United States of Tara
So I finally, since I’m sick as a dog this week (my whooping cough culture is on the way to the lab at this Very Moment!), tracked down an episode of the United States of Tara show to watch. I don’t have cable or Showtime, but this is maybe one of the few times I’m a bit sad about that. Because I love Toni Colette and if anyone’s going to do a multiple on TV, I’m kind of glad it’s her. And Diablo Cody is smart, and I like that.
So, predisposed for the show and I watched Episode 2.
I liked it. I’m actually kind of excited about it and hoping to order the DVD collection so that one day perhaps I can watch it with Noah. When he’s like, very very old.
So here’s what I liked: Tara, the multiple, is not a serial killer, nor a psychopathic superhero. These are really both good and unusual things in pop culture. I think Colette is doing an amazing job making the people (they use alters, which I recognize as necessary but am not super fond of) come alive in a fairly 3-d way. Their motivations are human, not alien, and although there’s a bit of overexaggeration, well… sometimes multiples do that to distinguish themselves. Tara&al get pretty much a pass from me from that perspective.
I like how the family reacts to the different characters - when Kate, the daughter, goes after Alice with filthy sexy language, it’s priceless. And I like the character of Max the husband, although I keep thinking “Aidan, is this who you ended up with after Carrie? Grow a pair, dude!”
I think the show’s producers and writers are doing a really good job walking the line between making being multiple too light, and making it too heavy. In the episode I saw anyway, there was no horrible trauma; no wailing to the universe about sexual abuse. It was more about the inherent dysfunction of the whole family and situation. I’m fairly impressed by that and I hope it continues (if you want a consultation, email me!)
I find the most fantastic aspect so far is how the town accepts, more or less, Tara and her people. When Alice walked into the school and introduced herself as Alice I just about had a coronary. Maybe I’m too old-school of a multiple but my god. That’s one thing I have trouble picturing happening with a “real” multiple.
Because unless you’re really really really narcissistic, that’s just not appropriate to do at your child’s school. It’s just not, any more than it is okay to offer drugs at a parent-teacher conference. Yes, that’s an opinionated statement. But I’ll stand by it. When you show up at your kid’s school, you’re not there to define yourself. You’re there in your role as a parent and you should damn well show up as your legal identity. You can still kick Stepford wife ass if you like though, and Alice did. I found that realistic too; if there’s one thing our system agrees on, it’s don’t mess with our kid.
And then there are the parts where this show hit my discomfort zone. I hope that it deals, eventually, with some of these issues. But I find Tara and her system force me to react as a multiple. This is a good thing in television, really. So here’s my reaction.
First of all, I don’t know any functional systems that over years of adjustment cannot find a way to communicate a little bit better than Tara’s system does. The total amnesia is good television, but bad, bad multiplicity. I understand that she’s been on meds and she’s readjusting, but I hope that this changes over time. The “family meeting to explain to Tara what happened when the alters were out” struck me as hopelessly codependent.
Tara’s system needs to learn to explain it to itself. The vast majority of functional multiples I know, which is the vast majority of multiples I know, are able to accomplish this. I’ll accept it as a plot device, but as far as getting it right goes - I don’t think this show is getting this totally right, at least not yet.
And secondly, I do think this show portrays some of the pitfalls I hope we don’t fall into as parents. And it makes it very uncomfortable (again, in a good way) to watch.
Here’s what I believe. I do believe in being real and not trying to lock everyone up and hide our differing opinions and points of view. But I also believe that above any need to know their parents’ hearts and souls, kids need to know first before all things that their parents are there for them. And if there is ever a reason to tone it the fuck down a little and not be “I’m Buck and I’m a dude,” it would be to not screw up your son. You know?
So when Alice prances into her 14 year old son’s room to ask him if he made pee pee in the bed, in a way that made it clear she wasn’t his mom, it bothered me. Or when she explained to her teenage daughter that “your mom loves you.” You have to own these things as a system, in my opinion, and if you don’t, you have to be quiet. When the son quietly went and put a towel down in his bed, it made me want to cry, for him.
And that’s not terrible in a tv show, really, because it kind of hit something on the head. But oh man. It is hard to watch. And I suppose because there just aren’t enough multiples out there in television I do worry that people will think “all multiples” are like that.
But, you know. No serial killing. Yet, anyway.
Sweeney Todd
I kind of have a love-hate relationship with Tim Burton. Love: Beetlejuice, Batman (of course). Hate: Big Fish, Planet of the Apes.
But when I say love, I mean: love. Beetlejuice for whatever quirky reason is one of the top ten comfort films of all time for us as a group.
And Batman… well I really should drag up one of my university friends and get them to come read this blog and comment on Batman. I got through the stress of first year university by obsessing on Batman, and I am not kidding when I say obsessing - my dorm room was covered in paraphenalia, I wore Batman jewelry, wrote two Batman “scripts” (nowadays I hear the kids call that fanfic, but back then, it was called “crazy stupid shit”) and booked the dorm television/vcr at 2 am every night to watch it again.
Oh yes and I bought every pot of poster paint in the town to paint a Batman mural in the stairwell of my dorm, which led to an offer to attend art classes in the fine arts program, which is highly fucking odd since I didn’t, at that time, draw or paint at all. I bet some of you did not realize how weird I am, or have been, huh?
But even now in my calm, supposedly outgrown fangirl way, I remember how Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and perhaps more to the point, Gotham city, with its purples and blacks, and Michael Keaton’s really nutso Batman just hit something, some deep nerve way down in the heart of our archetypal souls. For me particularly, I think, the core of it maybe was trauma turned to heroism - but not an easy heroism; a questionable, brooding, sick sort of crazy heroism.
Even with that creative debt though - a year longer of external stability filtered through images of urban dystopia? A film that almost no matter what, ever, can make us laugh even at suicidal impulses and questions of god and afterlife? - Big Fish almost did me in on the Tim Burton thing.
Also, since losing Emily, we have lost our skin for gore and even serial killer type movies. I’m not really referring to slash’n'hack stuff as that was never something that we were really into all that much; I mean more the Silence of the Lambs psychological twisty film or the weirdo pseudoreligion of things like The Order, which we used to enjoy. Pretty much anything dealing with death other than in Harry-Potter fashion has dropped off our movie going radar.
So I’m not really entirely sure how we ended up spending one of our precious moviegoing chits on Sweeney Todd, particularly since we went at a time that Lynn could not see it with Li, but we did. And am I ever glad. This one definitely goes on the love list.
I didn’t have any real exposure to the musical, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. We do like Sondheim enough to have been concerned about the whole film adaptation thing, but I think it worked beautifully. Sure, some of the singers - ok, the women - would have had a really hard time carrying it onstage, but it didn’t really matter because it was so closely shot and so well acted that all they had to do was not suck.
And Johnny Depp proved once again that he just does immoral so well. His energy was astounding - the scene where he paces above the customers at the pie shop was so feral and predatorial that you have to wonder if he isn’t part - I don’t know, goth-tiger, or something. Helena Bonham Carter was the real surprise though, because it is very, very hard to carry off sociopathic and yet lovesick without becoming some kind of Hannibal Lecter charicature, but she took the part and made it her own.
But once again what really sucked us in was the world. Tim Burton’s London wasn’t a reprise of Gotham but its own, bleak, Victorian sort of ignorant, stupid evil. A world half a step to the left where one can be a little gleeful about serial killing just because - everything is so sick. The whole film was very, very nice visually - impressionistic where the gore was concerned, playful, somber, brooding and yet jeweled. It matched the story beautifully, I think - but I also think it hit that nerve in us again, that over-the-top, we-know-this-isn’t-real but it-feels-like-inside anyway. So I think I’m in love again.
This is clearly not an unbiased review but in the spirit of service blogging I will add that there are a couple of weaknesses, even if your taste runs to the amusingly macabre. (And if it doesn’t, stay away.) The love story was truncated to the point of being almost squirmingly ridiculous. Alan Rickman was brilliant but a little underutilized. Bonham Carter’s singing would probably be a bit hard to take for anyone more vocally trained than us. And if you don’t like Sondheim, obviously, you are not going to like this film one bit.
But if it’s up your alley, go see it anyway.
Parliament rulz!
If you read between the lines (not hard) on this one you’ll see something like this:
Stephen Harper had to appease his neo-con backers so he put a motion forward that was destined to fail. He wanted it to fail, though, because he wants to win more seats next election and he knows that he’s more likely to get them if he stays the fuck out of people’s bedrooms and doesn’t try to get around the Supreme Court of Canada.
I am not snarking the country of my birth (the US) here, at least not much, but this is yet another reason I am glad to stay on the side of my naturalized home. Because gay marriage has not yet threatened mine or turned child molesters loose on my street, you know?
Personally I am becoming impressed with Harper’s intelligence and willingness to pretend he is not the crazy right-wing guy his history seems to indicate that he is. He is a leader, actually, and I’m surprised. He’s not leading in a direction I particularly want to go, but I am admiring his style balancing a minority government. (Even if his foreign policy is so whacked he loses even style points for that.)
LOTR: The Musical
(Edit: a rare picture of me, since usually I take the pictures. This is the only dressy suit I have left that almost fits me (the rest are more noticeably too big or else too small across the chest thanks to breastfeeding) and yes, I need a haircut as usual. And that is me being silly about my Volvo. :))
I did indeed leave Noah with Carl and go to my mother’s 7-hr long birthday party. Noah did just fine: drank breast milk from his sippy, went to bed on time (go bedtime routine!), got up at about the usual time if he’s going to get up twice, and probably would have gone right back down if I hadn’t arrived. At which point he nursed like he’d been starved for weeks (despite all the ounces taken by sippy).
And I saw Lord of the Rings the musical, in its world premiere. (err not THE NIGHT premiere, but the first production. Sorry :))
The staging was amazing. Whoever wrote the two-page precis of the plot deserves a literary award for squishing it all into the programme. Some of the music was pretty ok, the non-song part. And there was a lot of artistry of movement and athleticism in terms of dance and puppetry and portrayal of various races.
(Except. Flying Elves. What. the. fuck?)
But. Gandalf was simply awful - like, terrible. As in I was cheering for his death. And not a memorable song in the score, and most of the songs worse than not memorable. And the singing on the part of the men was terrible (Arwen and Galadriel were more than fine). Terrible. Magdalynn got a headache from the harmony or lack thereof and the way they couldn’t stay with the orchestra. As in the music stopping and then the singers.
They did a decent job telling the story - literally having to tell it like:
Gandalf: It is fortunate indeed that my friend the eagle was able to rescue me from Sauroman’s tower.
… to fit it in.
Ooookay. I mean, obviously they were going to have to. But the amount of dumbing down was annoying and as my brother in law said, maybe the whole concept was simply a bad idea.
So despite my slight fond spot for musicals and Canadian talent, I recommend waiting to spend your money on Wicked.
Harry Potter! (plot spoilers after the dashed line)
Yes, we actually made it to a Movie for Mommies. And it was glorious. Here’s how it happened.
I believe the system mentioned 657453 times that Goblet of Fire (henceforth GoF) was playing on Wednesday at 1 pm at Yonge & Eglinton. And that it would be so cool to go. But Carl had a meeting up at his work that day and so needed the car and it did not seem likely that we would be going. Until he showed up just in time for us to bundle Noah into his car seat and take off.
In the elevator we met several other mommies with babies and even a dad, and outside the theatre there were several other dads also, and parents of both genders blowing the afternoon off as Carl was, talking into their cell phones: “I’m just going into a meeting but I’ll call you back at 4….” This reminds me of how sexist the “Movies for Mommies” name is.
But with 5 change stations set up outside the theatre and a stroller parking area and a friendly attitude towards crying babies, how can I really be grumpy with the organizers? I felt the love. I was in love with the ushers, and in love with all the mommies and babies that filled - and I do mean relatively filled; there were at least 50 babies there - the theatre, all jonesing for Harry-Potter-with-option-to-breastfeed. I was just in love. I think it was the giddiness of getting to go to some arts-related event. Or it may just have been the Harry Potter Effect. But whatever it was, I was high the whole time and for some hours afterwards. Right until Carl left to get his dad from the train station, I’d say.
The sound was not as low as I would have liked, but it was lower than usual. When the lights went out Noah became fascinated and after a while I realized he hasn’t been in the utter dark much - we keep a nightlight on in our bedroom so I can watch him breathe any time, and we nurse with a small lamp on too. He would watch my face and breath faster when it was dark and then when the screen lit up my face he would suddenly beam at me, the way he does when I pick him up after a nap. I guess to him I was disappearing and appearing. He adjusted pretty fast - by the end of the previews. Of course there were a huge number of previews!
Getting mouth to tit in the dark was interesting too.
Noah was a trooper: he did fuss a little bit, mostly when dragons were screeching. For some reason, probably some mamalian backbrain that’s concerned about predators, most of the babies cried when the dragons were screeching. I also stood at the side and rocked him back and forth a bit after nursing, and he fell asleep. That plus one diaper change and that was all. He seemed to enjoy being held and to see some of the screen, although I kept turning him back towards me because it seems a bit brutal for a young baby, all that flashing and motion and lights.
We enjoyed the movie a lot. I do think this is probably the best adaptation although I liked the romantic flourishes of Alfonso Cuarón’s Azkaban quite a lot.
But this material was denser and there really was a right way to cut the book and a wrong way, and I think this nailed the right way since one had to do it. Mike Newell’s grey grey grey palette initially made me feel a bit grumpy but after about 20 minutes - and the flourishes of the camp and so on - it really did start to feel like, well, England. (Based on the whole 4 weeks total I have spent there at least, but one of those weeks was in March!) I think Newell understood what the story really was - the end of childhood - but managed not to beat everyone over the head with it.
But it was the actors who really floored me. There were almost no sour notes and Emma Watson in particular just, I thought, nailed it. I was amazed that I could even handle the overdone simpering on the part of the Beauxbatons witches because they somehow made it believable, at least after their initial entrance.
Plot spoiler ahead, although I do hope you’ve read it.
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It was also a unique way to watch this particular HP film. I think Newell handled Cedric’s death, and Harry’s return to the stadium, and Cedric’s father’s reaction, brilliantly and in an emotionally true way. And coming from me that says quite a lot. It would have been moving badly done; well done it was very moving; but what made it a completely overwhelming moment was to be watching it with an audience of almost all new parents. The shock and fear and darkness of it seemed to spill out from the screen and make everyone hold their babies a little closer.
I am really glad to have had that experience.