Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

Lily’s Crossing

By Patricia Reilly Giff

Image courtesy of www.myutopia36.blogspot.com

I was sixteen when I realized that words can have serious consequences. I had become a habitual liar, lying for no reason at all, just because I could. Looking back, I think it was my way of asserting my independence; I could tell my mom I was at Diane’s house when I was really at Heather’s, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. But I soon began to understand that those kinds of lies were shaping my character, and I wasn’t becoming the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be upstanding, forthright, and honorable. Sneaking around and telling pointless lies was moving me in the opposite direction.

Lily Mollahan learned that lesson at a much younger age than I did. In Patricia Reilly Giff’s book, Lily’s Crossing, Lily is an uncomfortable, awkward eleven. She’s not awkward because of her approaching adolescence, but because she isn’t sure where she fits in her own life. World War II is raging, her father has been sent overseas, her mother is dead, and her grandmother keeps a short enough leash on Lily to incur Lily’s resentment. So, Lily tells lies.

As an adult reader, my reaction to Lily’s lies that these aren’t lies at all; they’re stories. Lily is a reflection of Giff herself as a child, spending summers in Rockaway Beach during the war and telling stories to keep herself from worrying too much, so we can watch Lily blossoming into a writer of depth and emotional understanding much as Giff has done. But Lily is a child, and all children know that lying is wrong. Lily struggles with her imagination, her streak of rebellion and resentment, and the undercurrent of loneliness that flows beneath it all.

Then she meets Albert, a Hungarian refugee from the war staying with relatives at Rockaway Beach. Albert teases and challenges her, and Lily finds she has no defenses against someone like him. Before long the two have become fast friends, sharing their loneliness as well as their failures. And, sadly, each has experienced sins and faults in themselves and each other that endanger everything they have built together. Lily tells Albert a beautiful “lie,” designed to make him feel better and give him hope. But Albert believes in Lily too much, and in the end, Lily must rescue him from the danger she put him in in the first place.

Lily’s Crossing might refer to the perilous journey across the bay that Lily is forced to make. But like all good titles, it has a double meaning. Lily’s Crossing is the journey from self pity to self sacrifice, from fear to courage, from resentment to understanding, from shutting others out to letting them in. Through all those things, Lily crosses over from being a person even she doesn’t like, to being a person she can like and accept. It’s a journey we all have to take in our own ways, and Giff explores it beautifully and compassionately in this Newberry Honor Book. Anyone, young reader or adult, might see their own journey reflected in Lily’s.

This article is hysterical! It’s got the whole Karate Kid movie (the first one, of course, duh) done in tweets!  It’s like the 80’s crashed into the 00’s and made a funny baby!

Here are a few excerpts:

Went to find maintenance guy. Found old Japanese dude with Bonzai headband waving chopsticks in air. WTF?!?
12:43 PM Aug 22nd, 1984 from UberTwitter

Today, I was at a beach party, teaching this hot chick some soccer skills & her a-hole boyfriend and his friends jumped me. FML.
4:03 AM Aug 25th, 1984 from Twitter

Not gonna lie, kinda nervous for 1st day of school. At least if it floods I’ll be OK. http://twitpic.com/xz32as
7:45 AM Aug 26th, 1984 from UberTwitter

And later:

OMG, riding home, a-hole guy and his friends drove me off the road. Bike’s busted. I hate the Valley.
9:30 PM Sep 14th, 1984 from Twitter

See I’m not the only one! RT @zackmorris: Valley sucks!
9:34 PM Sep 14th, 1984 from Twitter

Old Japanese maintenance guy fixed my bike. Then trapped me in lecture about bonsai trees. Not worth it.
11:02 PM Sep 15th, 1984 from Twitter

I’m giving you all the best ones!

Kinda wondering what happened to my neighbor @freddyfernandez — hung out with him the first night in town then never saw him again.
1:06 PM Dec 2nd, 1984 from Twitter

@mrmiyagi is totally hiznammered. LOL! Oh… wait… sh*t… he’s crying and just passed out.
12:33 AM Dec 11th, 1984 from UberTwitter

Random question: How much do you think you could get for a Japanese WWII medal on ebay?
12:33 AM Dec 11th, 1984 from UberTwitter

Image courtesy of TheAvanti.com

Okay, go check it out!

Image courtesy of LibertyU.com

Hitch

2005

Directed by Andy Tennant

All my sources said that Hitch was a perfect date movie. Will Smith plays Alex Hitchins, or Hitch, a date consultant, whose job is to help men get over themselves and approach the women of their dreams. He guides these men through their approach and the first three dates, by which time the guys are on their own, but on solid ground. He tends toward the pithy saying, “Ninety percent of what you’re saying isn’t coming out of your mouth,” but also says things that ring of truth and maturity. “She wants to see the real you, just not all at once,” and “My clients actually like women.”

He takes on a client named Albert Brennaman, an overweight, dorky accountant, played by Kevin James. Albert is in love with one of his clients, a rich, jet-setting glamour girl with whom he has absolutely no chance. This glamour girl, Allegra Cole, played with sweetness and depth by model Amber Valetta, is the current project of tabloid gossip columnist Sara Meles, with whom Hitch finds himself falling in love.

It’s complicated. A bit too complicated. But my sources were right, this is a lovely date movie. The eye-candy factor was high and very inclusive. There were good-looking people of every race and couples of every racial combination. I could look at Will Smith all day, and Eva Mendes, Amber Valetta, and even the cute Southern best friend, played by Julie Ann Emery, gave my sweetie something to watch in every scene. It was just sexy enough to merit the PG-13 rating, but it didn’t depend on nudity or cheap innuendo to carry it.

But it was a good movie from a film-student’s point of view, too. There was a lot to appreciate, and enough to criticize to make for good driving home conversation.

This movie rested on the shoulders of its actors. Led by Smith, the cast offered humor, angst, charm, warmth, and more character development than they should have been able to, considering the script they were given to work with. There is real chemistry between all the couples.

The direction by Andy Tennant was fine, but unremarkable. It relied too heavily on the ethos of New York City and too little on the fleshing out of a compelling story. But if Tennant was too light-handed, at least he had the sense to get out of the way and let the actors do their jobs. They saved his movie for him.

The script was probably the weakest part of this film. The plot hinged on a very slight misunderstanding, so slight it could not carry the weight of the events that supposedly came from it. Inner conflicts that were supposed to create the tension between Smith and Mendes were introduced late in the story. The writer, Kevin Bisch, set up better conflicts early in the film than he used when it was time for the “boy-loses-girl” piece of the story. Is it a coincidence, for example, that the illustrious date doctor only guides his clients through three dates, and that he has himself never been on a fourth date? What happens when he meets the woman who makes him want to ask for a fourth date, and then some? But that intriguing piece was dropped in favor of a lame convention that made parts of the film seem longer than they were.

Excellent performances aren’t enough to make an excellent film. But the very strong acting of the films’ stars was enough to make this film worth seeing. Perhaps next time Tennant and Bisch could take some advice from their own characters and hire a script doctor.

Nory Ryan’s song

By Patricia Reilly Giff

Delacourt Press

2003

Image courtesy of Fayschool.org

I am always grateful to authors who can make a historical abstract real to me. Patricia Reilly Giff places her story in 1845, at the beginning of Ireland’s horrific potato famine, and tells it through the experience of twelve-year-old Nory Ryan. Through Nory, the reader experiences the desperate denial when the crops start to fail, the frustrated resentment against English overlords, and the crippling pain of hunger. The hunger is at its worst not when Nory herself suffers, but when her elderly neighbor or her young brother suffer, and the fear for their very lives grows days by day. However, this despair, while sharp and real, is not the driving force of the book.

The driving force of the book is love and hope. There are moments when the love is painful, and the hope borders on pathetic, as when Nory’s sister in America sends a package, and Nory is convinced it must contain diamonds that she picked up off the streets. “Brooklyn in America” shines like a beacon of survival through the book, but those of us who know the history feel the bittersweet knowledge that life wasn’t quite so perfect for Irish immigrants in America. Still, imperfect is better than the slow death of starvation, and we children of immigrants feel proud that families like Nory’s could find some hope here on our shores.

Ironically, it is for the sake of love that the Ryan family separates, until only Nory is left to tend the family fire, which has never gone out for a hundred years. Everyone she loves has gone, but she is sure they will be safe, and so the story nears its conclusion with this beat of sacrificial love. It is only at the very end that Nory gets her chance to live as well, though the taking of that chance brings her both joy and sorrow.

The beauty of this story lies in the character of the Irish family. Nory longs for her eldest sister and her absent father, she and her middle sister take on extra work to spare their elderly grandfather. He, in his turn, takes on extra work to provide for his hungry grandchildren. Nory and Celia, the middle sister, squabble and fight when things are well, but when things are hard they show love and support for each other. Nory almost literally gives up her life for her young brother, Patch, the son who is the pride and joy of the Ryan family. And other such sacrifices by other characters, made in love and compassion, keep this book from being too bitter to read.

Though the Irish family can be proud of the place Giff gives them, the most compelling relationships in this book are two that Nory has outside of her family. Her best friend, young Sean Red Mallon, is clearly the only possibility for Nory’s future husband. They are devoted and intimate in the way only children can be, but Sean’s delight in Nory, and her affection for him, is on the edge of adolescence. When this relationship appears to be broken by circumstances, the grief is tangible (I cried more than once in reading this book, both in sadness and happiness), but each still relies on the hope he or she has in the other. Nory also becomes friends with Anna, the feared healer/witch of the village, and begins to learn her craft of herbs and treatments. Anna represents the wisdom of the old ways, and Nory will take those old ways into a new life.

This book has more substance and deeper character development than many adult-oriented books. The story is moving and compelling, and the characters will live forever in the reader’s mind. I am grateful to Giff for showing us the beauty and hope that are possible in some of history’s most difficult moments.

I didn’t even know they were considering this until I read this post on the Open Book Society, written by my friend Blondie.

Read her take on it, and let me know…should they split Breaking Dawn into 2 movies?

Fan made image from fanpop.com

This is a really good article by Josh Hurst about the Coen Brothers and the morality of their films.  Though the article appears in a Christian publication, it’s not a Christian article per se, and it doesn’t in any way purport that the Coens uphold a Christian worldview.  Rather, it says that the Coens have a clear sense of morality in their universe, though things are always complex and never ideal.

It’s a good read; you should check it out.

The Coens, courtesy of Jewlicious