Godzilla's Revenge

So, Henry and I have decided to expose the children to more classic film in 2015. We differ on what constitutes classic film. Tonight Henry won:

So, this part of the Godzilla franchise has some of the worst reviews ever. Perhaps because it is basically a children's movie and the monster antics are confided to the protagonist's mind. There are 2 main plots; one involving some bungling bank robbers and one involving a little boy being bullied at school and left alone a lot by 2 overworked parents, thus retreating into a dream world involving the always fun "Monster Island." My day-dreams usually don't involve fire-breathing monsters, but I'm not a lonely Japanese boy from the 60s, so what do I know.

It has the trippiest music ever, and I am grading on a curve here due to its release date of 1969. Godzilla has a child in this one; a rather alarming dinosaur-like fellow named Minya that speaks English and is bullied by the less verbally advanced monsters. Our oldest said that he looked and sounded exactly like Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Henry says that Godzilla's son sounds more like Don Knotts. The bad reviews are starting to make sense now, eh?

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend an hour and a half. The children were entertained and remained on the couch the whole time, instead of their usual bored move of wandering in and out with various toys. Anything that can keep their attention that long can't be all bad.

Henry likes that "they are telling multiple stories" and doesn't like that "both stories move incredibly slowly and seem rather pointless." He also isn't sure what the message is exactly; "is it that to deal with bullies you should become angry and aggressive like Godzilla? Or is it that you should retreat into a dream-world where you get chased by scary monsters and hang with a reptilian Don Knotts? Or is it that you should rob banks?" So many questions.

Our 4-year-old says he "kinda likes it" and "monster fighting is always fun."

Our 6-year-old says "it's good. Who doesn't like Godzilla movies?"

Our 3-year-old slept through the whole thing, after declaring that she was stronger than Godzilla and was going to her room to playing with some ponies.

And our baby couldn't believe his luck when the 4-year-old knocked a whole bowl of popcorn on his head during a particularly intense battle.

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.

The Triplets of Belleville

This was tonight's film:

I have loved this weird little gem for awhile, but our 6-year-old got to meet the triplets for the first time this evening. He found them delightfully odd. He enjoyed them beating the bad guys best, but he thought the songs were "super nice." The only thing he didn't like was their predilection for frog popsicles. 

22 Jump Street

Tonight's film.

They had me for 1 rather clear reason with extremely well-defined muscles. They kept me with a story that was equal parts sweet, self-aware, and totally side-splitting. And they won me over completely for the sheer audacity to put in a Benny Hill reference. I am starting the Oscar buzz now.

The House

Tonight's Film.

A strange and lingering movie out of Korea about the destruction of a group of falling down old houses and the spirits that dwell in them. Moody and moving, with just enough laughs to keep the children from totally losing it at the end. Just reminded them about the cat-god who stole people's underwear and floated in a purple easy-chair; they were happy again. They absolutely adored the house spirits. The people, well, they didn't really notice them and found their concerns and squabbles rather boring next to the gentle, bouncy spirits. 

Our imaginary-friend-loving 4-year-old loved it the most. Surprise, surprise. The ending is heart-breaking and makes me want to offer a few rice-cakes to the guardian spirit of our house. God knows that just dealing with the noise level around here must be exhausting to even the most benevolent of house guardians.