The Unbearable Banishment: hemingway lite

Monday, December 1, 2008

hemingway lite

Did you know that Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, lost a satchel full of his early manuscripts in a Parisian train station in 1922? The satchel was never recovered. It was a traumatic event for poor ole' Hem and he wrote about it on several occasions throughout his life. Imagine that.

This morning I accidentally deleted a post that I was going to tighten up on the train ride home and post in the evening. Believe it or not, as bloated and ill-punctuated as my posts are, I read through them at least once prior to posting. That way, I only appear to be functionally illiterate instead of completely ignorant.

* * *

I’ve learned to expect very little from any movie that’s made for children. That’s fair. I’m not their target audience. But once in a while a kid’s movie will sneak up on you and be unexpectedly satisfying. Did you see Kung Fu Panda? Fantastic. The animation was beautifully rendered and Jack Black gave a reserved performance (as opposed to his usual manic, over-the-top shtick). The opening dream sequence is a marvel and the title sequence wins the silver medal. (The gold medal for title sequences goes to Catch Me If You Can. It’s a minor work of art.) Did you see The Incredibles? Another winner. Those guys at Pixar are friggin’ geniuses.

I took 7 Year Old Daughter to a piece of celluloid junk called Bolt. Horrible. It was ugly to look at, the story was insipid and the two main characters were voiced by Hollywood asswipe John Travolta (In real life he’s a pilot, so when he had a son he named him Jet because God forbid the kid steals any attention away from him.) and Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus is a 15 year old who, in interviews, sounds like a 35 year old and posed provocatively in Vanity Fair. With her father. Ick.


10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

haven't seen Kung Fu Panda, but was surprised at the number of folks watching it on the in-seat personal movie systems on the flight from Miami to Lima, Peru a couple months ago...

and that title sequence? who needs the movie? very cool! i need to see more movies...

December 1, 2008 at 10:19 PM  
Blogger Digital Fortress said...

We all loved Kung Fu Panda.

Unfortunately our eight year old also wanted to see Space Chimps which was a total piece of crap.

Thanks for the review of Bolt though, now we won't have to waste our time on that one too.

December 1, 2008 at 11:55 PM  
Blogger ~E said...

I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda but I do have a copy of The Incredibles. I also have Monsters Inc. and Happy Feet and Shrek (the first one...because all others are crap).

And I'm 26.

And I have no children.

But that's ok...because I'm a kid at heart.

December 2, 2008 at 1:50 AM  
Blogger Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open said...

I must be the only person in the world who didn't like Kung Fu Panda. However, this is probably down to me absolutely despising Jack Black. I find him intolerably O.T.T, predictable and just generally awful to watch and listen to.

Monsters Inc, I loved, same with Shrek and Wall-E.

Alot of the animated stuff is utter rubbish though. They churn out these kind of films like bad cheese now.

December 2, 2008 at 4:50 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Daisy: Catch Me If You Can is actually a pretty cool movie and worth seeing. Fun aside: Mrs. Wife and I won the grand prize in a contest that was a tie-in for that movie; an all expenses paid trip to Vegas. Spa visit. Restaurant. So, yea, we really like that movie.

Digital: Thanks for the review of Space Chimps. Now we won’t waste our time renting it. By the way, I just read about Season last night. All good wishes to you both.

E: The beauty of these movies is that you DON’T have to be a kid to enjoy them! Rent Kung Fu Panda on my recommendation. If you don’t like it, I’ll refund your money.

Jo: One of the reasons I liked Kung Fu Panda was because Jack Black wasn’t being Jack Black. I like your “bad cheese” analogy very much.

December 2, 2008 at 7:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've heard that Wall-E is another good one for kids and adults. Have you seen it?

December 2, 2008 at 9:16 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Pop: I BEGGED 7 Year Old Daughter to let me take her to see Wall-E but she steadfastly refused to go. She said she doesn’t care about robots. Obviously, I did a poor job selling the movie.

December 2, 2008 at 9:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We saw the preview for Bolt at Wall-E (another great kid's film) and my daughter had no interest. She wants to see Despreaux, which looks good. she loved Kung Fu Panda.

December 2, 2008 at 10:46 AM  
Blogger Stan D. said...

I still have dreams that some day I will come across that satchel in an old parisian flea market or antiques shop. Maybe then I will be able to fulfill my even bigger dream of appearing on Antiques Roadshow. *sigh*

December 2, 2008 at 9:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

haven't seen the movie but read the book. and you're right about the credits - damn they are good!

December 3, 2008 at 4:51 AM  

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