shrek 3 and other childhood memories

went to watch it this weekend with d and jr. i made a joke that i'd blog about it, but then she asked why i hadn't and i thought, why not? it shouldn't just be a joke.

see, the thing is, i love movie reviews. especially the clever time out chicago ones. and i've taken classes. most notably gender, culture, and media. so afterwards, we tend to have discussions like this:
me: did you like the movie?
d: yeah, i thought it was good. i really liked it. it was funny.
me: jr, did you like the movie?
jr: YEAH!
me: what was your favorite part?
jr: i liked when he went WOOSH, and then the bad guy when KRUNCH, and then he wnt POW! that was cool!
d: did you like the movie, caitlin?
me: i did like the movie. i was particularly pleased with the large number of women cast members, and the strong roles they were alowed to play. there was even the scene were they mocked their traditional counterparts for sitting around waiting to be rescued! there really aren't enough movies where there's a pack of women who turn into ninjas. also, of course, is the sweet and loveable fiona, who is one of the few positive roll models who's big and fat and green. so that of course gets lots and lots of points from me. there were only 2 things that really got on my nerves. first, the king's death wasn't very respectful. i felt uncomfortable laughing at the king 'croaking" in various fits and starts. and i was very upset at shrek not considering fiona getting pregnant as the natural result of their marrage. if he was REALLY worried about not starting a family yet, there are precautions he could have taken. really, you'd be amazed at the other uses of some of those swamp plants. but those were minor things in the sweep of the whole movie. i really appreicated its messages about beauty, that having good hair doesn't matter, it's being kind to others, and protecting those you love from danger even when it means sacrificing yourself. i didn't even mind the fart jokes.
d: oh.

so you can see how i can be annoying to take to cartoons.

actually, while typing all this up, i remembered somethign else that annoyed me. after all those le leche league meetings i went to as a child, i cringe at baby bottles in films. but i justified it by saying that though fiona breastfed, she didn't have enough for triplets and suplemented with slug juice.

which brings me to a totally different topic, toys i was not allowed to have as a child:
1. guns
2. baby bottles
3. anything advertized on saturday morning television.

i think i'm going to do a 365day portrait about that.

and THAT makes me think of something else from my childhood. in the catagory of "crazy childhood theories" you know, the answer to the interview question, the subject for the "kid logic" this american life episode.

so i had this theory as a child. that tv could somehow track your spending habits. and they sent you commercials for what they thought you needed. and once you bought it, they turned the commercials off. the basis of this theory was toothpaste commercials: colgate and crest advertised heavily, but aim, the toothpaste my family used, never ever advertised on tv. so i occasionally requested saturday morning cartoon toys not so much because i wanted the toy, but because i wanted the stupid commercial to stop repeating itself.

movie meme!

ok, here's the rules. you go to imdb, type in your top ten fave movies. post 5 plot keywords and the year. then, make your readers guess what the movies are. ok readers? this means you.

1. Art / Lotto / Bizarre / Shampoo / Dominatrix. 1998.
2. Christ Allegory / Organ Transplantation / Passion Play / Acting / Montreal. 1989.
3. New York City / Lesbian / Jewish / Art Gallery / Malaprop. 2001.
4. Old Dark House / Christmas Tree / Great Depression / Alternative History / 1940s. 1946.
5. Divine Intervention / Ensemble / Multiple Story Line / Wiz Kid / Police. 1999.
6. Romantic Comedy / Road Movie / Flea Market / Magic Ring / Chase. 2000.
7. Video Game / Quicksand / Story In Story / Old Man / Shark Infested Waters. 1987.
8. Student Principal Relationship / Rehabilitation / Bitch / Baptist / Pregnancy. 2004.
9. Black Comedy / Family / Engagement / Interracial Romance / Fired. 1967.
10. Goth Girl / Intervention / Lesbian / Nightclub / Group Therapy Scene. 1999.

please guess. please?

par-tay!

come to my house next friday! i'm having a groundhog's day party! i have four guests already! i can't believe how many people rsvped. i am nervous about all of us crowded around the whopping 17" flat-screen... but i think that rather than move the couch i'm going to move the computer to a stool and flip some chairs around. i think that will provide comfortable viewing for all guests.

will you come? comment (or email, since you all hate commenting so much) and i can give you more details.

happy feet

we also went to see happy feet, which, shut up, i really enjoyed. i totally related to what i found as a gay parallel- while not as overt as say, xmen 2, was definately there. mumble is shunned by penguin society because of his differentness- his disinterest and untalent in the essential love act in the emperor penguin world. while his peers are by turns baffled, mocking, and accepting, the elders of the community think that different is bad and he needs to be exiled. that it is this sin that is bringing the hard times to the land. hello, fred phelps? i guess the underdog and the different one can always be seen through rainbow-colored lenses, but i thought the whole religious aspect (plus of course his differentness tied to a mating ritual) was what made it more so than your average tale of a kid who doesn't belong. or i could just be reading into it.

the other thing i really enjoyed was introduction of live action people at the end, though reviewers hated it. i thought it totally made sense logically, and i thought the forshaddowing lead us right there. it showed that these are real creatures and had a good environmental message- cause it's so easy to imagine antartica and cutsie penguins as characters soley in a cgi world, not realizing that it's a real live place here in our very world. i llked the shift, so there.

there were some things i hated, of course. your basic cartoon standbys: mysogyny and the hegemony of american (AND HUMAN!) beauty standards. why do the women characters only sing and go fishing? why are there no women on the adventure? this does not reflect penguin culture- women go off to get fish while the men sit on the eggs, for goddesssake! there were 2 main women characters and about 10 main male characters. was it necessary for all those roles to be played by men? i don't think so. and i was FURIOUS about something ch first pointed out in the ad- the women penguin's yellow coloring is a triangle lower than the coloring on the male's necks- and the animators used it to emphasize the appearance of breasts. there were all these curvy women penguins! it was pretty disgusting- why can't even PENGUINS be short and squat? that's REALLY how the goddess created them. there wasn't anything else physically antromorphised. it was really bad- even d mentioned it afterwards.

and my final question- why didn't this movie come out in time for me to write a paper on it in culture, race and media class? cause i think i've said more in this blog entry than everything i could dredge up about a bug's life, which was the cartoon i actually wrote the paper on.