Confused.

Yesterday's double feature was Pinocchio and W. Warning: Here be spoilers :)

Both confused me, but thoroughly entertained me. Here's why:

Pinocchio - classic children's movie. But I do not think Leah will watch this movie until she's in high school. It starts with the cheesy, motivational, when you wish upon a star theme, but once Pinocchio comes alive, it's all downhill. He is kidnapped not once, but twice by bad men who want to exploit him. Then he goes to some carnival where little boys smoke cigars, play pool, and drink some concoction that turns them into donkeys? Seriously?

Once he somehow gets free of the donkey juice, he returns to Geppetto's to find him, Cleo, and Figaro gone. Where are they? Looking for their wooden boy/puppet creation? No. They are in the belly of a whale Can this kid get a break?

Anyways, somehow he makes the whale sneeze and out come Geppetto and his pets. And I think they lived happily ever after. I covered my eyes after the Monstro incident, scared of what else might curse this poor puppet... :)

So, bottom line is if I let Leah watch this movie, I must be prepared to talk about kidnapping, exploitation special talents, fox and mouse combos who walk the streets and lure you away to the circus, etc. I'm not ready for that. Good thing Leah's not here yet.

And now for W. - We all know I'm no Bush fan, so I went into this movie thinking it would make fun of his outlandish one-liners (check), outline all the things he did wrong in his life (check), and make me feel like he was just some jack-ass who lived a spoiled, privileged, care-free life and had everything handed to him on a silver platter (half a check). But I wasn't expecting the pity I felt for him, or a new feeling that we might have misunderstood what was really going on the White House between 2000 and 2004. I know, I know Cecily...it's just a movie. I'm not sure what feelings Oliver Stone wanted me to have, but I have a feeling i was not supposed to empathize with W by the end.

I'll explain.

His whole life he was trying to prove something and get attention from his father. Jeb was the favorite son, and W acted out to get daddy's attention. After he was done effing around and getting C averages at Yale and Harvard business school, he decided he wanted to go into politics. Instead of George HW saying "good for you, son" he told him he wasn't a politician-type. He was never supportive of W, because he was trying to promote his own political career. Once W was successful at politics (according to Texas' 19th district), he decided to run for Governor. Once again, HW wanted W to take a backseat to Jeb, who was already running for Governor of Florida. He ran anyways, and won, while Jeb lost.

Skip ahead several years and W is in the post-9/11 White House. His closest allies are Colin Powell, Condy Rice (who is portrayed as whiny and meek in the film - I don't think that's the case), Karl Rove, and of course, shot-my-friend-in-the-face Cheney. This team convinced him there were WMD's in the middle east and didn't stop until we were at war. I feel like he was their puppet, and when he was taking the fall for the lack of said WMD's, they no longer wanted to be his ally. They jumped ship and he was left to pick up the pieces.

Whether or not any of the specific conversations in the movie actually took place, the W I watched on screen for 2 hours is not a man that deserved the public lashing that he took. Real life W is different.

That's my take. Bush fan or not, I think this movie was well-made.

Influenza

I'm not sure why I've never gotten a flu shot, but now that I am experiencing the flu as a an adult who can't just put life on hold, stay home from school, and have mommy take care of me, I will be first in line next season.

I have been in the house since Saturday, except for a trip to the grocery store for bread and Best Buy for Pinocchio. While that sucks, having the flu is good for catching up on movies that I've been wanting to check off my list.

Here are the ones I've watched, in no particular order, along with some commentary.

A Haunting in Connecticut - no not the movie that's not out yet, the Discovery channel version of the story.

Them - French flick that The Strangers is based on. Very good, and there's really no need for the subtitles because most of the movie is people being chased in the woods. The sound of terror is pretty much the same in any language.

The Changeling - great movie. The saddest part about it is that it's true - a boy goes missing and the police return some random kid to the mother to make it look like they solved a crime. But I'm glad to see how far the LAPD has come since the 20's, when it was corrupt - oh wait...

Over her dead body - waste of 2 hours, but once I started, I was committed and couldn't turn it off. I liked it the first time when it was called GHOST.

Zack and Miri make a porno - yep you guessed it. SPOILER ALERT - Best friends decide to make a porno to make money because they're broke. They have sexual tension but act like they hate each other. They have sex (a scene for their porno, of course) and literally in the middle of it, they decide they're in love. And then there's the obligatory romantic comedy break-up and make-up. Roll credits.

I feel like that only accounts for 10 hours of my time, which makes me wonder where the other hours have gone. I've been high on codeine, so I'll blame it on that.



Today, I have cabin fever, so I made myself a message board for my craft room. I have a bulletin board in there now, but it's a bulky, dorm-room style cork board, so I wanted to upgrade a little. Here's a pic:


Lastly, with the springtime weather we've been having, some flowers have bloomed in our front beds - here's our first of the season: