Movie (2012), 92 minutes
Directors: Chris Butler, Sam Fell
Screenplay: Chris Butler
What an entertaining romp with the living dead! Little Norman sees his old grandmother all the time, lounging in a corner of what appears to be the family room, but his family scoffs at his presumed delusion. His father wants Norman to straighten up and stop talking about ghosts. At school the stereotypical bully and others make fun of the geeky, shy boy.
It's an old line from Haley Joel Osment, "I see dead people," much made fun of over recent years; but, as it turns out, it's no joke. The dead of Norman's little town of Blithe Hollow are carrying a witch's curse from old New England days and cannot rest. A platoon of zombies rises from the cemetery and terrorizes the town. Norman must lay the ghosts.
The ghost of Norman's uncle (I think), the nicely named Mr. Penderghast, hints that Norman can find the info that will free the zombies from their curse in the Blithe Hollow town hall. As the zombies prowl the town, Norman and friends search for the secret.
The stop-motion animation is well done and the backgrounds are beautiful, showing Blithe Hollow and surrounds in subdued color and with much moody shadow. And -- this is a kindly film, with good-spirited messages about friendship, acceptance of others, and forgiveness.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Friday, February 1, 2013
LIfe of Pi (Book)
Yann Martel
Mariner Books (paperback), 2012, 336 pages
Available for Kindle (which is where I read the book)
Sometimes I read books just because everyone seems to be talking about them. Some such reads are to verify what the popular demand is about (Twilight, for example), and some are to check into what critics are raving about (Life of Pi).
The book has been made into a movie now, so the film is getting as much talk as the book did. The movie-makers must have been challenged in turning this talky preachment into a film.
What action there is is fantastic: Sixteen-year-old Pi is on his way to Canada from India with his brother and parents when the Japanese ship they're on sinks off Manila, with all hands and passengers -- except Pi. Pi takes to a lifeboat and survives many months with a Bengal tiger weighing 450 pounds sharing the boat. Plenty of cinematic possibilities there.
Back to fantastic . . . Pi wants a story, so he tells one, endlessly interrupted by his thoughts on religion and spirituality; all this is preceded by a chatty narrative about his childhood on the grounds of his father's zoo in India.
For me, the first part of the book was the most enjoyable. I learned a lot about animals in captivity, their culture and care, and the planning needed for the enclosures in which the animals live.
I had to skim through much of the cross-Pacific journey to the sweet, puzzling ending on a beach in Mexico. Along the way, Pi fishes with a gaff, somehow keeps the tiger alive and at his end of the boat, encounters a carnivorous island (yes, the island eats living creatures who land there), and eats the eyes, organs, skin, and brains of his ocean catch. It's all colorful, but somehow dull with overly descriptive near-repetitions of the same sorts of challenges (all driven by hunger -- Pi's and the tiger's).
In Mexico, two Japanese investigators, trying to find out why the ship sank, listen to Pi's story, which he then revises so it's more everyday and more palatable to the businessmen. So we come to realize that Pi wants what he said he wanted -- story -- and we must figure out whether the stories are real, and, if real, which life of Pi is true. This is a good puzzlement, but raises questions deeper than the book seems to warrant.
Did I find God, as one character suggests a reader will? Not by a long shot.
P.S. There's a good review on Amazon (by someone named Steve Koss) about how the book is an allegory; this reader saw much more than I saw in Martel's work. The review is well worth reading. Sorry, I can't seem to get a link to work . . .
Mariner Books (paperback), 2012, 336 pages
Available for Kindle (which is where I read the book)
Sometimes I read books just because everyone seems to be talking about them. Some such reads are to verify what the popular demand is about (Twilight, for example), and some are to check into what critics are raving about (Life of Pi).
The book has been made into a movie now, so the film is getting as much talk as the book did. The movie-makers must have been challenged in turning this talky preachment into a film.
What action there is is fantastic: Sixteen-year-old Pi is on his way to Canada from India with his brother and parents when the Japanese ship they're on sinks off Manila, with all hands and passengers -- except Pi. Pi takes to a lifeboat and survives many months with a Bengal tiger weighing 450 pounds sharing the boat. Plenty of cinematic possibilities there.
Back to fantastic . . . Pi wants a story, so he tells one, endlessly interrupted by his thoughts on religion and spirituality; all this is preceded by a chatty narrative about his childhood on the grounds of his father's zoo in India.
For me, the first part of the book was the most enjoyable. I learned a lot about animals in captivity, their culture and care, and the planning needed for the enclosures in which the animals live.
I had to skim through much of the cross-Pacific journey to the sweet, puzzling ending on a beach in Mexico. Along the way, Pi fishes with a gaff, somehow keeps the tiger alive and at his end of the boat, encounters a carnivorous island (yes, the island eats living creatures who land there), and eats the eyes, organs, skin, and brains of his ocean catch. It's all colorful, but somehow dull with overly descriptive near-repetitions of the same sorts of challenges (all driven by hunger -- Pi's and the tiger's).
In Mexico, two Japanese investigators, trying to find out why the ship sank, listen to Pi's story, which he then revises so it's more everyday and more palatable to the businessmen. So we come to realize that Pi wants what he said he wanted -- story -- and we must figure out whether the stories are real, and, if real, which life of Pi is true. This is a good puzzlement, but raises questions deeper than the book seems to warrant.
Did I find God, as one character suggests a reader will? Not by a long shot.
P.S. There's a good review on Amazon (by someone named Steve Koss) about how the book is an allegory; this reader saw much more than I saw in Martel's work. The review is well worth reading. Sorry, I can't seem to get a link to work . . .
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