Kittens! And "Children of Men"
Jan. 8th, 2007 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rusty_haloI'm very grateful for the new remake of The Hitcher. Yeah, it looks like a dumb movie, but it's resulted in Sean Bean being on my TV every five minutes due to the incessant commercials. He's even in the subway in gigantic scary-looking ads! (Not that I find him scary; you know I'm totally going to be rooting for his character. How could the guy who played Sharpe really be bad?)
Also, OMG CUTE!!! (Photos of young Sean Bean.)
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10zlaine visited this weekend. It was very last minute, so I wasn't terribly prepared, but we had a good time anyway. Mostly we hung out at my place and talked, while watching The Adventures of Brisco County Jr DVDs. (Damn, that show is classic.)
The point of the visit was for10zlaine to collect one of Livi's kittens and bring him home with her. So we went to Livi's house last night, and 10zlaine fell in love with Otto (who greeted her by giving her hand a cat-bath with his tongue). Livi and Jessica made vegan taco-things, and then we hung out with the cats for hours. They are insanely playful at this age (about three months); my hands and arms are covered in little cat-scratches (which are totally worth it). 10zlaine brought this bouncy toy that got Marty to do insane flying leaps, like three feet in the air; you wouldn't imagine that such a little cat could jump so high. And then she gave them catnip, which drove them all even more insane. It was very fun.
10zlaine slept over at Livi's place and left early this morning; she's on the train right now going back to Maine, and has been sending me cell phone photos of Otto in his carrier and on her lap. It's really sad to think about him being separated from his brothers, but he's going to have an awesome life with 10zlaine and her cat and dog. (And I'm so jealous! She's got a fresh new kitten to take home with her!)
We also went to see Children of Men on Saturday night withdrujan (and then we had horrible drinks at this chain Mexican restaurant, because we were in the culinary wasteland that is Times Square). I thought Children of Men was a good movie, but I didn't actually enjoy watching it.
I basically took this movie as a vehement indictment of the Bush administration and its surrounding political and social climate, told in metaphor so as to bypass politics and get directly at your emotions (and also, to get made and released). I've read reviews complaining that this movie didn't make logical sense as a future dystopia, but that's missing the point; it's about now, and Cuaron is all about capturing emotional truths, not logical ones. (My dad would hate this movie.)
The basic idea was to present a world in which the inherent value of human life has been forgotten. To hammer home the modern-day relevance, we're presented with TV ads encouraging the dehumanization of illegal immigrants, violent police, secret prison camps, tortured journalists, and regular bombings that may or may not be committed by violent activists. Oh, and lots of stuff labeled "homeland security" and repeated references to the Iraq war (like war protest memorabilia in the collection of the film's most sympathetic character).
Regular people walk around in a numb daze, trying to ignore what's going on, not looking into the faces of the immigrants who are being rounded up and sent off to horrible fates. Clive Owen's character is the embodiment of a decent person gone numb, and the film is all about his (re)awakening to the fact that he shouldn't be sitting idly by watching all this horrible stuff happen.
I was a little nervous about the film's advertised premise ("a world in which all women are infertile OMG!!!11!"), because, y'know, I just get so sick of the implication that one cannot live a fulfilled life without children. And that a women's existence is pointless if she can't have kids, all that bullshit. (I still have "Handmaid's Tale" nightmares.)
But I thought this movie did a really good job of avoiding that implication. The movie wasn't about infertility or childbearing or any of that, really. It was a story told in metaphor, and in a world where human life has no value, the metaphorical result is that people who don't value human life can't create more lives. It was clear that the world went to hell before infertility struck, and that infertility was an effect, not a cause. So I was okay with it.
And, structurally, it was very well-written. It begins with a child's death and ends with a child's life. It takes characters who are numb and empty and smacks them all with a reminder of the basic value they've forgotten, that human lives have inherent value, regardless of who they are or where they're from or what color their skin is. I really, really liked watching a movie that was trying to point this out, given that we live in a world where that idea seems to be forgotten (look at the xenophobic rants you hear from anti-immigrant politicians, or the fact that America is somehow NOT OUTRAGED at the fact that our government is snatching up innocent people and sending them to secret prisons to be tortured indefinitely).
And this movie also refused to pull any punches about the awful consequences of a world in which life is treated cheaply. The shots of hopeless immigrants being rounded up recall images of Nazism. The movie is filmed in an ultra-realistic style that makes you forget it's supposedly set in the future; it's often hand-held camera, documentary style. And it goes places you don't expect; people who you expect to see live end up getting killed horribly and surprisingly, and the climax actually takes you into a refugee camp so that you see first-hand the horrors that the "mainstream" society has closed its eyes to.
So I respect this movie and thought it was brilliantly done. That said, I hated watching it. I have no problem with fantasy violence, but realistic violence gets to me. I'm going to be in a bad mood for at least a week. I totally had to brace myself in order to keep watching, and as we walked out into Times Square I was so tense and just kept expecting a building to blow up or a cop to start shooting. It's nerve-wracking. And it makes me really selfishly glad to live in such a relatively safe place.
Also, OMG CUTE!!! (Photos of young Sean Bean.)
10zlaine visited this weekend. It was very last minute, so I wasn't terribly prepared, but we had a good time anyway. Mostly we hung out at my place and talked, while watching The Adventures of Brisco County Jr DVDs. (Damn, that show is classic.)The point of the visit was for
10zlaine to collect one of Livi's kittens and bring him home with her. So we went to Livi's house last night, and 10zlaine fell in love with Otto (who greeted her by giving her hand a cat-bath with his tongue). Livi and Jessica made vegan taco-things, and then we hung out with the cats for hours. They are insanely playful at this age (about three months); my hands and arms are covered in little cat-scratches (which are totally worth it). 10zlaine brought this bouncy toy that got Marty to do insane flying leaps, like three feet in the air; you wouldn't imagine that such a little cat could jump so high. And then she gave them catnip, which drove them all even more insane. It was very fun.10zlaine slept over at Livi's place and left early this morning; she's on the train right now going back to Maine, and has been sending me cell phone photos of Otto in his carrier and on her lap. It's really sad to think about him being separated from his brothers, but he's going to have an awesome life with 10zlaine and her cat and dog. (And I'm so jealous! She's got a fresh new kitten to take home with her!)We also went to see Children of Men on Saturday night with
drujan (and then we had horrible drinks at this chain Mexican restaurant, because we were in the culinary wasteland that is Times Square). I thought Children of Men was a good movie, but I didn't actually enjoy watching it.I basically took this movie as a vehement indictment of the Bush administration and its surrounding political and social climate, told in metaphor so as to bypass politics and get directly at your emotions (and also, to get made and released). I've read reviews complaining that this movie didn't make logical sense as a future dystopia, but that's missing the point; it's about now, and Cuaron is all about capturing emotional truths, not logical ones. (My dad would hate this movie.)
The basic idea was to present a world in which the inherent value of human life has been forgotten. To hammer home the modern-day relevance, we're presented with TV ads encouraging the dehumanization of illegal immigrants, violent police, secret prison camps, tortured journalists, and regular bombings that may or may not be committed by violent activists. Oh, and lots of stuff labeled "homeland security" and repeated references to the Iraq war (like war protest memorabilia in the collection of the film's most sympathetic character).
Regular people walk around in a numb daze, trying to ignore what's going on, not looking into the faces of the immigrants who are being rounded up and sent off to horrible fates. Clive Owen's character is the embodiment of a decent person gone numb, and the film is all about his (re)awakening to the fact that he shouldn't be sitting idly by watching all this horrible stuff happen.
I was a little nervous about the film's advertised premise ("a world in which all women are infertile OMG!!!11!"), because, y'know, I just get so sick of the implication that one cannot live a fulfilled life without children. And that a women's existence is pointless if she can't have kids, all that bullshit. (I still have "Handmaid's Tale" nightmares.)
But I thought this movie did a really good job of avoiding that implication. The movie wasn't about infertility or childbearing or any of that, really. It was a story told in metaphor, and in a world where human life has no value, the metaphorical result is that people who don't value human life can't create more lives. It was clear that the world went to hell before infertility struck, and that infertility was an effect, not a cause. So I was okay with it.
And, structurally, it was very well-written. It begins with a child's death and ends with a child's life. It takes characters who are numb and empty and smacks them all with a reminder of the basic value they've forgotten, that human lives have inherent value, regardless of who they are or where they're from or what color their skin is. I really, really liked watching a movie that was trying to point this out, given that we live in a world where that idea seems to be forgotten (look at the xenophobic rants you hear from anti-immigrant politicians, or the fact that America is somehow NOT OUTRAGED at the fact that our government is snatching up innocent people and sending them to secret prisons to be tortured indefinitely).
And this movie also refused to pull any punches about the awful consequences of a world in which life is treated cheaply. The shots of hopeless immigrants being rounded up recall images of Nazism. The movie is filmed in an ultra-realistic style that makes you forget it's supposedly set in the future; it's often hand-held camera, documentary style. And it goes places you don't expect; people who you expect to see live end up getting killed horribly and surprisingly, and the climax actually takes you into a refugee camp so that you see first-hand the horrors that the "mainstream" society has closed its eyes to.
So I respect this movie and thought it was brilliantly done. That said, I hated watching it. I have no problem with fantasy violence, but realistic violence gets to me. I'm going to be in a bad mood for at least a week. I totally had to brace myself in order to keep watching, and as we walked out into Times Square I was so tense and just kept expecting a building to blow up or a cop to start shooting. It's nerve-wracking. And it makes me really selfishly glad to live in such a relatively safe place.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-20 11:38 pm (UTC)SPOILER WARNING ...
I really had a hard time with the movie refusing to offer ANY explanation for why the human race just went and got itself infertile. Why could no one get pregnant? Massive sterilization experiment gone wrong? Someone dropped too many McDonalds Chicken McNuggets in the water supply? For no one in the entier world to be able tohave babies, I just needed something. I thought the movie was building toward it ... they kept hinting that there'd be some "big discovery" once they reached the Human Project ... but no. We knew no more at the end than we did at the beginning. Great -- Clive Owen got the new mom and her kid to the boat at the end. So what? Now what will they do? Does it make any difference? Why this one woman? Is it the start of a trend, or is she it? And why? It was a glaring omission, and the more I think about it the more it bugs me.
That said, the movie was well-crafted and I especially loved all the single-take shots that went on for several minutes at a time. Incredible bit of technical achievement there. But I wanted more answers. I'm literal that way. Sue me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-21 04:38 am (UTC)Okay, look at the movie thematically. Why does the literal reason why the human race is infertile matter? They gave a clear thematic explanation, which is that the human race lost its respect for life, and so therefore lost its ability to create new life. Even if they'd come up with some literal explanation like government experimentation, it just would've wasted time with exposition and mucked up the metaphor.
Plus, I like that it ended ambiguously. I think the idea was to show that the world is still terribly fucked up, but at least there's a bit of hope. It doesn't matter what's actually going to happen to the girl or what the Human Project is, it just matters that the baby was able to make everyone stop and remember the value of life, even for just a moment.
You're definitely not the only one who had this issue. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about it has said something similar. (My friend
I think maybe it was okay with me because I read some advance reviews and basically went into it not expecting an explanation, and because, based on Harry Potter 3 (you don't want to know how many times I've seen that movie; at least 8 in the theater alone), it was clear that Alfonso Cuaron is not so much a fan of exposition (*still can't believe he left out the entire marauder backstory*). But he's so good with characters and themes and visuals that I'm willing to overlook it in his specific case (and I'm usually a stickler for logic, too).
(And also, I was relieved that they made it clear that the world went to hell *before* the infertility, and that it was an effect rather than a cause, because my feminist self just gets so irritated by the idea that a life without children is not worth living.)