Friday, May 11, 2007

of mice and men. . .

I'm totally fired. And so is morning sickness.

I would love to spend this post ranting and raving about the lack of pedestrian paths on the shores, how morning sickness is really all day sickness, and how the thrift store totally overprices stuff. COME ON FOLKS!

But instead I'll keep a stiff upper lip, stop complaining, and update you on our latest Netflix picks. "Children of Men" and "Planet Earth."
Let me begin by saying that Children of Men is full of arm-chopping violence and the f-word, two things I am exposed to very little as I spend most of my time with children and a gentlemen of a husband. So lest anyone go out and rent this film saying "Anna said it was great family viewing."--be forewarned. On to the review.

The film is based on the presuposition that in forty years or so the world is dying because women have all of a sudden lost their fertility. (never mind that its much more likley that people would be selfish bastards and just contracept themselves to death.) Anyway, the youngest person in the whole world is like eighteen and humanity is in a state of panic. Our main hero is a depressed divorced modern office worker man who finds himself through a series of circumstances as the guardian of this teeage black girl who finds out she is pregnant with the first human baby to be conceived in eighteen years--and he has to get her to safety.

Now this movie gets props for several things.
The girl is pro-life and talks about how the baby inside her is alive etc.
The movie is very pro-baby and mother as one unit--Something more countercultural than we might think.
The movie sucsessfully portrays a tender developing relationship between the two characters without it getting mushy, blurry, romantic, or sexual-- not that this is bad in some plots (i.e. romantic comedies--usually the kind with Meg Ryan) but here it would have trivialized too many things.

On the down side the movie suffered from a bit of a slow start and it is set too close into the near future. But all in all a good film with decent acting and very pro-life. Just mind the violence and the foul mouths.

"Planet earth" is another stunning nature film brought to you by your great friend and mine, David Atternbourgh. This time he covers places on earth where no man or camera has ever gone before type of stuff. Its harder to give a movie reveiw of a nature film without it sounding boring but it is simply fantastic and Angelica, our resident naturalist loved it so much, especially, the parts with the baby panda bears.

So there you go. When I am not watching movies, I am out in the garden, avoiding the kitchen and all the horrible things the smell of food does to me these days, and trying to keep Zita in at least a pair of underwear.

I am also watching Natalie Tillotston's mice while she visits her mother in law in Michigan. They make lots of noise at night and have been banished to the study.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I keep my arm chopping and f-wording for when i'm out with the guys.

Margaret E. Perry said...

I *loved* planet earth, but the American version as Sigourney Weaver doing the voice over. UGH! I was so glad when mom said that dear old David did the DVD (and I assume the British version!)