happy endings

As I figured, postings in Blatherchat in response to my poll about animated movies made me realized I completely neglected to mention some of my other favourites:

Shrek: Especially love the exploding bird scene.

Monsters Inc.

Toy Story 1 & 2

The Iron Giant: Always makes me teary-eyed at the end. I'll always forgive Vin Diesel for his over-hyped testosterone roles because he was the Iron Giant voice.

I would have included Beauty and the Beast except I hate how the movie ended. I think the Beast was much more interesting. The ending in Shrek was much better. :-)

I did see "Perfect Blue" and "Princess Mononoke". I loved the animation in both and enjoyed them, but found the underlying storyline of "Perfect Blue" too dark for my tastes, and was too aware of the moral message that "Princess Mononoke" was pushing (Debbie ducks here as avid Princess Mononoke fans go berserk). I don't mind if films have a message like the "nature good, man bad" one in Mononoke as long as it doesn't become too intrusive.

But maybe I saw it on a bad day. Everyone else I know liked the movie, including Jeff, so perhaps I should rent it and try watching it again.

I think I'm much more of a fan of children's animated films that ones made for adults; I'm looking for emotional resonance and happy endings. I don't need to be reminded about the bad things in the world. I've encountered as much as I want to on my own already (and can always find more by just watching the news). When I go to the movie theatre, I'm looking for pure escapism, even if I know it's only going to be for short time.

I suppose that's part of the reason I love sappy old musicals so much, because of their inherent benevolence (I'm willing to swallow a lot of saccharine clichés for benevolence) and they always have happy endings. I like happy endings in books as well as movies.

Perhaps that's why I wasn't keen on the end of Ghost World as much as the rest of you. I tend to prefer -knowing- that the ending is happy; I've never been a big fan of open-ended non-conclusions which leave the viewer thinking. I don't want to speculate about the protagonist's happiness at the end of the movie; there's too much room for me to speculate about bad things happening. I want to know that the good guys win and the bad guys lose, that the girl gets the art scholarship and goes back to school, that the lovers do indeed live happily ever after.

Unrealistic, I know. That's not the way the world works, Debbie, I can already hear some of you telling me gently. And I admit that a iron-clad all-questions-answered ending does not necessarily make a good movie, and can sometimes make a bad movie. Perhaps a subconscious part of my psyche is trying too hard to see loose ends wrapped up nicely and characters I care about find their heart's desire as often as possible out of a need to cancel out bad karma in my life.

Hm. Too much psychoanalysis; my head hurts.

Think I'll go jump in the lake instead. :-)





To those living in Toronto:

Merav Hoffman says that her friend, Di Zhang, is opening up a new bubble tea parlour called Manatea on August 26th. Location: in the north food court of the Eaton's center, south of the bulk candy place, next to Yogenfruit. Apparently she's offering a 10% discount to filkers if they sing her four lines of something, as long as it's quiet enough at the parlour that she can hear them.

If you're in the area, please do check it out!

News/links:

Tired of faxed junk mail, a Silicon Valley man is filing a $2 trillion lawsuit against Fax.com

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Harry, JBR and Jean in the kitchen last night, just before supper.
	Mackerel, Harry's and Jean's cat, snoozing in the boathouse.
	Jean on ukele, Harry on my guitar, last night during a music session in the boathouse. I had my flute, and JBR used a cooking pot as a drum. Jeff was working on his laptop.