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shadowfax8 (one day late). I hope you had a great one!!
Halloween, my favorite day. ::sigh:: It really smelled like fall today. Spring and fall have always had such distinctive smells for me and I love them both. Walking around here you'd think Hogwarts planned a day trip to Manhattan, there are that many kids in Hogwarts robes. Okay, I admit to keeping an eye out for a Gryffindor and Slytherin together, carrying golf clubs.
I've been watching horror movies on and off all day--The Bad Seed was on earlier, now it's The House on Haunted Hill (which seems to include more screaming than 8 movies combined) and then The Haunting. That's good programming.
But in between I rented a DVD which I really loved.
It's hard to capture this movie. It's a ghost story...that is, there's a ghost in it, but as the director says, "By the end of the movie you rightly don't fear the dead, but the living." It takes place during the Spanish Civil War at an orphanage with anpiece of symbolism unexploded bomb stuck right in the courtyard. The boys talk about a ghost they call "One Who Sighs," but who is probably Santi, the former occupant of Bed #12, now occupied by our hero, Carlos.
What draws you into the story isn't anything supernatural, though, but the characters. I watched a featurette on the making of it and have started listening to the commentary, and it's wonderful all the thought that went into all of them. For instance, Jacinto, the villain, was originally conceived as "much bigger...a brute," but when a more handsome, slighter actor was cast the director tweaked the screenplay to play to that. Jacinto became more complex and darker psychologically. "A prince without a kingdom" as he's described.
Above all, the movie belongs to the kids and they're all wonderful. The director said he really hates dialogue--hates writing and shooting it (he loves listening to it in movies done by people who can do it, but doesn't think he's one of them) so likes to have scenes that pack in a lot of exposition so that he can then have long stretches with little talking. So it's not surprising those wordless moments are some of the best story wise like when Carlos is literally abandoned by his guardian at the orphanage--it's melodramatic, but in the best way. Anyway, for a director who doesn't like dialogue he still manages to create wonderful characters far more complex than you'd often expect in a movie about kids. Carlos is described by the boy who plays him as "kind of preppy," so isn't prepared to get thrown into a big drafty dorm room. Even more complex, though, is Jaime.
At this point I allow myself a fandom thought about how in the story told by the female author, the bully who's mean to you on your first day, fights with you and insults your life situation, is hated with a passion for the rest of your life, gets humiliated by the girl and beaten up by your dream boy--and he's evil. In the story told by the male screenwriter, he becomes the hero's friend and a secondary protagonist. See, this is why I write for boys.;-)
Anyway, the whole movie is, of course, a commentary on war as well. (I believe the opening shot is a plane opening up to drop a bomb.) Santi warns Carlos, Many of you will die, and he could be speaking about events to come in the movie or simply the war.
Now I'm going to do a card reading for the coming year and hope for a long-shot good thing that might happen but might not so I'm not going to say anything else about it in case it doesn't.
shadowfax8 (one day late). I hope you had a great one!!Halloween, my favorite day. ::sigh:: It really smelled like fall today. Spring and fall have always had such distinctive smells for me and I love them both. Walking around here you'd think Hogwarts planned a day trip to Manhattan, there are that many kids in Hogwarts robes. Okay, I admit to keeping an eye out for a Gryffindor and Slytherin together, carrying golf clubs.
I've been watching horror movies on and off all day--The Bad Seed was on earlier, now it's The House on Haunted Hill (which seems to include more screaming than 8 movies combined) and then The Haunting. That's good programming.
But in between I rented a DVD which I really loved.
It's hard to capture this movie. It's a ghost story...that is, there's a ghost in it, but as the director says, "By the end of the movie you rightly don't fear the dead, but the living." It takes place during the Spanish Civil War at an orphanage with an
What draws you into the story isn't anything supernatural, though, but the characters. I watched a featurette on the making of it and have started listening to the commentary, and it's wonderful all the thought that went into all of them. For instance, Jacinto, the villain, was originally conceived as "much bigger...a brute," but when a more handsome, slighter actor was cast the director tweaked the screenplay to play to that. Jacinto became more complex and darker psychologically. "A prince without a kingdom" as he's described.
Above all, the movie belongs to the kids and they're all wonderful. The director said he really hates dialogue--hates writing and shooting it (he loves listening to it in movies done by people who can do it, but doesn't think he's one of them) so likes to have scenes that pack in a lot of exposition so that he can then have long stretches with little talking. So it's not surprising those wordless moments are some of the best story wise like when Carlos is literally abandoned by his guardian at the orphanage--it's melodramatic, but in the best way. Anyway, for a director who doesn't like dialogue he still manages to create wonderful characters far more complex than you'd often expect in a movie about kids. Carlos is described by the boy who plays him as "kind of preppy," so isn't prepared to get thrown into a big drafty dorm room. Even more complex, though, is Jaime.
At this point I allow myself a fandom thought about how in the story told by the female author, the bully who's mean to you on your first day, fights with you and insults your life situation, is hated with a passion for the rest of your life, gets humiliated by the girl and beaten up by your dream boy--and he's evil. In the story told by the male screenwriter, he becomes the hero's friend and a secondary protagonist. See, this is why I write for boys.;-)
Anyway, the whole movie is, of course, a commentary on war as well. (I believe the opening shot is a plane opening up to drop a bomb.) Santi warns Carlos, Many of you will die, and he could be speaking about events to come in the movie or simply the war.
Now I'm going to do a card reading for the coming year and hope for a long-shot good thing that might happen but might not so I'm not going to say anything else about it in case it doesn't.
