How Boyhood the movie is changing my life

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the incredible feat of a movie in Boyhood, which was filmed with the same actors over a period of 12 years. Having simply seen the previews, and hear a review on the radio, I decided to take myself out to see this 2 hour and 45 minute film that is being touted as an award winning movie with very little action. It, by all accounts, has broken many cinematic rules. There’s no plot, besides simply watching a boy grow up, and the actors (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke) committed over 12 years to make this film. The main character, Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane, was only 6 when he started the project. 

So there I was, sitting in a dark movie theater for a matinee showing with five other people. A young couple, who I judged to have no children yet, and older couple who seemed like grandparents, and a guy about my age. The five of were there to see the magic. 

But it wasn’t magic. Not at first. It was cute seeing the six year old boy’s antics, and how he related to his older sister, and his mom, and the scenes from life that unfolded before my eyes. Halfway through I felt bored. There was no action. Tiny episodes of drama, but mostly interpersonal relating. Scenes from year to year were marked by Mason’s haircuts. I was sitting in this theater thinking “what? what? this is it? this is what I paid good money for? Really? This is all there is? The cinematography isn’t even that spectacular. And the soundtrack? Is there even a soundtrack?”

These thoughts were much like the thoughts I have when meditating, or halfway through yoga. Monkey mind. I sat back for the rest of the film, followed the loose plot, and then BAM. (uh, spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the film…do not read on…)

BAM

Mason graduates from high school. His mom, played by Patricia Arquette, is sitting in her new apartment with her now-grown son, in that awkward teenage-almost-college-student-scruffy way is packing up his belongings. And she starts to cry. She says, “I just thought there’d be more.” At least that’s how I remembered it. She might have said “I just thought there’d be more time,” but nonetheless, I started to cry. Little tears rolled down my cheeks, not a full on sobbing mess, I can keep it together of course. 

The final scene is Mason hanging out with some of his new college buddies, and he has this conversation about the idea of ‘seizing the moment,’ rephrasing it by saying, “I think the moments seize you,” and suddenly the movie was spectacular. I think that was the magic in it. That I couldn’t tell how beautiful it was until it was over and I looked back, remembered earlier scenes and saw how the tied in to the ending. That life was unfolding and no matter how mindful in the here and now, there is something powerful in that moment of reflection, introspection, nostalgia. It was pure magic. 

And would it be crazy to say that a movie could influence me to want another child? No, that’d be totally daft, right? But I found myself, as I was watching the scenes unfolding, and the nostalgia I felt at the end when she said ‘I thought there’d be more time,’ that the reason I have only wanted 1 kid is not because I am afraid another will distract me from BIG life goals like curing cancer (or travelling to India) or doing a career I love…but that it will distract me from doing things like Buzzfeed quizzes. Now that might sound silly, but it’s true. When I get angry with Potamus for ‘interfering’ with my time, or not going to bed because I ‘just want a fucking minute to myself,’ It’s not because I want a minute to myself to do art or yoga or spend time with friends. Because I manage to find time to structure into my life to do those things. It’s that I want him to ‘go the fuck to sleep’ so I can scroll, scroll, scroll through Pinterest on my phone. 

I was asked once if I would get to be that 80 year old woman if I would regret not trying to have another kid. And I know the answer would be ‘no,’ if it meant I could be the best parent to 1 kid while pursuing my amazing life goals. I will regret not trying for another kid if it’s because I wanted to pin recipes to pinterest that I know I’ll never use. You know? 

Parenting is my mindful meditation. I get to drop into something deeper beyond buzzfeed quizzes and the monkey chatter of my thoughts. This isn’t a pregnancy announcement, or even an announcement that we will be trying any time in the near future (soonest will be next summer), but something settled in my body and heart when I watched this film. I realized that it is hard, and amnesia sets in at some point and I will say to myself, “I just thought there’d be more time.” 

Saving Mr. Banks- A Movie Review

I grew up with unlimited access to books, and limited access to movies. There was the allowed Winnie the Pooh, and some Disney princess films, and old timey Haley Mills films (of which The Parent Trap wasn’t high on my favorite list). Of course, Mary Poppins was on the approved list, though I remember only really loving the laughter scene, and the children’s acting in the movie that came after (The Gnomemobile…because what little girl doesn’t want to be a gnome princess?). So, when Boof suggested that our anniversary afternoon date should be spent watching a movie, one about the making of Mary Poppins, I was less than thrilled. But the options were so limited, and I figured that I could at least stand a two hour film, and HOLY COW I WAS SO WRONG TO ASSUME IT WAS GOING TO BE LAME!

This movie was awesome. It was about the author of the Mary Poppins book, and how the book became adapted to the big screen. But what I was fascinated by, was that it wasn’t some boring account of how she finally curmudgeonly agreed to make the film adaptation, as well as how she ended coming up with the concept in the first place. Overall it was a beautifully produced film, where I felt transported to different times and felt lots of strong emotions. I loved it. I loved it more than the film it was based off.

My only complaint was that Tom Hanks will always be Tom Hanks. While Walt Disney is super iconic, and Tom Hanks did a good job of coming close, I think that using a no name actor might have been more believable. It’s not so much how Tom Hanks looked, as more of how he sounded like Tom Hanks…so iconic. But the magic of the whole story line wasn’t interrupted too  much by my thinking of Apollo 13 or Forrest Gump.

So, if you’re looking for a good, nostalgic, movie to watch over the holiday season, I definitely recommend Saving Mr. Banks!

Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves (Part 2): Control, Autonomy, Respect

brushing teeth, because HE wanted to

I’d like to think that I have a lot of respect for Potamus, even though he is a tiny little human. I give him a lot of space to roam and come back to me. I genuinely look at him as a very small person with needs, feelings, and wishes of his own. But, in Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, I was challenged by this notion of control, and how it might manifest in the way of cooperation. Naomi Aldort’s premise is that children need unconditional love, and because they crave it, they might give in to areas that their parent are trying to control so that they feel like they’re loved…even though she asserts that “giving up their will is the cause of most of the difficulties with children.”

So, it made me wonder…do you sometimes think:

How can I get her to do chores, be quiet, stop the tantrum, eat her food, etc., reflect a wish to control the child. IT is about ‘making’ the child do what the parent wants; the child has to give up what she wants, which is giving up on herself.

Whoa, right? Guilty as charged. Though when I read that I thought to myself, “big whoop, we all have to do things we don’t want to do.” But do you remember that feeling? When you’re doing XYZ and then you havetostoprightthisminute because someone arbitrarily (in your mind) tells you to? Or, if you had a family member who only expressed love to you when you behaved in a certain way, or got good grades, did you wonder, deep down, whether they really loved the real you? I certainly have!

I think this is the one that I’m going to have to mull over the longest. The book suggests offering chances for children, even young toddlers, to engage with, even asking for help…but with the freedom for the child to choose yes to help or no to not, just like we’d do with adults. The part of me that listens to Mother Culture says “no no no, adults are in charge, they are big and can ask for requests and to expect it to be done.” The still, quiet part of me, knows that even when I was small I had opinions and wanted to do things myself and not be asked or badgered into doing them. Or, if Boof came home, and because he is physically bigger than me, asked me to do something where I felt I would be harmed or unloved if I said no. That’s not really cooperation, that is control. If I notice that Boof is folding laundry and I want to join him, then I am freely entering into that experience. If he asks, and I say no, and it is just as loving, then I am truly free. So, why should a different set of rules apply to children?

In what ways do I try to control others, namely Potamus? When I say things like “lets go outside” and then pick him up without his choice to freely follow me, I guess, would be one way. Or putting food on his plate and expecting him to eat it (though this is something I try not to do). In fact, in a way, lately, we’ve been trying to help Potamus communicate his needs/desires about food, by picking him up and walking him around the kitchen to point to what he wants. While this won’t be something we can do forever, and I certainly am not excited about the prospect of making different meals each night or catering to my kid’s every whim. Of course, that takes it to an extreme, but I notice, the story in my head, about being controlled BY my child…and that in order to combat that I need to control HIM. Whoa, that’s a little tidbit of insight from my brain!

Thoughts on control/autonomy/respect?

Living your own Cloud Atlas?

I took this photo of performers when I was living in Jaipur, Rajasthan India.

So, on the recommendation of a friend, last week I indulged in the 2 hour 52 minute movie, Cloud Atlas. If you’re not familiar, the basic premise of Cloud Atlas is that souls are eternal, and are born into different bodies in different times and interact with other souls. This particular movie shows quite a few love connections across the ages, with souls somehow finding and interacting with one anther…really showing the meaning of SOULmate!

The idea of reincarnation was foreign and forbidden just a few years ago, but lately, I’ve begin to wonder….what if? There are quite a few interesting reads out there in book form, or on the internet, trying to prove that reincarnation exists. In some sense, it makes practical sense, since, if we believe that souls are eternal, what are they doing before we are born, and after we die, as we (in the Christian tradition) are sitting around waiting for the final judgment and re-establishment of paradise. It seems a lot to have an eternal soul that only gets to be in an Earthly body for max 100 years (and many, for much much shorter times).

One interesting story I came across, was that of Anne Frank/Barbro Karlen. Apparently, very young children, often ‘remember’ having past lives, and in some cases, these ‘lives’ are able to be figured out to be actual people. I watched a documentary once where a kid remembered being a pilot in war, and the details added up to be a real dude. So, in this case, Barbro was a young girl born in Sweden 10 years after Anne Frank died in Bergen Belsen, the story goes on to say:

hen she was less than three years old, Barbro told her parents that her name was not Barbro, but Anne Frank. Barbro’s parents had no idea of who Anne Frank was, as the book, Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, had not yet been translated or published in Swedish.

I can’t imagine having this happen to me, in such a detailed and difficult way. Barbro wrote about how hard it was for her as a young girl telling people who she really was, and feeling like she was a different person (having trouble calling her parents her parents), because people didn’t seem to believe her. And then discovering, at age 10, that her diary had been published and that she was really a famous person. Mind tripping!

But…less drastic than that, are those deja vu or other experiences people have where they report, “we had an instant connection,” or, “it was like I had been there before!” Has that ever happened to you? Other people say that if you have a particularly strong affinity for a certain location in the world, or particular time periods (like WWII or ancient Egypt).

Which makes me wonder, about some of my own affinities. Like, my obsession with India, and how I would confess to my close friends, that I am “brown on the inside,” meaning, that I actually felt Indian on the inside…which is a strange thing for a white girl to say, you know? And then I had a dream where I was seeing India from my own eyes, which sparked a trip there. Other things I feel an affinity for are ancient Egypt, WWII, and indigenous people in North America (either/both PacNW or plains). But, when I listen to the rational part of my brain, I just wonder if I feel an affinity toward those places is because I learned about them in school. Also, how can by interest in mermaids be explained? Ha! I’ve also had experiences where I’ve met someone and we instantly click…could that be meeting a soul I’ve known before? Perhaps?

So, what are your thoughts on the possibility of reincarnation? Any experiences where you were like “whoa, I’ve been here before,” or instantly connect with someone where you just feel like you’ve known them before? Do share!

Blue Like Jazz

In college I was assigned the book Blue Like Jazz: Non-religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality for an internship that I was doing at my local church. This book was life-changing on so many levels. The way that Don wrote about his ever shifting views of faith and religion and relating to religous people was exactly what I needed during that time of my life. It felt so real, expressing so many things that I had felt, but hadn’t been able to put into words. Characters said things like:

“And I found Jesus very disturbing, very straightforward. He wasn’t diplomatic, and yet I felt like if I met Him, He would really like me. Don, I can’t explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me. I never felt like that about some of the Christians on the radio. I always thought if I met those people they would yell at me. But it wasn’t like that with Jesus.”

And that was radical and true and made me feel like I wasn’t crazy in this whole trying to relate to God and The Church and Christians and the fucked-upness of so much of my fundamentalist brainwashing that took place as a child/teenager.

And it wasn’t just about the topic of spirituality, it was the way in which Don wrote about his life, weaving childhood stories in with random musings, current happenings, and future speculations. I heard, a few years after the book was popular, that some people who had loved the book were suddenly very angry with Don because they learned that his “memoir” wasn’t 100% fact, that he had, in fact, taken some creative license with his storytelling. But that made it all the more beautiful to me. That there can be truth in a story even if it’s not 100% historically accurate (which, coincidentally, is how I now view The Bible). Don’s way of writing truth, without it being historically dry facts was life-giving and has, to this day, still influenced my own writing style (at least, in my mind it has). Like, it made this whole concept of blogging for the world okay.

 

So, when I saw, on Netflix, that Blue Like Jazz had been made into an indie movie I jumped at the chance to watch it. I was really curious about how they would translate random life stories and musings into a cohesive plotline. I was excited to see the characters (Don, and Penny, and Tony the Beat Poet) all on screen. While some people go into movies with a critical eye, trying to always compare the book version to the movie, I mostly went in as a curious individual, wanting to feel connected to something larger. I haven’t read the book since 2004, so I have mostly forgotten the actual words, and am left with how the book made me feel. I guess I wanted to feel something, and so I picked this movie.

And, sadly, I was disappointed. You knew that was coming, right? I know it was a hard storyline to make into a movie, though I think there were things that could have been added, and things that could have been left out, that would have made it better. I almost think titling it Blue Like Jazz made this pressure for it to live up to a bestselling book, and this pressure for it to follow a storyline from the book, rather than trying to get to the essence of the feeling or big takeaways that people felt from reading the book. I think it got close, a couple of times, but didn’t do it justice.

For example, the character of Penny becomes a Christian in the book, and is really transformational to a lot of people simply because they see her being a loving, kind, compassionate person. She loves God and people see it. In the movie Penny’s character is good and compassionate, but there’s something about her delivery that seems like she’s just trying to be a good person, and while it’s nice, it’s not inspirational. It almost comes off as a little goody-two-shoes, which was not how the character was in the book. I think they tried in the movie, but I think it didn’t quite measure up. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t inspiring.

There were other aspects, like trying to make Don’s family life more chaotic than it appeared in the book, or focusing on other, in my opinion, more trivial details, which made me think…if Donald Miller had simply set out to create a film on non-religous thoughts on Christians spirituality (the subtitle to his book), what would it have looked like? Even if nothing but the theme had been the same, would the film have done something more for my heart?

After watching the film I started reading the book again. It read like an old friend, and I found myself laughing and nodding in parts. But I also noticed that time had done something strange to my memory. Maybe it’s because I’m in a different place, now, but I didn’t find myself as moved by it as before. I’m hoping it means that the words have just sunk into my soul and aren’t life-changing radical as before, but I’m mostly worried that I’m jaded and cynical and curmudgeony. I stopped halfway and wonder, maybe it’s better if I just leave the memory in the past? It also made me wonder…what am I searching for, longing for, that isn’t being filled by re-visiting old spiritual favorites or new indie films on the same topics? What am I looking for?

Searching for a Guru…

In prep for this coming quarter, I thought I’d watch a few documentaries that might expose my students to the idea of critical thinking and questioning the status quo, not to mention that I really enjoy documentaries with a spiritual flavor.

I  knew going into the documentary that Kumare was fake, a man doing a Borat-style (though, seemingly with less malintent) social experiment meant to expose the ease in which swamis/gurus/prophets/babas/etc can exploit people’s desires for truth and connection. I knew he was fake the whole time. They tell you right from the beginning, and then you follow him on his journey to become the false-prophet Kumare, and gain a following, but I found myself compelled by his persona the whole time.

What is it about the search for a guru that compels me so much?   I WANTED to believe in what he was saying and who he was. It’s crazy the feeling that I had while watching it, because I am normally the most skeptical person ever.I sit in church and pick apart the sermon. I read and analyze and am open to learning, and yet in so many other ways I simply give in to emotion and believe random things that come along that just “feel” right to me.

So why do I feel like I want a guru/teacher? In my mind I envision sitting at Jesus’ feet and it feels SO RIGHT, but he’s not here anymore, and in so many ways I feel like his message has been twisted and changed by the church and pastors to mean something different than it was intended. It makes people feel unloved and unaccepted, and that’s not what I believe to be true.

In so many ways I have felt a part of a spiritual community in our home church, but now with a little-one and a church comprised of 70+year old grandparents, and virtually no under 3 child program or way of me getting my spiritual needs met while Potamus gets his spiritual needs met, leaves me feeling frustrated. And yet I’m not inclined to go to the neighborhood rock n’ roll church with a preacher I disagree with, simply because they have a “good child program.” I also don’t want to drive a bazillion years to get to church, because I like that ours is in the heart of our town and is such a community feel. I wrestle with my motivation for wanting to go and my motivation for wanting to stay home. And my desire for Potamus to have spirituality as a foundation, but wanting to steer away from the way my fundamentalist upbringing.  I know that I believe being a part of a community is important, but if I were to say I have a “guru” it’d be in the form of writers like Anne Lamott or Donald Miller or Brian McLaren. But part of me wants to sit at the feet of a teacher and experience the love. Ya know?

Thoughts? What influences you spiritually? Do you have a teacher you resonate with? Have you seen Kumare? What were your thoughts on it?

Craigslist Joe: A Movie Review

A student in class was referencing this documentary, in relation to one of our in-class discussions, and it made me think that I might want to check it out, perhaps as a documentary to show future classes. The premise, follow Joe, for 31 days, as he lives and travels off Craigslist. He sets out with no money, and bums around the country on the backs of kind strangers. It’s to take a critical look at the interesection of community and technology, and attempts to show how kind and generous the American people really are.

And, it sorta failed.

Okay, it maybe wasn’t a fail in the grand scheme, because he accomplished his goal, but I somehow left feeling more depressed and sad about the state of this country than before. What I think I experienced was a disconnect between what HE experienced (in his own words, ‘inspiring’) and what I experienced sitting here watching it, which was, less-than inspiring. I think that I’m bumping up against the way it was documented, the drabness of color and slow-paced nature of the filming. I found myself, about halfway through, thinking “dear God when will this be over,” and felt like the people who helped Joe out on his Craigslist journey were other ‘bums’ and hobos and traveling types. I didn’t see many rich people offering for him to stay in their houses or drive their Mercedes across country. It was college students and musicians and others, who probably would have and will continue to offer rides, regardless of whether someone is filming them for a documentary. And that doesn’t make it BAD, it just didn’t feel all that exciting. In fact, I feel like I saw a documentary or something awhile back that showed a similar experience of somone bumming around the country and it was much more exciting, though I can’t remember the title of it.

Though, it’s not that I wouldn’t recommend it, because it does show an interesting social experiment carried to fruition. And yet, I think I would rather have read it, on a blog, or in a memoir, because the rich description that could have happened would probably be more entertaining than drab photography. Which makes me wonder if I have an addiction to excitement in documentaries or if I’m addicted to my own imagination, rather than seeing the beauty of his experience.

 

Anna Karenina: A Movie Review

There is nothing like celebrating one’s 30th birthday, than with a Russian tragedy, er, love story. At least that’s what I convinced myself, and Boof, when he pressured to know how I wanted to spend today. I am usually terrible about thinking of celebratory things (especially things that don’t involve spending $100 on filet mignon at Daniel’s Broiler in Lake Union). But Anna Karenina is one of my favorite stories, a thick Russian love story/tragedy that occupied one good summer while I was lifeguarding and dreaming of someday being in love and married and possibly a mom.

I remember being confused at first, with a huge list of characters to memorize, and the Russian way of using nicknames and surnames that change, it was quite a challenge, and yet, I was drawn to the story, the woman: Anna. Tolstoy had this beautifully magic way of making her come alive on the page, and it was almost as if he was telling a story that was buried inside my soul, which shows his ability to not only relate to the greater human condition, but somehow understand a little about what goes on inside the hearts and minds of women. And the fact that I believed and knew and related so much to this beautifully awful complex woman made the ending that much more tragic.

But not so, in the movie.

The movie failed to capture the complexities of Anna, instead, the beautiful cinemetography and lack of substantial dialogue or even an omnipresent narrator given the task of explaining her innermost thoughts (they could have done with more actual quotes from the novel, I think), left the character of Anna more on par with that of Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attractions. She seemed mad with love, and yet it didn’t seem pure or good or anything explainable other than lusty desire and…madness, in the film. The character of Vronsky was also flat, and gave me, the viewer, little insight into what made him tick (besides his penis picking Anna) and failed to leave me with any reason why Anna would have picked him, even if it was with her ‘heart.’ If looks were the reason that brought them together, then character casting could have done a better job, at that. Because I knew the ending already, I was almost looking forward to her suicide, thinking, “when will Anna finally jump in front of the train,” which was a thought that caught me off guard since I so understood her in the book.

Because of my preconceived notions from the story, I was actually surprised that I felt a compassion and empathy with Anna’s husband, who appeared in the film as a man who had done nothing at all to deserve the roller coaster ride that she put him on. I wonder, is it age or wisdom or simply the movie-maker’s take on the story that has changed my experience of Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin.The setting, filmed as if this were a play, added confusion to the storyline and I felt like it was trying to hard, though the actual filming of the scenes were beautiful.

In the end, though, I am happy I saw the movie, even if it was only a pure escape for two hours. I so rarely get to sit in a theater and enjoy myself, so that was a real treat. And I am happy that I laid my fantasies about the story aside and got to see a different view of the same old tale of love and loss.

But I’ll leave you with a quote from the book:

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts on the book or the movie or both?

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey: A Movie Review

I wasn’t allowed to watch much television as a child, save Mr. Rogers, so my experience with The Muppets and Sesame Street is rather limited. My conservative Christina parents did not like that Count Dracula was a vampire, and had various other misgivings about the whole Jim Henson world, so my exposure is a few random snippets of the shows over the years. However, I was around during the Tickle-Me-Elmo phase, and while mystified by the appeal of a squeling red doll, I did recognize that The Muppets and Sesame Street characters were influential to most of my peers. In fact, thanks to my height, Big Bird, was one of my nicknames growing up!

So, in looking for documentaries that showcase career development or overcoming obstacles, I came across Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, which chronicled the life and work of Kevil Clash, as he pursued his dream of being a puppeteer, and eventually gave Elmo the voice and character that we know today. While thinking of myself as a reasonably interested individual, the ADD media generation has certainly worn off on me, so I give documentaries about 5 (long feeling) minutes to grab my attention. If the documentary fails to draw me in in that time, no matter how good it might get further along, I am done and moving on to the next one. This is what happened while prepping for my lesson. I started on documentary and BLOOP moved onto another and BLOOP moved on to another until FINALLY I stumbled across Being Elmo.

I was skeptical at first. How would this relate to my life, let alone the lives of my students? But hot dang, the first five minutes went by and I was rivited. The storytelling is magical, and really shows how Kevin followed his dream against the odds and ended up doing something that he loves. While I did feel that it was redundant toward the end (think minutes last 10 minutes), the fact that it kept my attention for so long was amazing.

So regardless of whether you grew up loving The Muppets or Sesame Street, or, like me, you have limited exposure to it, this documentary will entertain you and leave you inspired. I am excited to share the story with my students, in hopes to inspire them to follow THEIR dreams like Kevin did!