domesticana

Guantanamo

Last night we finally watched The Road to Guantanamo, and I have to admit I wasn't nearly as outraged as I expected to be. Yes, the prisoners were tortured and horribly mistreated, but not really to the extent I imagined. And yes, the American soldiers are ignorant. Perhaps I'm just desensitized to torture and stupidity, or maybe my imagination is extreme. Maybe it was the lack of maiming and brutal beating kind of torture. Maybe the hype killed it for me. It's not that I didn't feel sick watching what they went through—I guess I just expected it to be so much worse than what I saw.

Essentially, I thought this was a sad, rather scary story of a particularly unfortunate case of high-stakes mistaken identity.

A  group of privileged, early 20-something Pakistani Brits decided, on a lark, to take a trip into Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion to see if there was any way they could help the refugees. One thing led to another, and they found themselves in the middle of nowhere dodging U.S. bombs and finally being captured. Only three of the original group survived, and eventually they ended up in Guantanamo together. Separate from my sympathies watching all they went through, on some level I understood why they were detained. Certainly not for the length of time they were kept, without being charged or given access to a lawyer, but still. They were ex-pat Pakistani's from the UK found among Taliban rebels in Afghanistan—it's not too hard to see why their interrogators were confused. The fact that they had alibis in the UK points to a breakdown in the communication of "intelligence," and makes their story even more frustrating and sympathetic.

For me, the most disturbing part of the movie came from a Bush sound-byte in which he smugly described the captives being detained at Guantanamo. "They're killers. They don't have the same values as we do." Excuse me? Different values than whom? Americans? Is he talking about Muslims having different values than Christians? Does he only mean followers of the Taliban? Surely he's aware that many of the people detained had nothing to do with the Taliban. Who's his "we"? That statement is so egregiously single-minded. The mere notion, let alone actuality, that the leader of a nation, any nation, could say something so totally, freaking absurd is laughable and very, very scary to me. The fact that it's the leader of my nation makes me very, very embarrassed.

Movie buffs

As I've said before, I love movies. It's a family thing, I think. My mom oozes movie-worship--knows the names of practically every actor imaginable and all movies they've been in, talks about her favorite parts and quotes, watches the same movies over and over and has one of the most extensive DVD libraries I've ever seen. But not compared to her dad. The man is almost 80 years old, a retired aeronautical engineer (he fits the stereotype to a tee), and he recently set up a projection DVD system with full surround sound in his pre-fab retirement community home. It's awesome.

When he came to visit me last summer, I got him hooked into Netflix, and now he's a total fiend. He has the cheapest one at-a-time plan, but he works it like no one I've ever known. He gets a movie, burns the DVD and sends it back the same day. He downloaded some subscription software that allows him to overwrite the copyright protection on factory DVDs. Needless to say, he's not your average senior citizen.

So, it's really not at all surprising that Ella is a total freak for movies. She was the only 2 year old I know who would sit through an entire full-length feature without talking or squirming. She laughs at all the funny parts, cries (real tears) when things are sad or scary and doesn't want anyone to talk. We are just two peas in a pod, me and her.

A few months back, I took her to see Curious George with some friends. She was absolutely thrilled to go to the movie "thaleater," and I even caved for some popcorn and a $3 bottled water. As I looked around at the other kids in the darkened room, our friends included, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves but in that restless way that little kids can get. Ella, on the other hand, was glued to the screen. As soon as George started making trouble for the Man with the Yellow Hat, she started bawling. She was practically inconsolable when the yellow man was going to lose his job, and oh my god, forget about it when he told George he didn't want him around anymore. It was a river of tears for George.

She gave me her "are you nuts, Mom?" look when I suggested she might want to leave for all the crying. There was no way she could tear herself away. At the time, I seriously questioned my parenting. Is she freaking out? Is it too much? Maybe we should go... But just as soon as I was ready to haul her out of there, she would break out in a big grin, a completely sympathetic look on her face, and I could just see myself, the way I feel when I watch movies (or previews or commercials) that make me tear up or laugh or spit out my drink from my nose. As the credits rolled and all the other children started dancing to the adorable Jack Johnson soundtrack, Ella sat on my lap and cried about how much she loved it and how sad she felt that it was over.

Considering how much I love to watch movie trailers on my computer--I rarely go to a movie where I haven't seen all the previews beforehand, again I'm not surprised that Ella thinks it's the coolest thing ever. She begs to watch them almost daily, and Matt gives in way more often than I do. It's like their morning ritual: her cuddled on his lap, watching some silly cartoon preview or a preteen comedy that I'm sure she doesn't understand (and Matt hates). Yesterday as she was begging for just one more Daddy, please, please, she threw out a show-stopper.

"But Da-ad, movies are my PASSION."

He and I looked at each other with this holy-shit-she's-four laugh in our eyes, and he crumbled from the sheer how-can-I-not of it all. She already knows how to get what she wants from her Daddy.

Full Disclosure

As I've mentioned before, we don't watch television--no cable, no antennae (anymore) and no remote wars. However, it certainly wouldn't be honest to paint myself as someone who doesn't veg out in front of the TV practically every night.

We're a Netflix nightmare: the kind of household that watches frequently, returns quickly and actively manages a queue. They penalize us for it by slowing down the arrival of new releases, but I've figured out ways around their sneaky algorithms. If I really want to see a new release, I plan ahead. For instance, I knew Syriania was coming out on DVD this last Tuesday. All new releases come out on Tuesdays, by the way. So, I shipped a movie back on Friday, and had an opening in my line-up on Monday. I put Syriania in pole position, and they shipped it for Tuesday delivery.  If I miss that Monday shipment, Netflix will invariably tell me there's a LONG WAIT on a new release title. In some cases, I've waited months to get a new movie. Now that I've figured out my workaround, I rarely miss Mondays.

If you still can't tell, I'm a pretty obsessive movie watcher. Before Ella, I went to the theater about once a week, but now it's very rare that I take that time for myself. Besides, I can't knit in the dark.

The movies I choose to mention in my Recently Rented list are usually somewhat obscure titles about which I have a strong opinion and want to share. It in no way reflects the number of movies I rent. According to my Netflix account, I've rented about 360 movies from them in the last two years, which translates to about 3.4 movies a week. This too does not accurately account for the number of movies I've watched because there were the days when I got sick of the LONG LONG WAIT and rented it locally, and days when I watched movies with friends, and days when I went to the theater, and even days when I watched movies in hotels. Also, there were the movies I thought I wanted to watch but was just never in the mood--I just send them back and put them in my queue again for another time.

Okay, here it is. The staggering number. The truly embarrassing one. I've rated 1471 movies in my Netflix account. It didn't take as long as you might imagine. I get really great recommendations though.

When I write all of this down, I do realize it sounds kinda sick. Maybe that's why I've started this post about five times in the last couple years and keep deleting it before hitting SAVE.

In case you were wondering, I loved Syriania. Rent it if you get a chance....

The Interpreter

I spent Sunday afternoon with my good friend Jen, stealing away from the kids to see a movie (The Interpreter) downtown. We rode down together, had a snack, found good seats and generally enjoyed watching this new political thriller. How exciting for us moms to be seeing a new movie on opening weekend! Okay, so it was a matinee during naptime, but still...

Now, here's where I rant: Am I the only one who saw the huge, gaping hole in the plot. I won't spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, but I'm stunned by the lack of critical commentary about the most aggravating underestimation of an audience's intelligence in recent memory.

I thought it was beautifully shot and mostly well acted, and despite this one little thing that was nagging at me the whole time, something I was sure the ending would clear up because it was a rather large gap in the story, I enjoyed the movie. When the mystery was finally "unveiled," I felt so insulted that the precise thing I felt was overlooked throughout the story turned out to have been overlooked on purpose because, hey, that was the story (sort of).

It really pisses me off when a movie is targeted toward an older, more mature, intelligent audience and then it ends up being just plain lazy. I mean, the writers must have said to themselves, "Yeah, that's a hole, but no one will notice if we just add this big chase/explosion scene and throw in a little sexual tension." One of them (there were three writers) had to have noticed right?

So, I get online this afternoon and discover that none of the major critics are ticked about it at all. The reviews are decent--some good, some mediocre. I don't totally disagree with any of the reviews except that none of them said anything about that big hole...

... you know, the one that represents a truly preposterous oversight on the part of the entire U.S. intelligence collective (Secret Service, NSA, FBI, etc.)... Oh wait, what am I complaining about again? Maybe that's why no one thought it was a hole. Maybe the movie was supposed to be pointing the finger at Homeland Security...

If that's the case, nevermind. But, I think I may be giving them more credit than they're due.