Tonight Tom and I will be attending a non-Valentine party at a friend of a friend's place, where people will be consuming vast quantities of chocolate and watching decidedly un-romantic movies. I'm bringing home-made "Krackel" bars, which I made by melting down two pounds of non-dairy chocolate chips and adding some puffed oat cereal I found at the greenie-weenie organic grocery. I figured out afterwards that I could have fashioned actual bars by pressing the mixture between two layers of plastic wrap, then notching it after it had halfway cooled. As it is I ended up with "turtle" style chocolates. They taste great, though, and should be welcomed at the party.
I wonder what movies will be shown at the party. If I were creating the program, I'd select:
Illy's getting over her Tuesday spaying procedure (speaking of surgery) okay. She was constipated, but on the advice of the surgery technician we found some high-fiber food and her plumbing is working normally again. The technician had suggested that we give her pumpkin pie filling. Since it proved impossible to find this time of year, I tried feeding her a jar of baby-food sweet potatoes, which she lapped up happily after a few unsure sniffs.
Actually she's making this entry difficult to write because she keeps interrupting my arm movements by butting her head up against my wrist and shoulder, to which I respond by rubbing her neck and saying, "Well I WUV YOU TOOOOO, kitty, yes, I DO." She's so nicely socialized to humans compared to Probat.
Last night's movie was
Ma Vie
en rose. Plot: French boy of seven wants to be a girl instead.
Strong performances from the actors playing the boy Ludo and his father;
fair-to-middling performances from the actresses playing Ludo's mother and
grandmother. Amusingly yet realistically written for the real-world action;
charmingly written for the sequences in Ludo's fantasy world. I confess
that, when I was seven years old, Ludo's favorite TV show ("Pam's World,"
a sort of Princess Barbie idea) would have been my favorite, too, just in
line with the games me and my buddy Stuart R. used to play. One interesting
trick the director chose to play was to show Ludo's fantasy experiences as
taking place in real time, step-in-step with the rest of the film's action.
The dialogue during the family arguments was refreshingly realistic; perhaps
much of it was improvised or written from improvisation during rehearsals
(I especially liked Ludo's sister chiding their father, "On n'est pas sourds!
[We aren't deaf!]" during one of the first family altercations, and then
reprising that role by turning and giving Dad harsh looks when he would raise
his voice excessively in later discussions).
One review I read called the film's ending too "tidy." I disagree. The tone of the film would have been inconsistent and unsatisfying with a different, "untidy" ending. What's more, a less tidy ending would have stretched the film to longer than its pleasant 88 minutes, and we all know how I feel about overlong movies. This film is recommended.
