Scribblerchick's Movie Dish

Teach Your Children Well

I have an image burned into my brain, as clear as a film: a Russian man crouched by a campfire takes a dead rabbit and strips the skin from its body in one brief moment, with a terrible, tearing sound. He was a peasant, and he was starving. To a child raised on tales of gentle bunny rabbits, that brutal image, from the 1971 film, Nicholas and Alexandra, sparked my interest in the Russian Revolution.

Thirty-two years later, after seeing Reds, and Dr. Zhivago, and reading several books set in Russia, I went to Russia with a choir, to sing Handel's Messiah, and met my daughter at her orphanage. Life has never been the same since then.

Movies have a powerful emotional and intellectual effect on us. Sometimes it takes years before we can understand the exact way they affected us, but it's there. I was still frightened by the witch in The Wizard of Oz, as a teenager. (Of course, I was too "cool" to admit it.)   In college, I saw The Graduate at the Student Union. I had seen it before, and never thought it was a very good movie. Suddenly, being 20 years old and facing my own graduation in the near future, it spoke to me. I stumbled home across campus, crying like a baby. Seeing Gene Kelly dancing in Singin' In the Rain drives away all anxiety and gives me moment of quiet joy, even today. Seeing Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple embracing her sister at the end of the movie, after being separated for many years, brings torrents of tears from me.

I saw the movie City of Angels shortly after my father died, and it shook me terribly. When there was a snippet of the old song "Hey Bop A Re Bop" played in one scene, I lost it and started crying. My father used to sing that around the house when I was a kid. It was like he was in the movie theater with me, saying Hey, I'm here.

I bring up all these memories, to explain why my children and I watch movies every night instead of television shows. So much of what's on TV now is just melodramatic junk. I cannot bear for my kids to watch it. I particularly hate so-called "reality" shows -they are all show, no reality. So I stick to movies.

I carefully select movies that have some sort of meaning or message - most of the time. Then there's the occasional Jackie Chan movie.

My children speak English as a second language. Teaching them history is a real chore. So I started teaching them without them knowing it, showing them movies with historical significance, quite deliberately. I own movies like Braveheart, Apollo 13, and The Road to Wellville.

I recently showed them The Blue and the Gray, an old miniseries, to teach them about the Civil War. I realized early on that it doesn't depict the war very accurately, and the acting is wooden, but they were intrigued. We are working on The Winds of War, right now. Again, it's not great filmmaking, but it doesn't matter. They like the story, they will remember some of the images, and they will start to build a foundation of knowledge.

I was fortunate to have a father who loved history, and helped us appreciate it. We were hauled to every Civil War battlefield in Georgia and Tennessee for all of our childhoods. I've read hundreds of those historical markers by the roadside. I revere history, because while there are facts and photos, there's also the mystery to uncover. What was it REALLY like, back then?!

If you want your kids to remember things, SHOW them. The old cliche, a picture is worth a thousand words, is so true. The sight of Mel Gibson being tortured in Braveheart is probably a bit too graphic for most parents, but I wanted my kids to see it. I paused the movie and explained WHY he was being tortured. I said there are sometimes beliefs which are worth dying for.

It's important to select good films or miniseries, then TALK to the children. Gauge the level of their knowledge, then fill in with what you know. Then when they have to read the dry old lesson in the history book, you can say "Hey, remember when we saw that movie Glory, about the black troops in the Civil War?" and so on.

Engage them in history as a series of personal stories, and you will hook them for life.

NOTE

I like Netflix because they have such a HUGE variety of films - everything from obscure documentaries to the latest hits. I also like the convenience of getting the movies out of the mailbox, and never having to set foot in Blockbuster.

Nim's Island

We saw the new movie starring Jodie Foster and Gerard Butler called Nim's Island. I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining it was. Kids' movies usually bore me. This didn't.

It was told mostly from the viewpoint of Nim, a little girl who lives on island with her biologist father. Her dad goes off to find plankton or some such microscopic thing, leaving Nim alone. A storm strands him far away and Nim e-mails for help to "Alex Rover" an author whose adventure books she loves.

Alex turns out to be "Alexandra," a woman who is agoraphobic. The only thing that bothered me a bit about this movie was Jodie Foster's seriousness and intensity. This is a fantasy/comedy, and it needed a lighter touch. I always admire Jodie's acting, but here it was just TOO MUCH. Alex goes off the rescue Nim, which really required a stretch, as true agoraphobics really need therapy to leave the house, as I understand it.

Abigail Breslin was wonderful as Nim. She has an un-forced non-cutesy style of acting that is such a joy to watch. So many child actors seem fake and snotty to me. This child seems real.

Gerard Butler makes my heart race. Wowza. The only thing I didn't like about him in this was his American accent, which kept sounding a wee bit Scottish. He had dual roles as Alex's father and Alex Rover, which was cute.

I also noticed that Nim and her father have the last name "Russo." Rhymes with "Crusoe," as in "Robinson." Classics, anyone?

When I saw the previews for this movie I thought it was about a child in mortal danger - I didn't realize it was such a comedy. The "danger" Nim fears is an Australian cruise ship full of tacky people who invade her beach. Encroaching development is not as fearful as she seems to think, in my book.

Any child over age 6 or thereabouts will like this film. Even if you're not into kiddie films or don't have kids, check this out, for Gerard Butler if for no other reason...

Don't Walk, Wag

I write a lot about movies on my other blog, The Crab Chronicles, so there is bound to be some cross pollination happening. I wanted to share an excerpt here of todays' post from there, because it recommends a terrific movie, Wag the Dog.

I understand that "Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story" is about to be released on DVD, or maybe is already out. I saw that movie. I was awful, IMHO. I have seen all the biopics it skewers, and it just stinks. Almost none of the satire works. I don't think I laughed out loud but once or twice. There are extended, gratuitous shots of male frontal nudity IN CLOSEUP. Not funny. Not only should children not see it, NOBODY should see it. I have long admired John C. Reilly, and this could have been really funny, but it isn't. It's just stupid.

Anyway, don't waste your money on Walk Hard. Get "Wag" instead. Here's my take on Wag the Dog:

Our movie selection last night was a movie that came out about 10 years ago called Wag the Dog . It's a political comedy of errors, and it's brilliant. Robert DeNiro stars and was a producer. Barry Levinson directed, and David Mamet was one of the screenplay writers.

The premise is that the president has been caught in a compromising position with a Firefly Girl [pseudonym for a girl scout, obviously] and is facing re-election in two weeks. Yes, Clinton was president when this was made. DeNiro is brought in to "fix" the situation, and decides to create a phony "war" and divert everyone's attention from the president's peccadilloes. Dustin Hoffman plays a Hollywood producer who helps create the fake news footage.

I explained the premise to the kids before it started. I even stopped the film a couple of times to explain it, because I could see it was going over their heads. Heck, it was tough for me to understand the first time I saw it. On the plus side, there is no nudity or onscreen violence. There are some curse words, but I don't get too riled about those. At one point Michael turned to me, eyes twinkling, and said "You show these words to us and you have to expect us to say them?" and I replied, "Nope, you know better than that."

After the film was over, both kids said they REALLY didn't like the movie. "It was stupid!" Alesia groused. Michael nodded. He spent most of the movie fidgeting. However, having sat through Jungle Book and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang recently, for the 100th time, I was not in a mood to be generous. "You think this movie was stupid, but High School Musical is a great film?!" I snapped. Alesia giggled.

The Other Boleyn Girl

I got to do something I rarely get to do, last night - go to a grownup movie. Just choosing a movie without worrying whether or not it's appropriate for kids is a rare treat.

I have always been fascinated by history, so the Other Boleyn Girl appealed to me. The story focuses as much on Mary Boleyn as it does on her sister Ann Boleyn.  Just this morning I found this , which explains the actual history. Hollywood always has to simplify stories. For instance, the website says Mary didn't visit Ann when she was imprisoned in the tower before her execution. In the film it shows a tearful reunion, and even shows Mary attending her sister's beheading.

When I was in about 6th grade I developed a fascination for Henry VIII and his 6 wives, and read everything I could find about them. The subject is quite fascinating. Since I was raised Episcopalian, it was doubly fascinating, since Henry started the Church of England.

This film, The Other Boleyn Girl , was a big disappointment.

However, there was one thing I liked - the attention to period detail. The costumes were magnificent. The settings, furniture, jewelry - everything was amazing. I have been to Hampton Court, Henry's home, and the film is very authentic in its setting. One period detail they missed was that Henry VIII had red hair and blue eyes. Eric Bana, the actor who played him, has dark hair and eyes. So I never thought of him as king.

The disappointment was mainly that the film was so simplistic. It didn't show the intelligence and wit and subtlety of the time. The English Court was an amazing hive of intellectual activity. The film simply showed some of the intrigue and manipulation - fascinating, but not enough to be convincing. This should have been a meaty movie - instead, it was more like an appetizer pretending to be a main dish.

The director seemed to want to only do closeups. I don't care about seeing every pore on Scarlet Johanson or Natalie Portman's faces. Ick.

The performances by Kristin Scott Thomas as Ann and Mary's mother was excellent. I haven't seen her in anything lately, so it was nice to see her again onscreen. She was excellent. I just wish she had been onscreen more. Ana Torrent, an actress I'd never heard of, played Katharine of Aragon, and she was also remarkable. I'd like to have seen more of her.

Henry was a notorious womanizer, and there are plenty of bedroom shenanigans here. In fact, it's sort of a Desperate Housewives version of English History.

Don't see this. Rent Ann of a Thousand Days, or either one of the Cate Blanchett films about Elizabeth. Those are far better.

The Brave One

I have always admired Jodie Foster, as an actress and a human being. She is a private person, highly intelligent, and she has made some really important films about women empowering themselves. The images from "The Accused" stayed with me for a long time afterward.

Her segue into middle age has been far more graceful than the typical "Babe into district attorney" journey. She has played characters as varied as a backwards feral girl in "Nell" to a brilliant scientist in "Contact." She has only done about 8 films in the last 8 years. Maybe there weren't enough good scripts around. [I am looking forward to seeing "Nim's Island" which opens this weekend.]

The kids and I watched "The Brave One" [TBO] tonight. It was far more graphically violent than I had realized. It was also riveting. I kept expecting Foster's character's facade to crack, but it didn't. She sustained a level of horrifying believability. I have to admit, I thought the actor who played her fiance was very unattractive and looked like he needed a bath. It was hard to see the attraction. However, that was a minor flaw.

Terrence Howard as Detective Mercer really held his own with Foster. He is excellent. He took sort of a standard issue cop role and made the character very real.

I am sort of shocked that more people didn't see TBO. It's an excellent thriller - thoughtful, intelligent, and shockingly contemporary. My kids were rooting for her character, a vigilante, from the get go. They never saw the subleties and moral dilemmas, which were obvious to me.

The ending was troubling. I liked it, but I sort of hated myself for liking it? I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen the movie.

I hope Jodie continues to find good scripts and bring fascinating characters and intelligent stories to life.

American Gangster

I wanted to really like this movie. It has Denzel, Russell Crowe, it's set in the early 1970's, and the soundtrack is terrific. Regretfully, I have to say, my review is mixed. [Unlike the IMDB review, which was favorable.]

We watched the director's cut, not the theatrical version. I always try to watch the director's cut, because I feel like usually they are better, but not always. In this case, having not seen the theatrical release, maybe it was better. It was certainly shorter, I can say.

Denzel and Crowe give their usual excellent performances.

The pacing, though, was off. There were too many scenes that just dragged on, and instead of heightening tension, the scenes made the film sag. A good film script is one in which, in each scene, you "Get in, make your point, and cut" as one of my writing teachers used to say.

Frank Lucas is inarguably a fascinating character. He was a Harlem drug dealer who purportedly shipped pure heroin from Asia in the coffins of dead American soldiers. He sold the heroin on the street with no middleman, and ticked off the Italian mafiosos in New York. He made millions. He got all his 5 brothers into the business. He also got arrested and went to prison, taking down a large number of corrupt cops at the same time.

His nemesis was Richie Roberts, a seemingly honest New York detective, who goes to school to be a lawyer. I didn't really need to see all the drama about his divorce. It didn't advance the story. He was such an unapologetic skirt chaser, it was hard to like him.

Lucas, however, was eminently likeable, for a lot of the film. The point at which he is shown to be a monster is when he shoots a man in the head, right on the street, then goes back into a diner to finish his lunch. His brother stare at him in horror.

I let the kids watch this movie with me, although it got an R rating. There were a couple of points when I had to fast forward thru a brief sex scene, but overall, I think it was good for them to see this. We had a lively discussion about drugs, and dealers, and how it is never OK to do drugs. I think a lot of parents shy away from discussing specifics. My kids speak English as a second language - I wanted them to know what things are called. I wanted them to see the graphic scenes of junkies dying from overdoses. I wanted them to see the brutality of that drug-infested world. I told them a junkie lives a tortured life.

Of course, my kids had alcoholic birthmothers. They know too well what addiction looks like, and how the people around addicts suffer. My son had a furrowed brow and looked much older when we discussed it. I wanted them to understand, though, that an addict starts off with complete innocence, and once they are hooked, then the drug controls them. They are sick, not bad people. I didn't hit that too hard, just mentioned it. (As one recent comment on my other blog reminded me, I need to be careful about not dissing the birth parents, and I try not to ever do that.)

Back to the movie. It was worth watching, particularly if you like gritty dramas. The performances were excellent. I just thought it needed to have been edited more effectively, and some subplots trimmed.

I looked up Lucas and read a bit about him yesterday. He was quite a colorful character. If you want to read more, Google him.

Richie Roberts is now a criminal defense attorney. Yikes.

Actors I Love

There are certain actors that I have learned to trust, over the years, to make interesting movies. Notice how I didn't say "good"? Some of the movies are not good. Sad, but true. However, these actors are always interesting to watch, even when the movies stink.

Here's my short list:
Steve Martin
Russell Crowe
Denzel Washington
Jody Foster

Probably my all-time favorite Steve Martin movie is Bowfinger . Why? Well, Bobby Bowfinger is a pathological liar, and let's just say he reminds me of an old boyfriend of mine. The movie skewers Hollyweird so thoroughly, and is so funny, I defy anyone with a brain cell not to laugh. Having worked a teeny bit in indie films, I can tell you those sorts of things happen there ALL the time - pilfering cameras, trying to look cool, getting footage that is only accidentally good. So true.

Russell Crowe I first got interested in when he made the film Viruosity. Here's the tagline: A virtual-reality serial killer manages to escape into the real world." I remember seeing the film and liking it, but I don't remember details, to be honest. I will need to order that from Netflix. It also stars Denzel, another wonderful actor to watch.

Now, unlike millions, I do NOT find Russell Crowe sexy. He looks like a movie actor version of Barney Rubble.He SHOULD have been in The Flintstones movie! Really! However, he has an indefinable magic that makes his characters appealing. I liked A Beautiful Mind - he embodied brilliance and hillbilly-ness together in one deeply warped package. Terrific movie - until I read the book and realized the movie was 85% fiction.But Whatever..

Denzel, OTOH, is brilliant and sexy. I would watch him read the phone book.I well remember seeing him a zillion years ago on TV, in The Wilma Rudolph Story, and thinking, He lights up the screen. I also watched every episode ever made of St. Elsewhere - back in the days when I watched TV.

I have the film American Gangster downstairs but haven't watched it yet. I will see it this weekend and write a review.

Jody Foster has been a favorite ever since she was a kid and I saw her in Freaky Friday - the original. I have seen all her movies since. One of her best - which few people saw - was a film called Stealing Home. It mixed a baseball metaphor with a slightly mentally ill young woman who is still a loving person. I could relate on many levels. That's one you should rent.

I liked her recently in Flight Plan, a thriller. However, I wish I could sit her down and say Honey, you need to gain about 10 lbs. When one gets older, one learns a sad truth: fat fills out wrinkles. I am 45. People are always amazed by that. Of course, I am way TOO fat, and I'd trade fat for a few wrinkles at this point, but there has to be a balance. A little fat on one's body, when you're over 40, looks better than the size 2 starvation-thin look. Jody needs to look a bit softer.

I asked some of my friends to send me their lists of folks they will watch in any movie. I got ONE response! Jeez. Nobody shares my passion for movies! This is from my friend John, who has been a close friend since 9th grade. Of course, his list is all female:

Angelina Jolie

Charlize Theron

Ashley Judd

Jodie Foster

I will periodicly update this list, because I have a nagging feeling there are actors I have left out.

Eastern Promises

I have to say, I was disappointed in "Eastern Promises." I had looked forward to seeing it.

We started watching this movie night before last and then stopped. When we stopped, my 16 year old daughter was outraged, wanting to keep on watching until the end. "I like this movie! I don't usually like the movies you get about Russians!" she protested. [Nevertheless, bedtime is between 9 and 9:30. Unlike her little brother, she gets the added bonus of me not fussing at her if she wants to stay up and read a while.]

Last night when the movie ended, however. I must confess I was irritated. More on that in a minute.

First, the title is annoying. "Eastern Promises"? Sounds like a geography textbook. Has nothing to do with London [where the fiml is set] or Russia.

Second, I was expecting a clever thriller, which is what a couple of reviews led me to believe that it was. Well, I guess if you're a moron it's suspenseful, but I was not wondering about anything, by the end. I was more fascinated by how the 3 main guys playing Russian mafia were doing with their Russian accents, since they were American, French, and German. In my view, Viggo Mortenson [the American] did the best job. The French guy "looked" more Russian, as my daughter said. I agreed. Viggo got the accent right, though. And there were a couple of scenes where he had a fair amount of dialogue, and it sounded utterly natural.

Naomi Watts played the young British midwife who delivered a baby of a young girl who had been kidnapped by the main mafia don. She was excellent, as always. She embues characters with a lot of depth, even when the roles are rather sketchily written. She was the best thing about the idiotic recent remake of King Kong, for instance. This part, however, didn't give her enough to do.

There were aggravating inconsistencies in the story. The Russians in the film are supposed to be trafficking in young Russian girls and using them as prostitutes against their will. How exactly all that worked was never clear. That's a fascinating part of the story. Instead of exploring it more, we got long scenes of sex and gore, like Viggo's character cutting the fingers off a corpse, or fighting thugs in a bath-house, naked. There's even one scene of him having rather realistic looking sex with one of the prostitutes. [I covered my son's eyes up for that one, and turned down the sound.] There was a lot of discussion of tattoos. I didn't really see the necessity for so much of that.

Maybe because I had just finished watching "Reds," my expectations were too high. This film didn't have the character development, the discussions about ideas, the cultural depth. I didn't realize until I was looking online earlier that it was directed by David Cronenberg, who directed The Fly. I liked that movie when it came out, years ago, but it was not serious.

Mother was irritated with me for letting the kids watch the movie. [She walked through the room at one point and bellowed "Why do you let them watch this stuff!" during the naked fight scene.] I probably wouldn't have let Michael watch if I had realized quote how graphic the sex and violence were going to be. However, the sad fact is that my kids are far less innocent than most kids their age. Orphanages are tough places. My son lived on the streets for a while before he got sent to the orphanage. So they have seen a lot. There's not much sheltering I can do. I don't allow horror movies in my house; I have to draw the line there.

I also have a pretty jaded, cynical view of Russian mafia. The violence and disregard for human life happen there [like everywhere] and Russians can seem menacing and brutal. However, in this film it almost felt like they were exploiting that cultural bias. I can hear the pitch now: "It's like The Godfather, but with the RUSSIAN mafia!"

I think it's very possible that someone less familiar with Russia and Russians might find this a fascinating movie. If you're also not real familiar with The Godfather trilogy, you might really like it. If you are, in fact, a moron, it will likely shock the socks off you.

I just didn't care for it much at all.

Reds

There have only been a few movies in my life that changed me. Reds is one of those films.

I remember seeing it in 1982 and the images staying in my head for days. Sondheim's score, the impeccable photography, the incredible period costume and prop details. It all formed its own cinematic little world.

When I got my first VCR, Reds was one of the first movies I bought, at a time when I wasn't making any money, and it was a sacrifice to buy the two tape set. I had to see it again.

For those of you who may not remember it, Reds is the story of Jack Reed, the American man who witnessed the Russian Revolution in 1918 and wrote the book Ten Days That Shook the World. He is the only American buried in the Kremlin. His wife was Louise Bryant, also a writer. They both touted communism, free love, votes for women, the labor union movement, etc.

In a world where movies have increasingly become more idiotic, Reds is a film about grownup ideas, not about blowing things up. It introduces so many ideas at once, that you have to think about them a long time afterwards, and come to your own conclusions.

I remember telling my father I had seen the movie, and he was aghast. "It's about communists, right?!" he sputtered. "Well, yes, but it's not PRO communist. It shows how the system was flawed, right from the beginning, and squelching personal freedoms was a terrible consequence of communism." He looked at me, still rather horrified that I was seeing such a subversive film.

I loaned my precious VCR copy of Reds to a friend a few years ago and he has never returned it. I should've listened to my grandmother who told me Never loan ANYTHING to Anybody! [She came from a fmaily of 12!] Now that the film is finally out on DVD, the 25th anniversary edition, I will be buying it one of these days.

When I got ready to show the film to my children yesterday, I spent some time talking to them, my 16 year old daughter, especially. My son, at 11, had a hard time watching it and following all the dialogue. [Of course, he has been home from Kazakhstan less than a year and his English is still a work in progress.] Alesia seemed able to grasp some of the points I was making, particularly in regard to Russia.

In the film, there are "witnesses" - elderly people who actually knew Jack Reed and Louise Bryant. Their interviews break up the film. I remember when I first saw it, I found the interruptions annoying. Now that I am older, I see how fascinating it is to mix the "truth" and the fiction. I put truth in quotes because so many of their stories differ, sometimes comically so.

Reds is a film of ideas and passions. I highly recommend it. If you want to read a more polished review, look here .

The Early Show

I became a movie nut mainly because when I was growing up, in the primitive 1970's, we did not have cable. We got two channels on our TV that came in clearly [NBC and CBS], and ABC came in fuzzy, at best.

I always did my homework at school, or in front of the TV. When I got home in the third grade, I got hooked on a soap opera - The Secret Storm. I became a fanatic. I had to see it. It was like my grandmother and The Edge of Night - I can still hear the ominous theme music - I HAD to have my soap every day! When my mother found out about this little addiction, she was appalled. She made me quit cold turkey. It was rough.

I went through a lof of Charles Chips potato chips and cookies to get over the withdrawal symptoms.

I discovered I didn't much like game shows, except $10,000 Pyramid and Hollywood Squares. Those were both on mid afternoon.

I discovered in 4th grade that one of our local TV stations had a show on at 4 every day called The Early Show. They showed old movies. I watched Elvis movies, Abbot and Costello, The Marx Brothers, Beach Blanket movies with Frankie and Annette, classic westerns, old Bette Davis films - everything. I don't recall ever turning on the movie and thinking "I don't want to watch that" and doing something banal, like playing outside. Nope, no matter how bad the movie was, or how obscure, I was there, lying on the floor, dangerously close to the huge console TV. I kept this habit all through middle school, and right up through high school, until I got my first job, the summer before my senior year.

I didn't realize until much later that this gave me a bizarre education.

I learned about the bible from watching The Ten Commandments, and Ben Hur. I learned about Vincent Van Gogh from an old movie with Kirk Douglas, Lust for Life. I learned about the Civil War from Gone With The Wind. And on and on.

Then I went to college. The first weekend I came home, I learned my parents were going through the Empty Nest Syndrome. My father had bought a VCR - a huge monstrosity, like a giant tape recorder. To keep my mother from griping about that extravagance, he bought her a brand new Amana Microwave oven [why did I hear the voice of the guy from The Price is Right as I typed that?!!]. My father borrowed a bunch of movies from a friend at work, and we watched movies all weekend - Gone With the Wind, South Pacific, etc. I don't remember all of them. I was ticked that he waited until I left home to buy a VCR!

However, what a thrill it was to watch a movie without commercials! Without going to a theatre! WOW! Today's generation cannot imagine the excitement of being able to do that.

My freshman year in college, I audited a course in Alfred Hitchcock movies. I had seen a lot of them already. It was fascinating. I learned that people actually STUDY movies, in a scholarly way, and throw around big words like "semiotics" and "mise en scene" and other obscure stuff. It was a whole other language.

It was right around this time that Mel Brooks came out with the movie High Anxiety, a great spoof of Hitchcock movies. If you've never seen that, get it, if you know anything about Hitchcock. I nearly wet my pants laughing the first time I saw that film.

The next year, I transferred to the University of Georgia, and majored in Drama. I was actually able to take film classes, for credit! More discussions of Serious Films. I learned something startling. I did NOT like most of the classic films - The Battleship Potemkin, Night for Day, Jules et Jim, The Rules of the Game, anything by Ingmar Berman. YUCKO! I had to drink a lot of coffee sometimes to stay awake in there. Just to be perverse, I wrote term papers about films I knew the professor thought were stupid, like On Golden Pond, and Ordinary People. He always had to grudgingly give me at least a B on the papers, because I could write well, but it galled him. He was a film snob.

The professor was also an indie filmmaker. He made a film that had a lot of shots of chickens pecking at corn, and then a violent chicken death scene. It was all allegorical. I was floored that anyone would actually give him money to make that film.

BTW - if you are a film scholar you never say "movie." How bourgeoise! How ignorant! No, you say "film" and "genre." It helped that I had studied French in High School and could pronounce everything correctly, even if I had a hard time with the concepts.

The only "serious" moviemaker I found that I really liked was Federico Fellini. His films had a sense of humor. The film Amarcord was a particular favorite. [It's full of nudity and NOT suitable for small children!]

At UGA, I joined the University Union Cinematic Arts Division, primarily because they brought all the movies to campus and I could have a say in what movies were brought in, and I could see them for FREE. What a deal. Saved my a lot of $$.

I was singlehandedly responsible for a fabulous weekend ever year called the Bad Film Festival. We brought in old films that were very very bad, but in a funny, campy way, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Glen or Glenda. We dressed up in bad 1950's costumes. All bad movies, all causing a lot of laughter.

Around this time I started my first annual Oscar Night Party. I invited everyone I knew and served potato chips and M&M's and other fancy party food, and we sat around and made fun of the tacky dresses and stupid production numbers, and drank a lot of cheap beer and wine. Good fun.

When I finished college, I kept my enthusiasm for movies, and went to the movies a lot - yeah you heard right, I saw MOVIES! I ate POPCORN! I actually sometimes LIKE movies in which a lot of things BLOW UP! I am not moved to tears by dead chickens.

When I got my first apartment, I actually inherited my father's VCR. He had bought a sleek new one that weighed less than 50 lbs. I got the old one and my grandmother's old TV. I thought I was COOL. I found I could check out movies at the public library near my office for $1 each. Sometimes I would watch movies all weekend, holed up with plenty of microwave popcorn, beer, and cigarettes. It took me a while to make friends after I moved back to Knoxvegas - all my school friends from high school were living elsewhere. And I didn't get out much.

After my first year of being a paralegal, I turned down my father's offer to send me to law school, and went back to college for an M.A. in Creative Writing. There was a magazine publisher in town I wanted to work for, and my Drama degree got me nowhere. Unfortunately, after I finished my master's, they still wouldn't hire me. I was bummed. [However, when the outfit closed down not long after I left Knoxville, I was glad I hadn't gotten a job there]. I wrote a lot of poetry. I should've majored in film studies, but the only thing to do then was either go to LA or get a Ph.D. and teach. Neither appealed to me.

Sometime in the mid 1990's, after I moved to Atlanta, I got my first used computer, [a 486! Wow!] and started writing screenplays. Really bad screenplays, with good stories. I wrote 3 full-length feature films, and joined the Atlanta Screenwriters Group. I actually was a finalist in the 2004 Perfect Pitch contest, pitching my screenplay The Theory of Hip Movement. It was about a neurotic single woman in her 30's who went through a lot of really bad dates before hooking up with Mr. Right. She was a baseball fanatic, and loved the music of Marvin Gaye. [Yeah, she was based on me, duh...]

All my screenplays are in a drawer and I would still love to see one of them produced one day, but I never got an agent and it's not something I'm actively pursuing right now. I find being a mama much more challenging and fun.

So now, the current phase of my film fanaticism. I watch 3-6 movies every week, 99% of the time with my kids. They are learning about American culture through the movies. We see old movies, new ones - everything except horror movies and what I consider Bad Movies [that's a whole other post]. Watching with my kids is great fun.

Writing about movies is one of my favorite things to do. Thanks for reading.