movies

She’s Actual Size

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

(Blogger’s Note: This post is written with the express permission of my wife, who is 8-1/2 months pregnant and as lovely as the winter is long. Her one caveat is that if we’re still talking about this in June, then she’s gonna be upset!)

Somewhere (or rather, somewhen) around March of 2004, when Jodi was about six months’ pregnant with Trevor and still chilled to the bone by the retreating winter, we stopped at the store to pick up a few things. Jodi walked in because the list was in her head; I stayed in the car and entertained the kids by demanding silence in a menacing voice, then napping. Due to my closed eyes and lethargic state, I did not realize that behind me, Gabe was getting nervous. Someone was approaching the van — closer and closer. A figure shuffled past his window and reached for the door on the van. The door opened.

Gabe exhaled his relief. “Whew,” he said. “I thought a great big fat man in a green coat was coming toward us, but it was just you, Mom!”

Nearly a decade later, Jodi has again dug out the coat, a thick, roomy, pale green affair that isn’t the prettiest, but remains to this day both warm and functional. This fall, a friend of ours offered her a barely worn black maternity coat, which Jodi eagerly accepted. Unfortunately, by the time winter rolled around, the coat could no longer be made to meet in the middle.

We found ourselves in the same pew as our friend last Sunday, and Jodi was self-conscious about not wearing the coat. She hoped to explain after church, but never had the chance. We joked that she should message our friend on Facebook: “Sorry I can’t wear the coat you gave me. Thank you for being the David Spade to my Chris Farley.”

We laughed — hard — together, but the truth is, this pregnancy has been difficult. Jodi’s feet swell painfully every day; she calls them monster feet, and the kids have a daily discussion about whether they look more goblinesque or trollish. (I helpfully observed they look like Chipotle burritos with toes, but no one else found that comparison appetizing.) Her hands swell, too, and she had to have her wedding ring cut off a couple weeks ago. The other day, when a friend of ours who will shoot our newborn photos told Jodi to be prepared to have her hands in the shots, my bride asked me, “Should I see if she can Photoshop them back to normal and add my ring in?”

I tell her she’s beautiful, and judging from the Facebook comments on the photo above, many of you agree — but she doesn’t feel beautiful. This morning, I greeted her with, “‘Morning, glory!” — and she immediately recalled that the kids watched Madagascar last night and assumed I had said, “‘Morning, Gloria!”

“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I called you a hippo.”

We do our best to keep things as light as possible, knowing we’re almost to the end. Three more weeks until the blessed bundle arrives…and although people gasp at the size of our previous children (9-9, 11-11, 9-5, and 12-2), I think Jodi hopes this one is a 30-pounder. After all, she says, beyond a certain size, it’s all just pain.

By the way, we’ve been humming this song all day. It’s a strange sort of love song, I think…

“She’s Actual Size” by They Might Be Giants
I’m not talking about the lady’s actual size
I’m talking about the lady who is actual size
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
As she drives away
Big men
Often tremble
As they step aside
I thought I was big once
She changed my mind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me.
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Nationwide, believe
She’s got
All the money
Money couldn’t buy
She’s got something special
That someone left behind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
Actual size to her
Her face
Hangs in portrait
On the post office wall
She’s stuck in my heart now
Where my blood belongs
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Actual size, believe
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
As she drives away
Big men
Often tremble
As they step aside
I thought I was big once
She changed my mind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Nationwide, believe
You think she’s big, you think she’s larger than life
But if you open up your eyes you’ll see she’s actual size
Etc.

Book Break: Two Very Different Books

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

As part of my ongoing research into the novel I hope to write this year, I’m looking at a wide range of books and movies — including two very different books I recently finished.

The first is a graphic novel by Frank Miller (of Sin City and 300 fame) called Ronin, about a masterless samurai reincarnated and finding his purpose in a grim, post-apocalyptic future. Because I have a fascination with ancient codes colliding with the modern world, and because I am specifically interested in samurai-themed comics and artwork with regard to my fiction writing, I checked it out from the local library on a hunch.

I’m never been a comics reader, and found it to be a very engaging story, once you get the feel for “reading it” — especially learning to pick up visual cues that convey the order of panels and images, which isn’t always left to right. These visual cues enable Miller to occasionally use visually arresting images that are full-page, full-spread, or shaped or cropped in unusual ways to convey more clearly (or more chaotically) what is happening.

It is not a book for younger readers; though not as bad as I expected from the cinema adaptations of Sin City and 300, it contains some nudity, sexuality (though not explicit), strong and racist language, and lots of violence.

On the contrary…

Yesterday I started and finished The Invention of Hugo Cabret — a wonderful, award-winning novel for young readers that was unlike any book I’ve ever seen. I’d asked a high-school friend who now teaches English and is particularly interested in graphic novels if he knew of any really well-done novels written in a combination of styles, with drawings conveying scenes or sections, interspersed with pages of prose, and he recommended this one as the only such book he knows. It is intimidatingly thick, but reads very quickly, and the story–about a secretive orphan who lives in the walls and crawlspaces of the Paris train station in the 1930s and keeps the clocks repaired, was utterly unique to me and completely unexpected. Even a second-grader with a decent vocabulary could probably handle it, but I suspect it would be a wonderful to read aloud as a family in the evenings, provided everyone could see the pictures. It was a delight, and I’m excited to learn that the author, Brian Selznick, has another novel out as well!

Also on my novel research stack: non-fiction books The Gangs of New York (from which the movie takes its title), Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster (which has the best title ever), and Black Mass: The Irish Mob, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal (which tells the true story upon which the movie The Departed was based, nevermind that was also a remake (in some instances, shot-for-shot) of a Hong Kong crime drama with the cheezy English title Infernal Affairs. I’ve seen both, and liked both for different reasons.). Finally, we just watched Angels With Dirty Faces starring James Cagney the other night. Check it out if you can.

Fiction Writing Reading List

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

So I’ve promised my famous writer friend Jacqui Robbins that I will continue to read to the end of her 15 Classics in 15 Weeks challenge (no matter how long it takes; the challenge began in Summer 2008), and I’ve promised Fr. Tyler that I will read a favorite of his, Brideshead Revisited, next (especially since his first recommendation, East of Eden, proved to be perhaps the best thing I’ve ever read). And so I shall.

In the meantime, however, I’m diving headlong into fiction writing, because, quite frankly, it’s about damn time. Sorry, Coach Robbins, this isn’t the book you’ve seen parts of. This one requires more from me, but it’s already giving more in return. I’ll say no more, except that it’ll be like nothing I’ve every seen before, and I’ve compiled a reading list, along with a few flicks, to help guide this journey. (If you make it to the end of the list, I have a few questions for you.)

Books (in no particular order):

Goethe’s Faust (and other tellings)
The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
The Book of Job
The Book of Tobit
Genesis Chapter 32: Jacob wrestles the angel
The Book of Revelation
The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio
Silence by Shusako Endo
Shogun by James Clavell
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
The Way of the Samurai by Richard Storry
Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud

Movies and Television (also in no particular order):

Ghost Dog (1999)
Twilight Samurai (2002)
The Godfather series
The Departed (2006)
Scarface (1932)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
The General (1998)
Road to Perdition (2002)
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Kung Fu (seasons 1-3)

That’s a decent hodge-podge of material, isn’t it? Now, the questions I have for you (all three of you):

  • Does anyone know of a solid (ideally non-fiction) account of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the mafia or Irish mob?
  • How about organized crime and the occult? (But I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit-hole.)
  • How about recommendations of books or films about saints, especially St. Nicholas (not Santa so much) or other saints and their intercessory roles after death?
  • Good explication of the biblical books and accounts above: Job, Tobit, Jacob and the Angel, the origins and history of belief around St. Michael?
  • Accounts of missionaries and martyrs in Japan (in addition to Silence)?
  • Does anyone have any of the movies listed that they would be willing to loan to me?
  • Other stories about ancient beliefs and codes colliding, sold souls, angels and demons in our world, evil appearing to be good, love and loss, fathers going to great lengths to protect their children? Recommendations?
Much of the material above is adult-oriented, but this book will not be. Basically, it’s a fantasy about a boy who is trying to regain his deceased mother and a distraught father trying to regain his lost son. With St. Nick and a samurai thrown in. As wacky as it all sounds, I think it’s gonna be deeply personal, even though it’s nothing like my life.
It’s going to be terrible, isn’t it? But you’ll still read it, won’t you?

The Adjustment Bureau

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

A young, popular New York City politician suffers an unexpected electoral defeat. Suddenly he finds himself face-to-face with the girl of his dreams – a strange woman he’s never met before – in an unlikely place. Their time is short, the attraction is palpable enough for a sudden, passionate kiss, interrupted by campaign staff. She exits quickly. He has only her first name and these few moments. He delivers the speech of a lifetime, and from the jaws of defeat, snatches superstardom and frontrunner status for the next open Senate seat in New York state.

In a city as vast as this, he could never find this beautiful stranger using only her first name – but chance throws them together on a city bus, and it’s clear this is something special. Too special, in fact. He was not supposed to see her again. A group of grim, dark-suited G-men snatch him from his workplace to inform him: they are with the Adjustment Bureau, and this love affair not in The Plan. Whose plan? The Chairman’s – but you know him by many names.

What follows is a fast-paced, but coherent sci-fi romance that turned out to be the perfect mix for my bride and I – with Matt Damon doing a low-key Bourne, trying to outsmart and outpace adversaries who are nearly (but not quite!) omnipotent and omnipresent, and who are bent on keeping him from what he feels sure is true love. More than once he is ripped abruptly from Emily Blunt’s life, re-finds her, and works to regain her trust, unable to tell her what’s really going on.

It’s a solid, entertaining movie, with some language and sexuality (including two instances of a word neither Jodi or I thought was permitted in PG-13 films). And it’s thought-provoking after the fact: at one point, Damon’s character asks a more sympathetic “adjuster” if they are angels. This is not an idle observation, since the underlying problem in the movie is the problem of free will versus predestination. The film proposes a world in which beings who are less limited and more powerful than humans direct the world according to a grand scheme they themselves do not entirely comprehend. From what little I’ve read, this is in close keeping with Catholic traditions and teachings about angels – except that in the film, the adjusters suggest that they function to override human free will, which, unfettered, produced the Dark Ages and the World Wars, but with their guidance (i.e., free will only with regard to small, day-to-day choices), yields peace, happiness, and productivity. (Hmm…that sounds familiar.)

I don’t believe angels, according to Catholic teachings and belief, have the option of taking free will from us. They operate more subtly and keep the world operating according to plan…but we still choose. We make our beds, and we lie in them.

In the film, the very aggressiveness and implacability of the adjusters seem to increase our hero’s resolve and drive him to his climactic decision and the film’s resolution. It’s almost as if the adjusters themselves are off-plan…and as if that, in fact, is part of the plan.

There Be Dragons

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
Just returned from the movie in the trailer above, There Be Dragons, based on the early life of St. Josemaria Escriva, who founded Opus Dei (God’s Work). This post is not a review, and contains no plot spoilers — but lots of people in our parish are interested in the film and want to know how “strong” a PG-13 it is, and I wanted to capture a few thoughts before I lose them.

I would rate it a solid PG-13. It is violent and emotionally intense at times, and characters are juxtaposed to show virtue and moral ambiguity. Numerous people die in battle, and others die from assassination, murder, suicide, illness, and (thankfully) natural causes. Most of the deaths are not dwelt upon, however, there are a few relatively brief but bloody scenes. There is no nudity, relatively little sexuality (implied or actual), especially for a PG-13 movie in 2011, and a sprinkling of strong language throughout (it is a war movie, after all). Our 13-year-old, Brendan, will see it tomorrow with a friend of ours and her son. Our almost-11-year-old, Gabe, wants to see it, too, but despite his desire to be a priest, and the film’s beautiful portrayal of the priestly vocation, he will wait until we can rent it and I can watch and discuss it with him, pausing as needed.

I knew very little about Fr. Escriva, Opus Dei, and relatively little about the Spanish Civil War, and yet followed everything well enough. The structure of the movie, which features a handful of complex relationships between people shown at different ages and times, and used flashbacks and a present-day narrator to convey the story, can be a little disorienting, but again, I followed well enough. I was struck early on that this is a film shot in an old way: somehow it looks to me like a classic film of the 1960s, and some of the scenes (particularly of the main characters as children) seem more deliberately acted, almost theatrical. It occurs to me that this may help convey the sense of a young boy’s memories, but I will admit, I noticed it as film-making (assuming it was intentional).

Two final thoughts:

  • First, another friend at the same showing said he enjoyed watching it so soon after Blessed John Paul II’s beatification. I missed the beatification coverage, but not long ago, listened to the JPII biography Witness to Hope, and you can definitely see parallels between the lives and priesthoods of the late Fathers Escriva and Wojtyla.
  • Second, there is a powerful scene following a heartbreaking act of violence in which Fr. Escriva teaches his followers how close the edge truly is, and how any one of us might slip into darkness and violence. On the heels of Bin Laden’s death, that scene was particularly thought-provoking to me.

The reviews I’ve seen for this movie have been mostly mediocre to terrible.* I thought it was a very good movie, but I’m Catholic and had some idea what I was getting into and what I hoped to get out of it. See it!

—–

*The USCCB has a complete review of the film online, which may also help parents decide which kids to take. I find they are more conservative than me, and they suggest that older teens could see it, so I think we’re in the ballpark…