Movie Project - Day 31: Helaman's Stripling Warriors - Animated Stories from The Book of Mormon

If anyone had their doubts, today's movie will make it clear what my religious affiliations are. As it was Sunday, I figured it was high time to break out one of the discs in the vast collection of the Living Scriptures Stories my in-laws received for Christmas. It was a gift given to them by my brother-in-law so that the grandchildren would have something to watch on Sundays. I had seen some of these video shorts before, but the memory of them was quite vague.

The story of Helaman and the two thousand sixty Stripling Warriors was not new to me, being a Primary, Seminary, and Institute Graduate. Still, it was interesting watching this with Erini, because to my knowledge, this was the first time she had been told the story beginning to end, and I learned something new as well.

During the expository montage at the beginning, which gave the background story as to how these two thousand young men volunteered to fight for the Nephites, there was a recap of the slaughter of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's. While I knew one thousand and five people were killed, it never occurred to me that the men killed were survived by their wives and children. With this upsurge of single mothers, they still kept their faith and taught their children the gospel.

The fact that these men were raised without fathers struck a chord. I tried to stress this point with Erini, as I had never thought of this idea before, and I wanted her to remember it. She was rather docile for the whole twenty-eight minutes of the production. Whether she was taking it all in, or still waking up, it didn't matter to me. I was just happy that she was learning some sort of scripture story with her father.

When the two thousand sons are faced with the idea of going to battle, they were fearless because of their mother's testimonies. This faith is what preserved them all, as not one was killed in the battle. That's not to say they were not injured, many were, but everyone was alive and accounted for. In the end, all the Stripling Warriors returned home alive.

On a side note, the cartoon seemed like it was done by animators from He-Man, She-Ra, or some other production featuring muscle bound characters. Wouldn't you know, I was right.

As a war film, this is very, very tame, but I was slightly surprised with the amount of blood that was shown on screen. There weren't any body parts flying around, or shrapnel embedded in bodies, but there was a fair share of dead bodies and bloody swords.

War is an ugly thing, but necessary under some circumstances, such as fighting for freedom. Whenever the Nephites fought in defense of their country, they always were victorious. If they were the instigating party, they would lose.

Politics has always been a subject I try to avoid, mostly because it's simple, yet complicated. Knowing right from wrong is a simple thing, but knowing when your rights start on others is what I need to teach to my daughter, and by so doing relearn myself.

Finding war movies that are appropriate for children is quite the task, but I've selected a few that I think might work: The Sound of Music (Nazi occupation of Austria), Remember the Titans (Battle of Gettysburg/Racism), The Iron Giant (Cold War/Xenophobia), Newsies (Capitalist Oppression), Wargames (Nuclear Threat), and Joyeux Noel (Have to screen that one first). To those reading this, if you have any suggestions to add, please let me know.

The common theme in these movies is how wars are fought. It's not necessarily done by killing your fellow man, but by overcoming your own fears and prejudices that dictate who your enemy is and helping others to do the same.

Conflict is inevitable; violence is not. Let's hope my daughter can learn that through these movies.

Movie Project - Day 30: Hello, Dolly!

Rounding out Musical Week with something more recent than the 1950's, yet still had Gene Kelly involved, is the most loved musical in the Pixar universe, Hello, Dolly! The movie was considered a flop in its initial release, as it made only half of the $25 million budget (approx. $175 million today) at the box office. But that didn't deter the Oscar Committee from giving it seven nominations, of which three were awarded: Best Art Direction, Best Score, and Best Sound. The four awards that were missed were Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Picture.

Gene Kelly in the director's seat, this film was bound to be a singing and dancing extravaganza, which it is, and there were not many moments when the movie lagged. Everyone is always moving, whether it be their bodies, their mouths or both. The dialogue was snappy and the lines were coming out right on top of the other. It was a bit of a challenge to keep up with it all, and I was grateful I had the captions running while watching. I was slightly annoyed that the captions were only for the speaking parts. None of the songs had captioned lyrics. A minor problem since the musical numbers were done very well.

Except maybe, "It Takes A Woman." I knew that Walter Matthau was not in many musicals, but I didn't fully realize this was the ONLY musical he was in. Not to say he's worse than Pierce Brosnan, but his singing talent was at the bottom of the cast.

There were times when Erini was contented to watch, such as the 14th Street Parade scene, which was quite the ordeal with hundreds of people on screen for the final shot, not to mention the vast array of horses. The various dance scenes had held her borderline-four-year-old attention span for more than a few microseconds as well. I'm sure that if my daughter had a better understanding of the English language, she might have been able to follow Dolly Levi's (Barbra Streisand) flow of woman talk that was almost fast enough to put this Latina to shame.



That said, the only reason I was able to control my urge to plug my ears with steel wool was that Barbra Streisand charming and conniving performance always seemed to stop right at the line of downright annoying. A toe went over now and then, but then she went right back to her moderate degree of cute and coy. The elaborate outfits also kept my mind distracted from the annoyances that cropped up, ie. during "So Long, Dearie," I was focusing more on the impressive headpiece, hair style, and fabulous dress she was sporting rather than the song itself. I will admit, Streisand can act, she can sing, it's just puts me off when she appears to be realigning her jaw while singing.

Above all else, Michael Crawford's ham of a performance was Erini's favourite part of the feature. This is probably due to the fact that he was in every one of the parts when she was very actively engaged: 1) Put On Your Sunday Clothes, 2) It Only Takes a Moment, and 3) The closing number which had a reprisal of both songs. To give you a hint as to why, throughout the songs she kept saying, "It's just like the one in Wall-E!"

Yes, my daughter is a Pixar fan at heart, but she has humoured me enough to sit through all these musicals, and enjoyed herself a number of times as well.

Movie Project - Day 29: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

My daughter was being rather stubborn at supper, so we had to forego viewing a movie tonight. Parenting is a tough job at the best of times, and downright painful at the worst of times. I don't think I have yet hit the worst of times, or maybe I have and I've involuntarily set up a memory block. Getting Erini to bed tonight could be compared to eating 90% Cacao Chocolate, properly done it's a rather down out process, but very enjoyable once it's down.

Then again, I enjoy every moment of eating chocolate, whereas I was ready to do something that I would have immediately regretted while putting Erini to bed. Multiple times.

Hence today's movie is taken from my memory archives, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We had seen it back in October, and with my memory recall, this could be short.

While a popular musical, especially amoung the LDS crowd, the songs have not penetrated popular culture quite like other musicals such as Singing in the Rain, Hello Dolly!, or The Sound of Music.

Curious to note that Howard Keel played the lead role as Adam, the eldest brother, who comes across as a proud man that doesn't take no for an answer, while four years earlier he appeared in Annie Get Your Gun as the "pompous, big-headed stiff." He has a very powerful baritone voice, but perhaps a bit type cast, especially with his role in Dallas as Clayton Farlow.

Erini had a bit of a time watching this movie, simply because we saw it outdoors, and it was also quite late. Plus, there is a lot of exposition about how to behave properly in public. People taking about a subject that her parents have stressed to her a number of times would be enough to bore any child.

The songs didn't really hold her attention either, partly because Caitlin wasn't there to sing with me and I was trying to keep quiet for the other people who were watching the movie with us. 1950's musicals are an interesting snapshot of the times, especially in regards to marriage. Whereas today, some movies seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

That's not to say this film is the poster child for an ideal relationship. Adam comes to town at the beginning of the movies looking for a bride like she's an item on his supply list, and then goes on to make no excuses or changes to his lifestyle. This quote sums it up:

Milly: Well, it wouldn't hurt you to learn some manners, too.
Adam: What do I need manners for? I already got me a wife.

My wife would punch me in the crotch if I ever said that to her. Then she'd probably break down in tears. Or the other way around.

Another thing that sparks a bit of disgust is the fact that after Millie kicks all the men out of the house for kidnapping the women, Adam heads off to a trapping cabin where he spends the winter. Even when he hears about the birth of his daughter, he stays there until the spring thaw, because he swore he would. Nevermind that Millie is running a household with six young women and six young men, carried a baby to term, then was caring for the infant without the support of her husband, whom she had only known for a few hours or less before being wed. But he humbles himself, and resolves to return the women to their homes.

However Stockholm Syndrome has run its course, and the women would prefer to stay in the middle of nowhere with these brothers. Once the townsfolk come up to the farm to take the women back, they find the brothers chasing down the womenfolk in compliance with Adam's edict to return the women. First, they don't want to get captured by them to get taken up to the farm, and now they don't want to get captured to be taken back.

The scene makes me wonder if there is such a thing as "Cornball Irony."

People see what they want to, and assume they must be right, but some facts can't be denied, like a crying baby. Heaven forbid you have a child out of wedlock in the 50's, even moreso in 1889! As a way to get even, the women all admit to the baby being their own, and thus the movie ends with a wedding. A shotgun wedding, but hey, that's backwoods Hollywood!

Yet the musical is a fun piece of cinema, with some of the most insane choreography I've seen. Especially during the Barn Dance.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers-Barn Dance - Free videos are just a click away

Movie Project - Day 28: Annie Get Your Gun

Back to the Golden Age Classics with today's movie, Annie Get Your Gun is one of Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstien's many great achievements in musical cinema, but was a Broadway hit before gracing the silver screen. I imagined that Erini would have been captivated with all the different costumes, horses, cows, Indians, and countless other bits in the film. Yet, by the end of the movie, I was still the only person who had seen the entire movie beginning to end. That's not to say Erini didn't like Annie Oakley, she was quite transfixed during the shoot off at the beginning, one of my favourite scenes in which Annie bests Frank Butler, the reportedly best marksman in the world.

It's a bit of the classy, pretty/ugly girl who wins the guy in the end once the guy realizes he's a pompous jerk, but the story focuses more on the titular character, Annie. Also, there's a generous amount of a rags to riches story with Annie's talented shot being plucked from obscurity and put on the world stage. The greatest thing about the story is that it is based on real events.

Whether Annie Oakley was as quirky as Betty Hutton is a question that cannot be answered by history books, but it would have been interesting to see what the movie would have been like had Judy Garland been able to fill the role of Annie Oakley. True, she had the voice to carry the songs, but Betty Hutton's comic presence made it extremely entertaining to watch, most especially in the song, Anything You Can Do. While I could imagine Julie Garland singing, "There's No Business Like Show Business," Betty Hutton does a great job while not stealing the thunder from Ethel Merman trademark song.



My daughter, like most any child, has a funny way of paying attention to the movie while playing with five toys at the same time. After the song, "Anything You Can Do," which Caitlin and I sang along to, Erini started singing it! I didn't think she was paying attention at all, yet I've noticed if it's a song that my wife and I sing, she'll pay much closer attention.

Hence, I thought it best to have a week devoted to musicals. My mother-in-law credits Erini's early ambulatory motor skills due to her participation with me when I would play Dance Dance Revolution or just dance to whatever CD we had playing at the time. Yet I've also heard that girls usually develop gross motor skills before their fine motor skills. Either way, my daughter enjoys dancing, but singing not so much. She likes to sing with either myself or my wife just fine, but that's mostly because we already know the songs. Once she's built up a comfortable library of songs in her head, I'm sure I'll hear tunes streaming out of her.

Perhaps even the Aerosmith parody that plays in my head when I hear the title of this movie.

Movie Project - Day 27: Mamma Mia!

Going from one side of the musical movie spectrum to the other, today my daughter and I watched Mamma Mia!: The Movie. Based on the Broadway Musical of the same name, sans "The Movie" of course, this feature has the classic tunes of disco sensation ABBA to fuel the campy flame of this feature.

A simple pebble of a plot starts an avalanche of trouble when the main character Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) sends out letters to three men that might be her father. Why she didn't ask them to get DNA testing done is beyond me, but for someone that's lived on a Greek island most her life, the option might not now have occurred to her. Of course, doing musical numbers at a medical lab would not have the same effect as a beach, boat, or old hotel.

With the arrival of the three men, Donna (Meryl Streep) and her daughter Sophie start a game of cat and mouse to keep their knowledge of the three potential fathers from each other, thinking that if one tells the other, it would be a great emotional blow to the other. It's rather funny to watch, yet after some time you start to wonder just how long they can keep this up.

Yet, that mother-daughter conflict is not the most painful part of the production. No, that would be reserved for Pierce Brosnan. His roles as Remmington Steele and James Bond established his place in Hollywood as a model of masculinity, but the was a reason he earned a Razzie nomination for his role as Sam. That reason was his singing. When he's singing with other people, he doesn't sound so bad, possibly because you can tune him out over the tone of the people that sound good. He can hit the notes, but they sound strained, almost like someone singing ABBA at a karaoke bar.

Another element that strikes at my adoration of this movie is the ending. Who's the dad? Who cares? You know what else? I don't need to get married? Let's just travel around the world and forget about legal unions! But not all is lost, for they still have a wedding, only it's Donna and Sam! It's only been 20 years since they last saw each other, but it's all well and good!

Some may ask, if I suffered through that before, why did I watch it again? Simply being, it's a fun show, and my daughter loves to dance to the music. The song that impacted me the most, and it's a stretch to say that ABBA leaves an impact on you, was "Slipping Through My Fingers."



I had to hug my daughter as I watched this song, and it was one of the songs I couldn't sing along to, especially with the phrase, "Try to capture every moment." I know my daughter is growing up, and knowing me, I'm going to blink and she'll be going to school, then graduating, then moving away from home. Will I record everything? Probably not.

That does not mean I should give up trying, nor will I.

Musical week is winding down to a close, but I'm going to try to squeeze in a few good ones. Tomorrow, I'm thinking "Annie Get Your Gun" since it has comedy, horses, and lots of guns. I did reserve "Hello Dolly!" from EPL, and if that comes in tomorrow, we might watch that one instead.

Movie Project - Day 26: Singin' in the Rain

With a run time of an hour and two thirds, Erini was awake and active during the entire movie. Then again, it's rather difficult to get bored with Singing in the Rain. Donald O'Conner won a Golden Globe for his role as Cosmo, and that man has talent! His acting, singing, and dancing was something that rivaled his co-star Gene Kelly, if not outdid him. Erini, my wife, and myself were all watching in amazement, when we weren't laughing, during his number Make Them Laugh.

The plot is interesting since it's a bit of modern historical fiction. While Monumental Pictures was a fictitious company, they accurately inserted Warner Brothers production, "The Jazz Singer." When that 'talkie' hit the screens, it truly was the death knell for the silent film. All studios did change over to audio synced films, just as they all switched to colour a few years later, and just as Hollywood is now making the leap to digital filming.

I did enjoy the chaos that surrounded the pre-screening of "The Dueling Cavalier." As someone that has worked on the technical side of productions, I know what can go wrong, and that pre-screening followed Murphy's Law with exactness. The microphones picking up ambient sounds, actors forgetting their lines and going along with whatever they feel is good, and of course, sound cue mix ups.

An ironic bit of the movie was the foreshadowing for Debbie Reynold's career. In the movie, her character thinks it would be folly to do a voice over for the movie, since she couldn't possibly see any future in it. While we don't know what happened to Kathy Selden, Debbie Reynolds went on to have success on screen such as in The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Yet, she has also had a great success with voice work as well. Some of her roles include Charlotte from Charlotte's Web (1973), Lulu Pickels (Grandma) from Nickelodeon's Rugrats, and even Nana Possible from Disney's Kim Possible.

From beginning to end, Singing in the Rain is a joy to watch, simply because of the fact that you can see these people were enjoying themselves. I would have to watch the commentary track to confirm that statement, yet every song, every dance, and even the costumes showed concerted effort on most everyone involved in the production.

Maybe I'm taking it a bit far, but the fact that my daughter found this musical enjoyable, and that it has been referenced or parodied in numerous films and television shows as early as Alfred Hitchcock's 'North by Northwest' and as recent as Glee.



I wonder if Erini will have a new appreciation for the scene in Robots when Bender is "Singing in the Oil."

Movie Project - Day 25: Brigadoon

What better way to celebrate the winter days than taking in a fantasy musical set in Scotland. As to how my girls enjoyed the movie, I would say that Erini would have enjoyed the entire movie had she not gotten tired.

According to my knowledge, this was the first Gene Kelly movie that my daughter has seen, and every time he was on screen, she didn't much care for his dancing. She was more enamoured with the women, and the flourishing dancing dresses they wore. I will admit the corseting and flounces were quite flattering, but if those costumes were accurate, there's no wonder as to why there was such widespread tuberculosis in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Erini also commented that Bronwyn liked the music, and I would like to think that she did. The Gaelic melodies backed the rustic 18th century village beautifully, and the wedding scene is phenomenal. Not as powerful as Tattoo but still very striking.

Watching this musical almost ten years later, a few things came to my attention. Though there is heavy emotion laden throughout the musical and dance numbers, none have any kind of eroticism blatantly displayed. You can tell the characters are in love, but the most daring things are the necklines and the kisses.

While the main characters are from New York City, you only see New York for a few minutes at the end. I can't speak from experience, but the portrayal of the busy restaurant and bar has quite the effect in contrasting the two worlds of modern day and the perpetually medieval Brigadoon.

One of the great things I love about this production is the question it raises: "What do you really need to be happy?" True, we have modern day amenities such as indoor plumbing and electricity that make our life easier, and much less disgusting, but there are things that are overlooked entirely with the digital age. Enjoying a bit of a walk, admiring the nature we have around us, and living for the moment.

That's not to say we should all liquidate our assets and make communes, but it takes to heart the old adage to "Stop and smell the roses." If life seems like it's getting too crazy, think about what you really need, and focus on that. In the case of the village of Brigadoon, it was the pastor that loved his parish such that we asked for them to be spared from the evil influences of the time. Letting the entire village sleep for 100 years every night seems a little much, but it's an interesting concept which works for the picture.

Some plot holes I noticed were how the town knew 100 years had passed the first time they awoke after the miracle occurred. In the story told to Tommy (Gene Kelly) the schoolteacher merely says, "When I awoke the next day, it was 100 years later." Was there another couple of gents who strolled by ridiculously lost and tried to buy milk, only they were shunned because it wasn't Charlie's wedding day? My guess is the money Tommy gives one of the merchants was recently printed and they all saw the printing date, and then drew the conclusion they had been asleep for two nights, and this note was printed in the 1950's, therefore they had been asleep for 200 years.

If they knew the story of Rip Van Winkle, I'm sure they would have chuckled and thought him an amateur.

Musical week continues tomorrow!