It is an odd thing...

It is an odd thing when you are sitting in a movie theater with your teenage daughters and you realize you are old enough to be the leading man,'s... mother!! That the "Hot" guys featured on the covers of the grocery store magazines, to you, look like babies and well,  the actors you consider your "Heart Throbs" are really showing their age.

Charlie St. Cloud stars an unbelievably "Buff" if not "Baby Faced" Zac Efron. My oldest daughters response to that is always- " Isn't that good you think they have a baby face, since you are like twenty years older then them!" She is probably right.

Isn't it amazing how we take our heart throbs and freezes them in our mind from the movies we love, kind of like that children's book  "My Teacher Sleeps in School"...

                               

About children's belief that since they only see their teachers in school, surely they only exist there and not the real world..... Don't we do the same thing with actors and they don't have the privilige of aging like the rest of us!

I can't help it...Kevin Costner

                                               

                                              

                                               

well always be....Jay Cochran         

                             

  And Tom Crusie...

                                             

  will always be Mavrick

                              

                            

Kevin Bacon.....

                                         

will always be... Ren McCormick

                   

                                   

and Harrison Ford...

                                              

                                                

will always be Indiana Jones

                                             

But then again my husband, who I met when I was 18 and he was 19 will always be that kid with long legs that looked really nice in jeans and cowboy boots leaning against an old rust colored GMC truck- isn't that the way it should be with "Hearth Throbs?"

Salt doesn't pass the "Girl" test

Went and saw SALT quite awhile ago, but I am just now getting around to posting.
Salt is getting quite the hype- Angelina Jolie- arguable the most beautiful women in the world also establishing herself as well..."bad ass". Women are going to watch it for one reason and well, men for another.
Angelina graced the August cover of Vanity Fair

and gave an interesting interview taking a break from filming her new movie, the Tourist, with Johnny Depp in Venice Italy. The most interesting tidbit is that she was asked to be a "Bond Girl" and turned it down- telling them to talk to her when she could "Be Bond"....
All this seems like we can declare-"Let's strike one up for women all over the world- " but I think Salt is really a "chameleon of a Women's Movie" really.
For one it really doesn't have much of a plot- there are not a lot of twist and turns, it is pretty straight forward- Salt is an agent, is reveled as a mole, escapes to defend herself and save her husband, doesn't and then in revenge goes after the Russian bad guys. There is little depth to this movie. Not like the Bourne franchise or the New Bond franchise- where the hero is imperfect and struggles with not just the outer bad guys but the inner demons-
I can't think of a movie Angelina Jolie is in where imperfection is part of her character- now I have only her action movies- Tomb Raiders, Mr. and Mrs. Smtih- where Brad Pitt was loveable in all his imperfections.
Not a real women, but a demi god- is one strike against this movie-
-another is an interesting test I discovered over on Women and Hollywood blog- I call it the "Girl Test" , but officially it is

BECHDEL TEST

 /bech·del test/n.

1. It has to have at least two women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man

If you go to the Bechdel site, you will be amazed about how many movies fail to pass- now there is many arguments about this- women's place in film and I am sure I plus others will hit on them periodically- but I do just find it very interesting and SALT definitely does not pass- though you could count the lady behind the counter or the girl she gives the dog to.

 

 

Movies need to be cooked "Low and Slow"

So took Daughter #2 ( not in priority but chronologically) and a friend to see The Last Airbender- they were well prepared because she had Tivo-ed like all 93 episodes of the cartoon series, and of course now I know more about the The Last Airbender then I wanted to.... so we went to the movie and well, it was bad, very bad.
I sat there and thought- how, how can the same director, M. Night Shyamalan, who created The Village..

 a in depth, suspenseful, visually appealing, multi layer thinker of a movie, make This! Yes everyone blames the director, but he not only directed, he wrote and produced it!!
So here is my theory why it was a painful movie to watch- and it is the same theory why the Narina movies have well... sucked in my opinion....Time.
I come from a long line of cooks, really good cooks... and there is a golden rule, "low and slow" will always make things taste better, fall off the fork, tender, better. In fact when I was learning- and would complain to my mother- that my whatever didn't taste as good as hers, she would always say I cooked it too fast at too high of a temp.
Movie need time to develop slowly.
Case in point....

Fellowship of the Ring- 178 minutes

Two Towers- 175 minutes

Return of the King- 200 minutes

Avatar- 162 minutes

Narina- Lion Witch and the Wardrobe- 135 minute- really bad

Narina- Prince Caspian 149 minutes - at almost ten minutes more- slightly better

and....
The Last Airbender 103 minutes
103 minutes, to establish a whole different world, four different cultures, at least 5 main character and give us enough so that we care what happened to them...impossible. Why they did not make this at least two hours is beyond me.
A budget crunch on a movie takes a lot of exposition- telling not showing, having characters tell what happened instead of showing what happened- actually a lot of the start of big fights and people in dangers and then scene jumping to when it is over so the characters can talk about how dangerous and exciting it was, dusting themselves off.
Recently I took Daughter #1 ( chronologically) to see the Phantom of the Opera in Las Vegas. The full Broadway production is like three hours, this was a 90 minute show- all the big numbers were there, all the songs, the Las Vegas production had " made transitional scenes" shorter or taken them out. But they had taken out the scenes that made you care about the Phantom, he just came across as a really mean guy. Character development is why we care, it is when we see that the villain really is human, and we might feel sorry for him .
In Airbender, a big part of the cartoon series is that Prince Zuko, is a bad guy with a heart that eventually warms up, slowly- to changing sides, join the cause- talk about a complicated character arc- after 93 episodes of the series Prince Zuko is fully develop and one of the favorite character of the series. But the Movie- Prince Zuko- just angry all the time- but to show his soft side in in 103 minutes. where most of the time is taken up by over the top special effects, impossible.
Think about how slowly and richly character was developed in the Ring trilogy or Avatar. How you can think of any of the main character and almost guess what flavor of ice cream each would like, because you get a sense of "knowing them"
I guess that is why I go to movies, If I can't care about the character, if they survive or not, find their love or not, there isn't much reason for me to be there and for me to care-the story has to be laid out "low and slow".

Ahhh... to be 16

Went and saw Eclipse with Daughter #1 and friend. Have to say not as much squealing this time. ( Have to clarify my daughter has never "squealed in her life- opposite of the whole Ninja persona she exudes-but her friends have been known to sequel at the first sight of Edward sauntering across the parking lot of Forks High School.
Actually there was a bit of squealing from the Twilight moms that have been taken up by the wave of Twilight-ness out there right now- but that is a different blog.
Watching the movie, I meandered back to the defining movie of my teen years- Footloose.

Footloose came out just months after I got my driver's license and in an era of the second you got your license you could stuff your car full of all your friends- and my boat of a 67 Chevy Caprice could hold six- and take off with no restrictions we headed to the movies- and freedom and independence.
Loveland was what was known as a "Bedroom community" with very little restaurants or shopping and no movie theaters when I was a kid- but up the road ten miles or so was Fort Collins and Colorado State University- there we would go to shop, eat, see movies and goof around and the first movie I saw with my new found freedom was Footloose- how poetic was that.
Footloose is about a small town in the middle of nowhere- still ruled by the might hand of a charismatic pastor and a great communal wound of the loss of a car load of teenagers after a midnight escapade. Music is to blame and therefore banned, until a rebel teenager- Kevin Bacon- comes from Chicago and stirs things up.
I think I saw this movie...6 0r 7 times- the last with my parents who needed to understand why this movie hit such a chord in me, I don't think they got it.
Now looking back-why did it hit a chord?-
Well for one- the music could raise the dead- it was just that kind that seemed to have the same rhythm of the heart beating in my chest. If I hear the sound track even today, I can't help my feet from starting to tap away and mortify my children.
The story- teens banding together, against greater opponents, and being victorious, is epic.....well and Kevin Bacon, was really really hot. Edward, squealing hot. His messed up hair, his cocky grin, his shrug of his shoulder in that certain way- I was about twenty before I decided NOT to name my first child Ren- I am sure Daughter #1 is very thankful for that, plus I don't think Jon would of agreed to that.
Footloose also signaled- though I didn't have a crystal ball- what life I was headed for- filmed extensively in Utah County Utah- the landscape of the distance mountains, the flat valleys and rural farm lands- spoke to me then and here I sit looking towards the start of such landscape that now is my home.
And the Conservativeness....argh....never thought I would be a rebel living amongst those who....see things differently, but often the opposition I have experienced- being involved in a figure drawing group- I was labeled with having a pornography problem and we left a church over it- has made me think of Footloose.
No doubt, Footloose was a movie that help define me when I was 16- Twilight? A movie about a Vampire going to high school and falling in love? How will that define these girls, floaking to the theater- I don't know, I could not of told you twenty five years ago why I was moved by the sight of Kevin Bacon leading a victorious prom procession to an amazing beat- I just know I was.

Why Popcorn?

Going on ten posts on this blog now and have not paid adequate homage to "Popcorn" which in this blog's title suggest I should, hate dishonesty in advertising!
Popcorn and movies goes together like...popcorn and movies. For me personally it started laying on my grandparents wood floors, gaurded by the cold next to their rock fireplace and on top of large braid rugs, that my grandma could still point out my uncles little cotton T shirts from the 50's woven in to,  watching Sunday TV- shows like Rawhide, Mutual of Omaha 's Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Disney. My grandpa loved popcorn- and it has always been an acceptable Sunday evening dinner in my family, popped by hand on top of the stove in an old fashioned popper you have to stand over  the burner to turn the internal paddle that keeps the kernels moving across the hot pan.
Where to start with popcorn- its history or my family history with it- I think I will start on a personal note. My grandpa was a farmers in Minnesota, before the doctors told him he should go West due to his health. That was when my mother was in High School, so by the time I came along we were entrenched in living in Colorado, but returned to the farms of Freeborn County often to visit. Going East- in the 70's, we took Coors beer and 501 Levis - two things unattainable and much desired by our relatives- and coming home we brought  back popcorn- popcorn grown on my families own land.

Popcorn cobs are small and hard- sometimes we could get it already off the husks and sometime we had to do that part ourselves, twisting it in our hands protected by leather gloves letting the kernels fall into big brown paper bags.
As each great niece or nephew graduated from High School, my great Uncle Edmond would gift us with a full brown grocery bag of popcorn, mine lasted until sometime in my Sophomore year- generously sharing the small but unbelievably nutty fluffiness with my friends and roommates and trying to recruit them to the joy of my favorite Sunday dinner.
My great uncle is gone, and no one else still grows the popcorn- and the shelves at the grocery store are shrinking the choices of unpopped kernels and replacing them with nine billion varieties of microwave bags, which by the way my Navajo students loved to rip apart after the popcorn was gone and suck the last bit of whatever the butter substitute was that the paper was satrated with- but that is another blog-
Luckily there is still Orval Redenbacher- pretty descent and looking out my upstairs window where I sit on my bed- I can see the red dirt of Yellowjack and Cahone and further to the north is Dovecreek- where dryland farming - meaning no irrigating- beans, sunflowers and yes popcorn is still grown and I can buy popcorn that is not as good as that of my uncles, but at least hints at the nutty goodness I remember- If Adobe Milling ever stops growing popcorn, I will just have to pick up the family tradition of growing our own in my own backyard- hummmmm- might do that anyway!

Nowdays, everyone is a critic...

Was literally "stuck" in Las Vegas for almost a week while my sweet little, second degree brown belt daughter happily karate chopped and kicked her way through a conference. I have one word for Las Vegas- YUCK! It is full of glittery lights, little old ladies wheeling their walkers through the 103 degree parking lots to get to the air conditioned casinos where they will gamble away their Social Security checks and the strip- where on the sidewalk, the goal seems to be to wear the least amount of clothes as possible, leaving nothing up to the imagination and above are countless billboards of faceless women's bodies also leaving nothing up to the imagination.
Well there I was- so what did I do, went to movies of course- saw Knight and Day- actually twice, because frankly the other choices, echoing the summer layout of movies, just didn't interest me.
FYI- Diaz and Cruise previously starred in Vanilla Sky in 2001 together , not one of my favorite Cruise movies, and according to IMDB she was a uncredited woman on the subway in Cruises Minority Report in 2002- humm? must of stopped by for lunch on the set or something and did a cameo for kicks.
I actually liked Knight and Day, way more then I had thought I would - since it had Cameron Diaz in it, not my favorite actress, an actress that how can I say this nicely, has gotten ahead in her career more for her "pieces and parts" like the faceless models on the billboards in Las Vegas then on her acting chops. I don't think I have ever paid to see a movie she is in twice.
Tom Cruise is another story- there are very few movies of his I have not seen, like Eyes Wide Shut, where the premise has no interest to me- but he can act- when he wants to-
Well according to Yahoo Movies- Knight and Day is not doing well- the Critics have given it only a C +- with grades from the Boston Globe, Chicago Sun Times and E! Online.
But....according to an article by James Wolcott in the July issue of Vanity Fair ( which came out about the 3rd of June?) on the "threatened species of Film Critics" - he believes that the scholarly critic that we just assumed knew more than we did what made a movie good so listened to them- is now a dying breed- replaced by Moi......! So now instead of thumbing through a newspaper or magazine to be told what movies are good and worth your bucks to see- you can go online to someone like me who can tell you Cameron Diaz can't act.
But movies, along with art, music and books- unless they are very, very bad- are subjective- what I like, you might not like- proven all the time in my group of friends. So we like each other a lot, hang with each other, even travel across the country together and get a long great, like the same food- but when it comes to movies- nope- what I like they don't- so how can a critic or I tell you what you like.
And reality is - people will like structurally bad, poorly written movies- i.e.- Twilight--All movies have to do is strike a chord in you- if they do, for whatever reason, you like them, if not, you don't- I don't think there is a way to convince someone to like a movie- but I do know that a bunch of hype, a bunch of friends telling you- you have to go see a movie- cause they are sure you will just love it- is a pretty good way to get some to NOT like a movie- because our human nature is to be "difficult" and we really, really hate to be told what to do.

Last Note: I don't like the movie poster- which to me screams classic 60's spy movie- which this movie is nothing about- the sillhouettes don't even look like Crusie and Diaz- okay I am done being a critic...for now.

I DO like Summer Blockbusters!!

On our way to San Francisco we stayed the first night in Salt Lake and headed to the mall to watch the just released summer blockbuster- "Prince of Persia". Okay, I'm sorry but that movies pretty much did not have a point, other than to show Jake Gyllenhaal buff muscles, mostly in slow-mo and often with water also flinging through the air

I told that to my daughter ( when she asked me) as we made our way to our car and had basically the whole family accuse me of since my pursuit of writing professionally- I have just become un-fun movie critic.

Okay I do say things like- "there was a lot of exposition in the first five minute" or " they really did not successfully pay off the set ups from the first act" that make my families eyes roll- but I DO like movies- and there are several what would be dubbed "Summer Blockbuster- just turn our brain off movies that I enjoy- that ALSO had a point or more of a point than- " adopted son of Emperor has major opportunity to show off muscles as he clicks magical knife and rescues a girl, but really not because she is pretty tough." Throw in the "Ground Day" repeat of scenes and it got painful to watch.

There are Summer Block Busters with somewhat of a point-

Mission Impossible- especially MI2
The scene where Tom Cruise is walking through the "Burning of the Saints" festival on his way to meet Anthony Hopkins who is his handler and is going to, well, burn him- is pretty poetic.

The new James Bond movies, the character development that is woven through Daniel Craig, ahhhh, killing everyone- is some good writing in my opinion. Casino Royale really refreshed a franchise that was running out of new ideas.

The Bourne Identity has its sweet moments, like when driving to Paris,  Matt Damon tells "the girl" listening to her talk, he can now finally relax and their romance is woven through all the violence- refreshing!

So there you go, just because there are big action sequences, things blow up and blood spattering in slow-motion doesn't mean you have to lose the story!