Moviegoer

I've been to the theater 4 times in the past month. This is a record since Sophia was born. Three of the films were kid-centered, but still. A record.

We saw Toy Story 3, which included a silent Totoro presence in several scenes. That of course made my day. I don't know how I'd rate this against the other two--I very much liked the second one in comparison with the first, as a mom, that is. The scary warped damaged toys under the neighbor kid's bed was just too intense in the first one. The second one was a good story and although--was she played by Joan Cusack?--the cowgirl was a little intense, I enjoyed it. I liked this one, too, although sometimes it feels like it's time for something new. Jane Austen didn't write Pride & Prejudice II, you know? She did the same sort of thing but with new problems and characters. After a while it gets tiresome to have sequel after sequel. But that's about as critical as I'll get because I like going to movies and I have like everything Pixar has put out, with the exception of Finding Nemo. I do wish they'd take a hint from Studio Ghibli and have some powerful girl protagonists, but that aside, they do good stuff.

Then Maeve and I saw Ramona and Beezus, with no hope of it being any good. I was afraid it would be sanitized for our protection the way Shiloh was. But, while definitely for Maeve's age group and not mine, it still kept my attention. It's an amalgam of several of the Ramona books, which are some of my favorite kids books ever. I wasn't Ramona growing up but I've become her as an adult. Gah. But Maeve IS Ramona, in the flesh, and there were parts of the film that really got to her. She's tenderhearted and takes things too hard...but I think she identified so strongly with Ramona that it was difficult for her to not want to reach out and change things. As a film, it was a decent amalgam. It didn't gloss over the stuff that happens to the Quimby family (in the first 15 minutes, I just KNEW it would). Dad loses his job, Mom and Dad fight, the trickle down effect of being kids in a stressed household, etc. It is there. Somewhat sanitized, but the books weren't gritty, for goodness sake. And I like that they had brunettes play all the female family members.

Mike and I, and Leo, took Maeve to see Despicable Me one night when Sophia had a spend-the-night party down the block. Another film we had no expectations for. And it was ok. Steve Carell in an unidentified slavic accent playing an arch-villain who adopts three little girls from an orphanage to involve them in a plot to get back a shrink-gun that he's stolen (and has been then stolen from him). Strange little pill capsule shaped minions living in his bat-cavernous basement...the little girls obviously win over his heart and etc. Not one I need to rush out and buy on DVD. But it was good distraction.

After that one, we were walking to the car and Maeve said, "This was such a good night. I wish we could go to movies every night!"

Then, to totally switch gears, Mike and I saw Winter's Bone last night. Set in the Missouri Ozarks, near the Arkansas line, it is the story of a 17 year old girl who has dropped out of high school to take care of her 9 year old brother and 5 year old sister, because her mother is catatonic and her father is out on bond for cooking meth, who knows where. The sheriff comes by to let her know that the bond her father got was based on their house and land--and his court date was only a few days away. So she sets out to try to find him before she and her family get turned out into the Ozark winter. Things, predictably and unpredictably, do not go well.

It was filmed in southern Missouri, and they used real houses and extras from the town. The wardrobe folks brought in bunches of new coats and carharts and stuff--and traded for worn out clothes from locals so that the actors would be more convincing.

It was completely convincing. Completely gripping. I mean, her uncle just needed an eye patch and he could have been played by my uncle Rick. Mike's uncle John Paul could have been an extra. Mike and I, well, I'm three steps from an urban poverty and drug culture, so there are different rules to that game, but Mike is just as close to rural poverty--we left the movie and as we walked to the car, I said, "I'm so glad we went to college." Now, it would take more than not going to college to wind up cooking meth in southern Missouri, but if our dads hadn't? If there hadn't been the launch into the middle class that both our families did in the late 70s/early 80s? Anyway, it was chilling. Everything about it was at once familiar and frightening.

Afterward, Mike said he wanted to make an anti-travelogue of states based on movies that just sort of turned on the camera on a place and really let the viewer soak it in. This would be Missouri's version...things like Flesh and Bone for Texas, Brokeback Mountain for Wyoming, the Cooler for Nevada...movies that make you really never want to go to those places.

So that's my movie run for the year, probably. If you see depressing films (some people don't--I usually don't, although the ones I avoid are tear jerkers, and this wasn't that), Winter's Bone was worth it. If you see kids films, well, you've probably seen Toy Story 3 already. But Ramona and Beezus wasn't the awful version I was expecting. Really.