National Towel Day

National Towel Day
*salutes Douglas Adams*

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

We All Wear Masks

I'm still going to read the Anansi Boys, but this post isn't going to be about it.

Oh, no no no. This my friends, is a review of one movie I loved and still love. Mirrormask. Because I don't quite have time to read an entire book before tomorrow, I decided I would watch one of the Recommended movies in its temporary stead. A movie I remember liking very much.

Knowing that this was written by the same guy who writes Anansi Boys, I'm going to read that book, because this movie is still quite wonderful watching it a couple years later.

The main character, Helena, I at first found to be annoying, but I guess I could understand her plight. As bratty as she initially seemed, she is a character just entered into the teenage phase and this story seems to become one of a war between her childhood, her teenage self, and the person she is going to become. I was told before that once a person reaches a certain age, they are a combination of three selves just like those --a child, a teen, and an adult. Well, as far as this movie goes, they actually show the physical alter ego of Helena as the antagonist in the movie later on, threatening to ruin the life she had, all her drawings, and anything left of the childhood that created her. Helena finally confronts this alter-ego she then realizes is not all that different from how she was, and horrified, does what she can to stop her.

But to be honest, I didn't fall in love with the characters all that much or the story itself, though I was partial to Valentine and the Queen of Shadows. The two are both morally ambiguous in their own ways, though the Queen of Shadows seems to steer towards the dark, she still cares for her daughter who cares not for her. The relationship between the Queen of Shadows and the alter-Helena is reflective of the raw emotion in the first scene between Helena and her mother in the movie. Both at the time were caught in their own selfish desires. Helena's mother wanted to continue supporting her father and taking Helena along {against her wishes} while Helena wants to leave her family and the business in favor of a 'normal' life, even if it means tearing her family away from their business. Valentine, while the adorable and peculiar creature he seems to be, also has his own motives and selfish desires, though he is generally a good person and proves to be when he comes back for Helena after reconsidering his feelings about what he had done.

The story was basic, though I guess it was meant to be more imaginative and meaningful than it was to be strong and informative. This is certainly one of those hero quests that involve taking someone, putting them through fairy land, then coughing them back out as a brand new person to contend with the world more properly. She starts by ending up in fairy land, learning the rules as best as possible, learning what to avoid, traveling to the land of the shadows in a more...literal sense, nearly obtaining the boon of power, failing, getting betrayed, getting turned {you know, like the dying and being reborn thing}, turning back, obtaining the boon, rescuing fairy land, and returning home without being able to go back. She's grown a little wiser and we've grown impressed by her improvement as a human being.

What I loved just as much as the first time I watched this was the environment, the fairy land itself, and its quirks. In this world, darkness is practically evil, devouring and preparing to conquer in the absence of light. There's the spinx? I'm probably misspelling it, but the cat with the face. They pop up a couple of times and like the creature seems to have a penchant for knowledge and wit. There's floating books that hover when you degrade them. Everyone wears masks and finds it odd when you don't. That's just brushing the surface too. I love all the quirks and animations that are in this story and this dreamland. They are what make this movie memorable to me.

-Peace out

Monday, March 1, 2010

His Dark Materials...and something clever in the title.

This will be reserved for Golden Compass. Reading begins!

-Update-
Halfway through the first volume! I love this book!

Finally a book I can't seem to put down. It's rather unfortunate that I got around to reading it in a rush to catch up with the class, but the story is written clearly enough that I didn't need to do a lot of double-taking.

As discussed in class the week this book was meant for, Pullman wrote the character Lyra like an actual child. She has the same short attention span, same ambiguous morality, and the same sort of quirks any child like her might have had. She has a morbid curiosity as if death doesn't sink in with her {as it doesn't quite do for many children}. She is impatient and like a child, loves to tell stories and make things up to make them sound ten times more interesting. She gets angry and disobeys elders or their rules frequently, but she is ultimately a good girl with good intentions, if not just a little too adventurous. Reading about her and her actions reminds me of how I was like as a kid, though I know for certain I wasn't nearly as energetic or social. I can see how some readers may find her annoying, but to me her unique character and nature make her a well rounded being that I can follow without being thrown some unsuspecting curve about their personality. She's consistent thus far, and the way she handles her situations are much the same. Like any child she gets bored easily and could spend hours trying to figure something out if it comes down to it, as Lyra learned to use the Alethiometer when she was stuck up in her cabin.

The story reminds me a lot of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, only it doesn't start in a familiar world but goes straight into the alternative. For whatever reason, it's easy to accept the norms in Lyra's world, for they make these fantastical things seem normal enough. For instance, and a strong one at that, there are the daemons. If only one or several chose characters had creatures like these, they would be all the more fascinating and peculiar, but because everyone in this world seems to have them and someone who doesn't possess one is more likely to receive a reaction, you begin to grow used to it like the concept of ambaric power being their energy source rather than electricity or oil. Her world, like Tolkiens, becomes one that you wish to learn more of for the sake of catching on to the 'norm' of their universe. The way this book is written, all this is relatively simple to follow. The only thing I have yet to know much about is the Magistrate, but I'm sure that will be touched upon further in the second part of this volume.

All I can add right now is that so far it's a very interesting story, I will continue reading it, and I will likely read through the other two books as well if the story remains just as decent. It never ceases to keep my attention and so far it has my 9.5/10 sort of rating, which is high considering that I never have given anything a 10/10, except for maybe The Lord of the Rings trilogy or Brave New World and 1984.

I'll update this again once I'm through with the story.

-Peace out.