dancing with fluorescent lights
First things first: Leafs extend streak to four
Yay! I didn't end up getting to see the game, which was kind of a bummer because I heard it was great, but I caught the highlights on TSN.
Next! They played a video before the movie last night featuring a really catchy song sung by a guy who sounded and moved like, if such a thing were possible, he could have been the long lost love-child of Mick Jagger and Freddie Mercury. Anyway, he had lovely curly hair and the video was really cute, so I was intrigued. I Googled the refrain of the song this morning and found out that the song is called "Grace Kelly" and it's the work of this 23 year old British fellow named Mika. His colourful website reminds me of Yellow Submarine.
My point? If you like infectious pop tunes, you should check him out.
El Laberinto del Fauno
This film made me want to go out and learn Spanish.
It was amazing. Visually stunning, moving, horrifying. I left the theatre wiping tears from my eyes, not quite knowing how I should feel. It's difficult to find any sort of hope in such a tragic conclusion when you know that magical worlds free of pain and sorrow don't really exist. But, the world of the labyrinth was real enough for Ofelia, so that is something. That's a powerful idea, really - the idea that just believing in something is enough to make it real.
The creatures in the film were most interesting to me. The monster at the end of the feast table was particularly macabre. It was like something out of a Dali painting, or Dante's Inferno, with its malformed body and eyeball hands. If these creatures were all products of Ofelia's imagination, they were, to me at least, a manifestation of the evil going on around her and/or evil that had occurred in the past (the Spanish Civil War). Honestly, I found them all just fascinating. Pan was perfectly written, friendly yet frightening. A good guy, essentially, but you couldn't really tell if he was or not, and Mercedes merely reinforced my (our?) uncertainty: "My mother told me to be wary of Fauns."
Speaking of Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), wow, I absolutely loved her. She was a great mother figure for Ofelia when the girl's mother passed on, and she was so incredibly strong. I loved what she said to the Captain before he was about to interrogate her, about how all along he'd believed she was just a woman and how that had made her invisible to him. There was another significant scene at the end, too, in which the Captain (who was obviously about to be executed or whatever you want to call it) said, "Tell my son the time his father died." and she replied, "No. He won't even know your name."
I also had a soft spot for the stuttering guy, so it broke my heart when he died. At least the Doctor put him out of his misery. Actually, the level of violence in the film astonished me, though I suppose it shouldn't have given the setting and time frame of the story. I had to look away/bury my face in Scott's sleeve several times. Women dying/suffering in childbirth scenes in movies are the absolute worst too. All the blood and the screaming and gaaaah, thank Bob for hospitals and modern medicine.
Anyhow, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'll just end here: I loved this film, though it broke my heart with equal parts tragedy and beauty.
ETA: I forgot to mention the fairies! For shame. Hooray for tiny winged beings!
Yay! I didn't end up getting to see the game, which was kind of a bummer because I heard it was great, but I caught the highlights on TSN.
Next! They played a video before the movie last night featuring a really catchy song sung by a guy who sounded and moved like, if such a thing were possible, he could have been the long lost love-child of Mick Jagger and Freddie Mercury. Anyway, he had lovely curly hair and the video was really cute, so I was intrigued. I Googled the refrain of the song this morning and found out that the song is called "Grace Kelly" and it's the work of this 23 year old British fellow named Mika. His colourful website reminds me of Yellow Submarine.
My point? If you like infectious pop tunes, you should check him out.
El Laberinto del Fauno
This film made me want to go out and learn Spanish.
It was amazing. Visually stunning, moving, horrifying. I left the theatre wiping tears from my eyes, not quite knowing how I should feel. It's difficult to find any sort of hope in such a tragic conclusion when you know that magical worlds free of pain and sorrow don't really exist. But, the world of the labyrinth was real enough for Ofelia, so that is something. That's a powerful idea, really - the idea that just believing in something is enough to make it real.
The creatures in the film were most interesting to me. The monster at the end of the feast table was particularly macabre. It was like something out of a Dali painting, or Dante's Inferno, with its malformed body and eyeball hands. If these creatures were all products of Ofelia's imagination, they were, to me at least, a manifestation of the evil going on around her and/or evil that had occurred in the past (the Spanish Civil War). Honestly, I found them all just fascinating. Pan was perfectly written, friendly yet frightening. A good guy, essentially, but you couldn't really tell if he was or not, and Mercedes merely reinforced my (our?) uncertainty: "My mother told me to be wary of Fauns."
Speaking of Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), wow, I absolutely loved her. She was a great mother figure for Ofelia when the girl's mother passed on, and she was so incredibly strong. I loved what she said to the Captain before he was about to interrogate her, about how all along he'd believed she was just a woman and how that had made her invisible to him. There was another significant scene at the end, too, in which the Captain (who was obviously about to be executed or whatever you want to call it) said, "Tell my son the time his father died." and she replied, "No. He won't even know your name."
I also had a soft spot for the stuttering guy, so it broke my heart when he died. At least the Doctor put him out of his misery. Actually, the level of violence in the film astonished me, though I suppose it shouldn't have given the setting and time frame of the story. I had to look away/bury my face in Scott's sleeve several times. Women dying/suffering in childbirth scenes in movies are the absolute worst too. All the blood and the screaming and gaaaah, thank Bob for hospitals and modern medicine.
Anyhow, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'll just end here: I loved this film, though it broke my heart with equal parts tragedy and beauty.
ETA: I forgot to mention the fairies! For shame. Hooray for tiny winged beings!