he has his kids again. 

9. Our house is almost exactly like the Bailey's because it's kinda broken and messy and we have 4 kids too and everyone is always loud and doing weird stuff, but we like it. George likes it too at the end and all the people come over and everyone was shouting so I didn't hear what they said but I think it was good stuff. And Mom cried, which is silly because I told her, "he's not going to jail now because they have money again."

10. And Mom says that you can be rich in money like Mr. Potter or rich in friends like George. And the right answer is that you want to be rich in friends, but I think it might be good to be both. 

The next Roger Ebert, ladies and gentlemen. 

Birdman

Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. 

What's unexpected is that Henry and I got to go to a movie.
In the theater.
On a Saturday. 

Birdman is delightfully weird and totally unexpected. I couldn't describe it if I wanted to, but I do want to mention that the depiction of the world of the theater is dead on. Believe me, my B.F.A. may be nearly 15 years old, but you go NOT forget just how dirty and real the theater is. This movie has an ultra-realism that had me squirming in my seat, and it totally worked. The intimacy of the stage was captured perfectly in super close-ups, lingering and excruciating. Everyone is solid and praiseworthy, but Michael Keaton was a powerhouse; heartbreaking and heart-swelling all at once. The Oscar buzz is very very deserved. The parallels to his own career are not: Michael Keaton is no celebrity trying to stay relevant. He is, and always has been, an actor of the finest stuff.

Great, really good-weird, movie.

P.S. The early appearance of an unflappable costume designer, who takes one look at Edward Norton's total nudity and declares that he "needs to go shopping for bigger pants" made me giggle and remember those long ago theater days of just rolling with whatever. Henry whispered "Are actors really like that?" And I said "Oh yes. They are very much like that."

P.P.S. The fact that we viewed this movie at the rather gritty, kinda uncomfortable, I-think-they-might-have-showed-porn-here-in-the-70s State Theater only added to the ultra-realism.