also: fairytale, saturday night tv, and a visit from richard nixon.
5.3 miles.
I'm handling the kiddie portion of the evening, which involves running to the door, ducking under the giant spider I hung over the door, oohing and aahing over costumes of some incredibly cute children, and putting candy into the bags. Well, the last batch were clearly 12-year-olds, but most of them have been 3 to 7 and totally cute. Almost makes me want to have one. ("It's not supposed to make you want to have one," said Darin.)
One tiny kid was even dressed as Richard Nixon, including suit with red power tie.
When I woke up, I said, "Hey, you should call Fernando." Darin said, "Yeah," and didn't. A half hour later, I said, "Hey, you should call Fernando." Darin said, "I will," and didn't. So then the phone rang and it was Fernando. Well, not quite psychic phenomena: we often see Fernando on Saturdays.
So Fernando came over and we went for breakfast. And then we went to Fry's, which isn't my idea of a good time, but we bought stuff anyhow. We then headed over to the theaters in Burbank to see Practical Magic, the movie with the appropriate theme for the day.
And that was about the extent of what's good about the movie.
Well, that's harsh. Practical Magic isn't bad; it's just incredibly muddled. The movie's pretty much the story of Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) and her sister Gillian and how they deal with the curse on their family--any man they love is doomed to die. I say "pretty much" because I wish they had picked one story and stuck with it, but instead they tried to do everything at once. (I haven't read the book; I don't know how much of this came from the book.)
Threads laid throughout included:
- the relationship of the Owens witches (yes, they keep the name Owens through the centuries, though how they do this is unexplained) to the townspeople who hate them;
- the relationships of the sisters to each other;
- the curse on the men who love the Owens women, which appears to be haphazard and random;
- Sally's reactions to being a witch and to the curse;
- what happens when Gillian loves the wrong guy.
And stuff is just crammed in there with no rhyme or reason. For example: the townspeople hate the Owens women: we see a couple of scenes of kids in town surrounding Owens girls and chanting, "Witch! Witch!" or of other women in town dissing Sally or Gillian something awful. Then, when Sally needs the help of several townswomen...the women just show up to help, no problem. Well, guess what, folks: if the movie doesn't treat the ostracism like a problem, neither will the audience. Hello?
The first act of this movie is exposition. (I think it's a 5-act movie, not 3-act, but I could be wrong.) It's pretty much stuff that could be covered elsewhere. And the climax scene--involving the other townswomen--is terrible; both Darin and Fernando cited that as the scene that ruined the movie for them. It was like, "Okay, we need some special effects there."
And what was up with the final scene, jumping off the roof? Oy.
The movie had some very good ideas in it, but didn't stick with any of them.
After Darin and I couldn't take watching any more Saturday night TV, we settled down to watch one of the movies he'd taped recently: Fairytale - a true story. We both had high hopes for this piece, all of which were dashed. Why? Because of one simple POV choice the writer and director made.
Fairytale - a true story purports to tell the story of Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, two cousins in Cottingley, England, who took pictures of each other with dancing fairies. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Peter O'Toole), a believer in spiritual and otherworldly phenomena despite the best efforts of his debunking friend Harry Houdini (Harvey Keitel), publicizes the photos and the girls become famous. Spiritualism is all the rage at the moment because England is suffering terribly, both from World War I and from the Spanish Flu epidemic, and fairies provide something of a hope and a release from the traumas of life.
Only in this movie...the fairies are real.
At which point
- it's no longer a true story and
- it's no longer an interesting story.
Interesting story: "Two little girls with no experience with cameras make some photos they think will make Elsie's mother a little cheerier and in doing so manage to fool photographic experts and one of the most famous men in Britain (Doyle) on their first try."
Not a good story: "Two little girls photograph some fairies." Unless everyone doesn't believe them until the existence of fairies is finally proved--but everyone does believe them, so there's still no story there.
Had the filmmakers excised all the scenes with fairies in them (which were both annoying and totally pointless) and changing only one or two other scenes, they'd have had a really good movie. There's even a scene in there where an intrepid journalist figures out how the girls did it...only to be interrupted by a)fairies and b)the ghost of Elsie's brother, who died from the flu. It made both Darin and me want to toss things at the TV, even though we don't believe in taking out our anger for things shown on the TV at the TV itself.
But we currently live in a society where you think you're more likely to make money by saying fairies are real than by debunking stupid, idiotic notions.
Recent license plate, seen on a new model Mercedes convertible: X WAITR. Couldn't manage to get up alongside to see the guy's face.
I. Ran. Out. Of. Candy.
Note to self: this year, 4 bags. Next year, 8 or more.
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com