Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

The Colorblind Art Teacher

The Colorblind Art Teacher is a series of minicomics drawn by Mark Teel, who is, in fact, a color blind art teacher. Teel is not a stranger to the world of comics; he’s been writing and drawing them since he was in high-school, but this is his first effort at a widely-marketed publication. At our house we get the comic books, which come out roughly quarterly, in the mail at our house, and we also get the “webisodes” on his site, Bored Beyond Belief.

The Colorblind Art Teacher is chiefly autobiographical, and since Mark is 36, will appeal to any GenXer who remembers Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the Thriller album. Even as a child, Mark was involved in pop culture, but never as a mindless participant, as so many were and are. Mark has always had a sense of the absurdity of things, the ridiculousness of the extremes that popular culture embraces, and that insight has always come out in some hysterical and biting satire.

In this new series, he turns his instinct for satire on himself. Mark seems to live in an in-between place, like so many of our generation do, where childhood is still real but we have adult repsonsibilities to meet every day. His comic goes back and forth between the two as we watch him try to parent his precocious daughter Audrey. Audrey is, in the comics and in real life, a mini-Mark, as Mark demonstrates by flashing back to his own childhood, and showing his parents trying to deal with him in strikingly similar situations.

The juxtaposition is always funny, especially for those of us who still think of ourselves in some sense as those children, and are sometimes bemused by a fate that would allow us to be parents.

Mark’s drawings are clean and expressive, done in black and white with little extranneous detail, and somehow reflect both a hard-won adult insight and a childlike joy that allow us to enter into some challenging experiences and come out of it chuckling. He holds family life in high regard, and places himself as the target of most of the humor; because of those two things, we are able to both sympathize and laugh.

You can go to Mark’s Website, Bored Beyond Belief, and buy paper copies of The Colorblind Art Teacher. While you’re there, read the past several webisodes, and don’t forget to leave a comment!

In its 5-day, international opening earnings, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince broke the record for the most money earned internationally, beating the previous record holder, Spider-Man 3.  HBP earned $237 million internationally, in addition to the nearly $160 million it brought in domestically, for a global total of over $397 million.  That makes it the biggest5-day opening EVER.

The last film that was made of the classic 60’s TV show, The Twilight Zone, was made by Warner Brothers in 1983.  That one was a series of short, self-contained film written, directed, and produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis, along with a few other directors.  At least one of those was a revision of an old Twilight Zone episode, but others were new, more “in the spirit” of the Twilight Zone.

Now WB is planning to do it again, but instead of Landis and Spielberg, it’s Ravich and DiCaprio.  Rand Ravich is a multitalented director and producer who has been hired by Leonardo Di Caprio’s Appian Way production corporation to screen-write the new film.

Sources say that this film will be different from the 1983 version of the Twilight Zone.  Instead of a collection of episodes, like the old TV show, DiCaprio and Ravich plan for this movie to be a single, long-playing narrative. DiCaprio is a life-long Twilight Zone fan and has apparently been looking to start this project for a long time.

UPDATE 7/17:  MORE NUMBERS ARE IN! 

Half Blood Prince opened at $104 million in its first 24 hours, when international totals are factored in (as they generally are for all opening day stats).  So, the 6th Potter movie has far surpassed Transformers 2 and is well on the way to giving int a 5-day spanking.

Take THAT, Transformers!

For those who love the boy wizard, there’s good news and bad news about this week’s opening stats so far. Now keep in mind they aren’t completed, because a movie that opens on a Wednesday gets to count its 5-day opening (this is why they do these big films on Wednesdays instead of Fridays). And, obviously all we can count so far is the opening day numbers.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the 6th in the 7-book, 8-movie series, grossed $58.4 million in its first day.  Now, for those of you who, like me, are numerically challenged, that’s WAY above opening day stats for the 5th movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Phoenix garnered $4 million on its first day.  Adding to the impressiveness of the stats, almost of third of that take came from midnight showings–the earliest possible moment a true fan could see the film.  Midnight showings garnered over $22 million.

However, Potter fans will be anything from irritated to appalled to learn that Transformers 2 grossed $60 million on its first day, and about $200 million in its first 5 days.  Half Blood Prince is only predicted to gross about $150 million.  Of course, that “only ” is only in comparison to Transformers 2; $150 million is still a huge amount of money and puts Half Blood Prince in the top 5 highest opening week earners of all time. 

We just had another good movie-watching holiday roll by.  Independence Day is one of the most fun days for films, because when Hollywood wants to do up patriotism, they do it up well.  Anyway, here’s what we watched for this Independence Day:

Independence Day

Yankee Doodle Dandy

1776

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Images courtesy of www.harryconnickjr.com, www.tvworthwatching.com, www.povonlin.com, www.dvdbeaver.com

So, what did anyone else watch for the 4th?

Snowfall

By K.M. Peyton

Scholastic, 1998

The idea for Snowfall began when K.M. Peyton read a news story about the finding of a body encased in ice in the Alps.  It was a young climber who had been lost in an avalanche some seventy years ago, and the woman who had been his lover came to see him again after all the intervening years.  Peyton was so enchanted by their story, she wrote a novel about them.

In Peyton’s book, Snowfall, the woman’s name is Charlotte.  She is sixteen when the story begins, and longing to escape the extremely restrictive world of her grandfather’s Victorian vicarage.  The company of old people is stifling, and the social life that revolves around the village church is less than satisfying.  Her grandfather is pressuring her to marry the curate, a young man who, to Charlotte’s eyes, represents everything she does not want for herself and her future.  Peyton captures the restlessness of the teen years brilliantly, including the undefined sexual longings that charge Charlotte’s imagination.  Adding to her restlessness is the fact that her older brother, Ben, is at university, where women do go, but apparently this isn’t a choice for Charlotte, and in the light of her brother’s freedoms, her own limitations chafe even more.  

Through some deception and manipulation, Charlotte gets her grandfather to agree to let her go on a mountain climbing trip in the Alps with Ben and his university friends.  A whole new world opens up to Charlotte, not only geographically—since she has never been out of her village before—but socially and relationally.  The center of her brother’s social group is the handsome, charismatic Milo, who is wealthy, privileged, and troubled in ways that Charlotte learns about through the course of the book.  Charlotte falls in love, has her heart broken, and has to make some choices about her own future.

Another aspect of late adolescence that Payton captures very well is the fierce loyalty to friends that consumes the teenage heart.  This is something that hasn’t changed about teenagers; their first loyalties shift from family to their circle of friends, though they do eventually balance out in the end.  This can be seen in Charlotte’s case in her deception of her grandfather and her subsequent neglect of him.  We know that Charlotte is maturing when she finally comes to accept her responsibilities toward the man who raised her, though she does not accept the restrictive plans he wants to make for her life. 

Charlotte and her friends all take positions running Milo’s country estate, where they pretend to be a domestic staff when such a staff is required, but for the most part they are all just friends, and Milo is the greater among equals.  This is an unusual arrangement for late Victorian England, in that it is not hierarchical, but based on complementary roles and skills.  Peyton gives Charlotte three mirrors to reflect herself in:  Queenie, her “maid,” who represents sexual freedom and its consequences, Phyllida, who represents intellectualism as both liberating and yet another box to put women in, and Kitty, who represents mature, generous, and maternal love—a kind of love Charlotte had never known.  Each provides an important piece of Charlotte’s development as she learns what kind of person she hopes to be and begins to take control of her own destiny.

I would recommend Snowfall for any age of young reader—either middle school or high school.  I think high schoolers are more likely to understand the historical context and the emotions driving Charlotte’s actions, but that still wouldn’t exclude mature middle schoolers from finding a point of connection in the story.  Peyton has done an excellent job in this novel of making a news story come to life. 

While I do feel deeply the tragedies of untimely deaths like those of Natasha Richardson and Michael Jackson, I can’t help but grieve for the old guys, too, the ones whose passing is the end of an era. 

Another one of those passed on this week.  Karl Malden, 97, died of natural causes, surrounded by his family and friends in his Brentwood, California home.  He’s probably best known for his roles opposite Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. 

In 1951’s Streetcar, Malden played Mitch, the down-to-earth working class suitor of Blance DuBois (played by Jessica Tandy)–a role he originated on Broadway.  That role won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Three years later, in 1954’s Waterfront, he again played opposite Brando as Father Corrigan, a priest who took the side of the working man, garnering another Occar nomination.  He was also famous for his role as Lt. Mike Stone in the 70’s TV show, “The Streets of San Francisco.”  He received 5 Emmy nominations for that role.

He also served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1989 to 1992.  The Screen Actors’ Guild honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

If you’re my age (over 30…), you might remember him as the actor who first introduced an American Express advertizing campaign with the immortal words, “Don’t leave home with it.”

In the middle of establishing that long and remarkable career, he took time out to serve in the US Army Air Corps during World War II.  He was married to his wife Mona for 70 years.

Rest in peace, Karl.  You have a lot of company up there these days.