Reel Reviews

Into The Woods -- My hearing must be going. Once again I've watched a movie where I couldn't hear a lot of the dialogue--in this case, in musical form--over all the background noise and orchestration. Alas, the burden of getting old. The fact that that is my concern when thinking about this film is a warning sign; it's a movie that promises much but delivers not nearly enough. I'm not sure the "wisdom" of the fairy tale rewrites is all that wise; folk wisdom gets to be folk wisdom for a reason, and you coming along with your jaded worldview does not necessarily change everything. Oh well; at least you get to spend a chunk of a couple of hours with the awesomeness that is Anna Kendrick, so that's something.

Bitching and Cunting: a Definition of Terms

Folks tend to be imprecise in their use of words. We've discussed this before in this space, in a post about the definition of stupidity and insanity, among other things. Another place where the subtle difference between similar words causes confusion lies in the space between the terms 'bitching' and 'cunting.'

Almost everyone is familiar with bitching. We've all bitched about this, that, or the other thing now and then. You're bitching when you say, "Dammit, why do I have to do this now? This is so stupid!" whenever your boss asks you to finish those "TPS reports" by the end of today, Friday, when you know perfectly well that no one will even be in the office to look at them until Tuesday at the earliest. Bitching is a form of complaining; it springs from a place of feeling abused, put upon, mistreated, or just simply frustrated. Bitching is complaining that comes from a place of--or at least, the perception of being in a position of--powerlessness.

Reel Reviews

Annie (2014) -- It's tempting to view this "colorized" version of the old musical as something gimmicky and as an unwarranted attempt to "update" the look of what has long been considered a classic, but as you watch this film, it becomes clearer and clearer that this is a legitimate re-telling of the tale. Indeed, this is probably how the story should play in today's world; we should expect a modern-day Annie would be more Quvenzhané Wallis than Andrea McArdle. Having never seen the play or original movie (or even read the comic strip, for that matter), I have no opinion on how "true" to the original this version is; I just can testify that the story remains strong, its modern touches make sense and work within the plot, the cast of characters is well-represented here, and the performances are mostly true and done well. This seems to have been an overlooked work when it came out, and unfairly so; I suspect most viewers will appreciate it greatly and enjoy it very much.