Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012 In the Pink During the deepest, deadest cold of this winter that stretched out for literally hours, M. Edium asked us for a ski mask. I picked him up at school one day and he told me about how the wind had frozen his cheeks on the playground that day. Heartbreaking. I expressed my sympathy as soon as were safely in my car and out of the cold. So that night, after dinner, I suggested we go out and pick up a little face-warmth for him. But as anyone who has ever tried to buy a ski mask in January knows…well, those people don't know anything, because they're idiots, like us. So since we're idiots, we went to Target and looked in the boys' department. And the men's department. They barely had hats at all, let alone the kind you can pull down over your face and rob a bank in. We picked up a couple of other things, and before we left, as a hail-Mary, Trash suggested looking in the girls' department. Maybe they'd have something in green or blue, his two favorite colors. Nope. In the clearance bon, there was one balaclava left in the whole department. It was bright pink. Now, Trash and I have always made an effort to raise M. Edium as someone who isn't sexist. He knows girls can do anything boys can do and vice versa -- which isn't technically true, as you and I know, but since he's only seven, there are some differences we don't want to get all that far into yet. But it can be an uphill battle, what with him hanging out with counteracting influences like…oh, other first-grade boys. We have to be on top of it, to listen for telling phrases like "fight like a girl" and that's a girl toy" and "does M. Edium need to choke a bitch?" Trash and I both saw this pink hat as a unique learning opportunity. Trash laid the choice out for him: we could buy him this one, or we could not buy it -- and then he'd stick with his regular earflap hat, because we weren't going to a bunch of other stores looking for just the right color when there was a perfectly functional ski mask right here, that would keep his cheeks just as warm as would a ski mask with bullets and mudflap girls on it. It was a lot to ask, but M. Edium decided to buy the pink one, and planned to wear it the very next day. We were so proud. All the way home, we talked about the color pink, and what it means -- and doesn't mean. Despite what anyone says, it's not a girl color, it's not a boy color, it's just a color. I told him that I've owned lots of pink shirts in my time, whereas Trash wears almost no pink. But we didn't lie to him. We acknowledged the possibility, even the likelihood, that some of the other kids at school might try to make fun of him. He'd merely respond to those kids, "Pink is just a color. And my face is super warm." Which, no doubt, it would be after a few minutes on the playground. We both told him we were so proud of him, and so impressed with his open-mindedness and maturity, and how much we respected his choice. And we meant it. Trash and I were both so amazed at how he'd refused to be bound by arbitrary gender norms imposed by our pervasively sexist culture. We congratulated ourselves on being such great parents. Then after he went to bed I went to the mall and found him a black one to wear for the rest of the winter. Because honestly, that pink one made him look like a walking penis. posted by M. Giant 7:50 AM 3 comments 3 Comments:You could always teach him to close one eye and introduce himself as "Mr. Happy" when wearing it.
By Now I'm dying to know how you explained the black mask to him after telling him how proud you were about him choosing to wear pink!
By Oh, he was SO relieved.
By Tuesday, February 21, 2012 M. Ovie Reviews: The Woman in Black Despite its Victorian setting (and the attendant plot-required trappings like trains, telegrams, and oil lamps) The Woman in Black is in every sense a ghost story in the 21st century template. An unsuspecting outsider blunders into a vicious haunting, inadvertently finds himself the target of the ghost's wrath, discovers its backstory, takes it upon himself to resolve the ghost's major malfunction (usually entering some dark or dirty or watery location in the process, and in this case all three), succeeds against all odds, and assumes all is well and the curse is lifted, only to get screwed one last time in a final twist, good and hard and with his or her pants on. That's not to say this iteration isn't well-executed, because it is. It's mostly set in a creepy dark filthy old house whose only access road is submerged by tidewaters for much of each day, and during every moment Daniel Radcliffe spends in it -- shuffling papers by candlelight, investigating strange noises, peering slowly around blind corners, and generally displaying the genre's required lack of self-preservation -- you just want him out of there. But he's got a powerful motivation to stay there beyond the usual self-destructive curiosity. A widower with a four-year-old son (who, amusingly, always draws him with a cartoon frown), he's got a task to complete if he wants to save his job. In fact, the drift of disorganized paperwork filling the house is the scariest thing in it for the first act. But there are plenty of good scares, some of which gave me literal chills, and one of which elicited a loud, involuntary, "Oh, shit!" from a member of the very well-behaved audience. Knowing these moments are coming doesn't seem to help, because they're always coming. Radcliffe does well in the ninth movie I've seen him in (you've probably seen the other eight too). With his trademark Boy Who Lived glasses replaced by pointy sideburns and a pocket watch on a chain, he proves quite able to convey extreme distress without clutching at his forehead. But then, on the other hand, when I was remembering some scenes…well, you know how sometimes your brain involuntarily recasts an actor in your memory? Mine recast Keanu Reeves. So…yeah. There's also a really strong supporting cast, including the giant head of Ciarán Hinds from Rome, who serendipitously becomes the hero's new best friend; Janet McTeer as his unhinged wife; and a bunch of really stressed-out townspeople. I should also add that the kid playing Radcliffe's son looks a lot like the woman who plays his dead wife. I hope it's not giving too much away to say that. As for the end, it's actually kind of satisfying, but then the very last shot is just silly. It'll make you say, "Oh, shit," but in a totally different way. posted by M. Giant 3:25 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Tuesday, February 14, 2012 M. Ovie Reviews: Chronicle Once in a while, I love going into movies knowing as little as possible, and I knew nothing about Chronicle other than that people whose opinion I respect loved it. I wanted to rush out and see it right away before I learned anything about it, but by the time I was able to make it out on Thursday, I already knew involuntarily knew that it was a found-footage story about young people who get superpowers. Which was more than I wanted to know, but I wasn't going to know any less later on, so I figured, screw it. You may or may not feel the same way I do, but if you didn't want to know anything about it before you saw it, you wouldn't be reading this right now. Thus, onward. So anyway, there's this skinny high school kid named Andrew with a terminally ill mother and a father who's a drunken, abusive layabout. He's also a social outcast, despite looking like Leonardo DiCaprio circa This Boy's Life (which may be because he also speaks in the voice of Leonardo DiCaprio circa What's Eating Gilbert Grape). The movie ostensibly exists because Andrew has decided to buy a video camera and document everything, which, amazingly, does not seem to improve his life much. At least not directly, that is, because his camera means he gets to join his handsome, popular cousin Matt and Matt's even more handsome, more popular friend Steve on a little expedition into the woods that results in, well, see paragraph one. The whole found-footage conceit is, obviously, getting a little bit tired. I'm glad to see that at least this one dispenses with the framing device of explaining how it was shot and where it's from blah blah Blair Witch-Cloverfield-Paranormal Activity-Trollhunter-Apollo 18-cakes. There are also a couple of tricks this movie uses to wring a little bit more life out of the subgenre. One is the fact that Andrew's camera isn't the only one providing footage. There's also an annoying vlogger character who's just as pathological about it as Andrew (although she's a hot blonde and thus able to get away with it) who provides a much-needed outside perspective. And of course, when shit starts getting real, public and security cameras are handy for additional angles. A lot of them, when shit gets really real. Also, this kind of movie is always supposedly shot by cameras that are either fixed in place or held by a character. But Andrew soon learns how to manipulate his camera telekinetically, allowing him to be in group shots with everyone else. But best of all is the moment when we get a shot of an amazing location, and there's a moment when you think you're looking at some establishing or transition shot before you remember that the characters must be there if we're seeing it. That alone is worth using the device in one more movie. Oh, and the story succeeds on its own merits, of course. Things eventually get ugly and dark, as some of Andrew's actions make clear early on that they will be, but as outlandish as events get, it's all fresh enough that you never don't buy the premise. In fact, at one moment, watching downtown Seattle getting hammered, I actually caught myself briefly worrying about people I know there (although Sundry will be glad to know there's one less giant Washington state spider to terrorize her). But that's all I'm going to say. It's good. You should see it. Whether you respect my opinion or not. posted by M. Giant 6:11 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Monday, February 06, 2012 M. Ovie Reviews: The Grey I haven't read much about The Grey, but everything I have read is about how it's not what it looks like. What it looks like is an action movie about Liam Neeson beating up on wolves. What it actually turns out to be, at one point literally, is a nihilistic howl into an uncaring void. Tomato, tomahto. Anyway, given that one goes into this movie expecting to see a tale of survival, it's a little surprising to see the hero on the verge of suicide in the opening sequence. Then it becomes a tale of survival. It's one thing to kill yourself, but getting killed is intolerable. After the obligatory crash scene, which is shot impressionistically and entirely from inside the plane, and which makes me more certain than ever that it's best to have a row of seats to yourself whenever possible, Arctic petroleum worker Ottway (Neeson) takes charge of the hapless group of castaways who lived through the impact, because he's the most tall, calm, and deep-voiced. Alas, they appear to have landed in the territorial grounds of a pack of giant, murderous wolves able to surround and pick them off at will. So of course they'll have to deal with that urgent problem if they're to have any hope at all of being killed in the next couple of days by cold or starvation instead. The irony is that before the crash, Ottway's job for the oil company was to shoot down any wolf that makes a run at the pipeline workers. Well, I hope it's irony, because otherwise the all-powerful wolf-pack found a way to haul Ottway's entire plane down out of the sky into their midst like he was flying on Oceanic 815 or something. Either way it's no wonder that Ottway, and the movie itself, are both obsessed with death. Because the wolves aren't our heroes' only problem. They're not even always their most immediate problem. You want to root for these guys, to make it, but you can't see any way they're going to. Even if the wolves are defeated or decide to leave them alone, neither of which is happening, the cast is still injured and stranded in the frozen wilderness without food, guns, or any means of communication or transportation beyond their mouths and feet. So you're left rooting for…what to happen, exactly? As it turns out, there's very little wolf-fighting in this movie. There is, however, a great deal of wolf-fleeing, which, while understandable, is an entirely different thing. Over the course of the movie, as the members of Ottway's party explore some of the many different ways to die in the Alaskan wilderness, there are art-shots and juicy character moments lying so thick on the snow-covered ground that eventually you realize that except in short, intense bursts, you aren't watching an action movie at all. So by the time you get to the part where the wolf-fighting is supposed to go, you've probably well and truly internalized the fact that this isn't that kind of movie. But by then it's too late. Even the final shot after the credits is pretty unsatisfying. And you leave having spent two hours having the futility of not only the struggle for survival, but existence itself. None of us is fighting for anything but the privilege of continuing to fight. Have fun making yourself dinner after that. But I will say that when I came home and Phantom and Exie wanted to snuggle and purr, the killer wolves of The Grey really gave me a new appreciation for the mutually loving and respectful relationship I have with the animals in my house. Except Bucky the hamster, of course. He's still an asshole. posted by M. Giant 7:08 AM 2 comments 2 Comments:
I'm sure they have nothing in common, but coldness and wolves, but your review put me in mind of one of my favourite bad movies, Frozen [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323045/].
By
Hey, as soon as I read all the arty reviews on Rotten Tomatoes waxing lyrical about this Grey film, I thought about Frozen, too. An unsung masterpiece!
By Thursday, February 02, 2012 Cage Rage II Like a lot of people, Trash and I spent a lot of time between Christmas and New Year's (and some after) cleaning house and purging some of the cruft that accumulates when you live in one place long enough, or have a young child who gets shitloads of toys every Christmas, or, as in our case, both. One of the things we found was the old Bucky's original cage, untouched since the day the second Bucky had come home and we'd moved him into that new cage M. Edium had gotten and which the old Bucky had hated as much as I did. Now, I'm not saying the new Bucky doesn't hate that cage, because he does. On the other hand, he hates everything. He hates getting touched, let alone picked up; he hates noise, he hates quiet, he hates dark, he hates light, he hates exercise and sleep. I think he even hates sunflower seeds and only takes them from my hand so I won't have them, because he hates me more than anything, M. Edium had resisted moving the new Bucky into the old cage, given how hard he'd worked for the new one, but while we were cleaning up Trash suggested to him that like original Bucky, the new one might also be happier in the old cage. He certainly couldn't get any pissier. I think by this point, M. Edium was also tired of having a hamster that was too crabby to play with. He missed what we used to call Bucky Time. So this time, when Trash suggested switching back, he agreed. Or I assume he did, because I'd already left the room to get the old cage. Soon new Bucky was in the old cage, and as hard as it is to judge a hamster's mood, his seemed to improve immediately. He hopped right onto his old-school exercise wheel and started running, enjoyed some food, made himself at home in his little plastic igloo, and most of all stopped swearing at us. At first we thought that maybe now, or at least in time, he'd be a friendly little hamster who would love to come out and play and run around on our arms and hands and faces like original Bucky used to do. So far that hasn't been the case. In fact, he still refuses to let anyone pick him up or pet him. But he hasn't bitten me again, at least. Actually, I don't even care. Now, instead of living in a cage that takes 45 minutes to clean and scarcely twice that long to get stinky again, he lives in a cage that I can clean from tope to bottom in ten minutes, and takes weeks to get even remotely smelly. Not that I plan to wait for weeks, now that it's such an easier and faster ask. In fact, I think I'm going to go clean it right now. And then I'll go clean it again. Bucky may be slightly happier, but I'm a lot happier, and that's what really matters, after all. posted by M. Giant 7:44 AM 0 comments 0 Comments:
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