LOST's "Other Man" Joins Newcomer Brit Marling in Another Earth

On the CBS sit-com The Big Bang Theory, theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper often speculates about the possible existence of multiple universes, each containing a different version of himself. In the quiet 2011 movie Another Earth, written and directed by Mike Cahill and co-written and starring Brit Marling, one of those universes is startlingly close. Another Earth has appeared on the horizon, and when contact is finally achieved, it becomes apparent that everyone on that planet is a duplicate of everyone on this one, complete with the same experiences up to a certain point. What does such a thing mean for the world? More to the point, what does it mean for one young woman still reeling from the most horrible moment of her life and someone else’s?

Marling is Rhoda, an astrogeek who, distracted by the discovery of the other Earth as announced on the car radio, causes a fatal crash that kills a pregnant woman and her young son. Husband and father John (William Mapother) is badly injured and languishes in a coma for several weeks before returning home to live in squalor. Teenage Rhoda stands trial and heads off to prison. Four years later, she gets out. The new planet is much closer now – close enough that one wealthy man is launching an expedition to it, and his essay contest could secure her a spot on his spacecraft. She would like nothing better than to leave all this misery behind her.

In the meantime, though, she needs a reason to keep on going, and she finds it when she returns to the crash site and sees John there. She goes to his home, intending to apologize, but loses nerve and instead tries to pass herself off as a cleaning service offering a free trial. He accepts – and then asks her to return to continue her work, this time for payment. As she scrubs away at four years of accumulated grime, John begins to come out of his stupor and embrace life again. But what will happen when she finally comes clean about who she is?

This was an interesting movie and not really what I expected. I thought it would be something very strongly in the realm of science fiction, but the alternate Earth is more a catalyst for rumination than a central focus. Yes, it’s always looming in the background. But there were long stretches when I almost forgot it was there at all. It’s an integral part of the movie, but the story is more directly about how these two people begin to heal from a terrible calamity.

Marling, a young actress with few credits to her name, carries herself with a haunted fragility. She is soft-spoken – when she speaks at all – and despite the darkness of her past and the ease with which she fabricates a new persona, there is also a definite innocence about her. I’d never encountered her before, but she impressed me.

Mapother was a pleasant surprise, as I mostly know him from LOST, where he plays Ethan Rom, one of the first truly villainous characters to surface on the show. Upon closer inspection, though, the two characters are not so drastically different. Both have grown haggard and hardened after the death of a wife and child. Unlike Ethan, however, John is defiantly nonviolent. Still, Mapother makes the pent-up aggression simmering below the surface dangerously apparent.

This feels like a low-budget indie, with somewhat jerky camera work and not much in the way of special effects. They aren’t needed, as this is a cerebral movie in which all the story is in the build-up. What actually happens once that fateful shuttle to the stars blasts off is left largely to the imagination. While I had a very clear interpretation of the film’s final moments, the friend I watched it with didn’t agree with my conclusions at all. It really is an open-ended finale that could inspire almost as much debate among friends as Inception. This movie is far less likely to make your brain hurt, however. As long as you don’t go into it hoping for an Independence Day-style alien invasion adventure, this pensive film has a lot to offer.

The Weirdness of Jon Scieszka and Alice in Wonderland Mesh in This Picture Book

Disney has presented many fantastical worlds that I have longed to enter. I’ve wanted to soar over the island of Neverland with Peter Pan and ride a carousel horse through the countryside in Bert’s chalk drawing, and I always thought the Hundred-Acre Wood would be a mighty nice place to settle down. However, one place I never particularly wanted to visit was Wonderland.

Yes, the Lewis Carroll story is richly imaginative. Yes, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel became friends after appearing together in an elementary school adaptation of the classic. Yes, it was a major influence on LOST. However, none of that changes the fact that it Freaks. Me. Out. If I’m going to go tumbling off into a magical realm, I’d prefer one that feels a little less antagonistic.

Alice in Wonderland is a weird story. Jon Scieszka, the prolific author of such skewered tales as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, seems an inspired choice to retell it for the recent picture book edition of the Disney version, which is illustrated with concept art created by iconic Disney artist Mary Blair when the movie was being developed. Like the comparable editions of Cinderella and Peter Pan, this is missing a couple of characters, but the main ones are accounted for, from the big-grinned Cheshire Cat and the terrifying Queen of Hearts to the dopey Tweedledee and Tweedledum and the batty Mad Hatter.

Scieszka writes with a rambly style here, capturing Alice’s confusion and the way that her mind darts from one subject to the next. He also frequently directly addresses the reader, encouraging identification with Alice. In fact, the book begins with a question, and it’s one that I imagine countless children could answer in the affirmative: “Have you ever tried to listen to a long, boring schoolbook on a warm, lazy day?”

The look of the book is very eye-catching, with different colors serving as the backdrops for each page of text. Shades of pink, green, yellow, blue and purple alternate, sometimes with illustrations creeping toward the text, sometimes with nothing but the words on the page. Most paintings take up a full page, however, and these are very vibrant and sometimes a bit alarming. The Walrus looks downright malevolent as he marches a line of curious oysters off to their doom, and fierce flowers appear on several pages. On the other hand, the small painting of Alice and the White Rabbit standing side by side against a pale pink backdrop is thoroughly charming.

While I don’t like it quite as much as the other two picture books featuring Blair’s concept art, Alice in Wonderland certainly allows readers to feel that they have fallen into a dreamscape just like Alice, who, Scieszka notes, spends such a long time in the air during her descent through the rabbit hole that she is able to mentally do all the homework she was avoiding under the tree (though most of it is incorrect).

“You know how it is with some people,” Scieszka writes toward the end of his tale. “Sometimes they get too grown up to understand.” Alice in Wonderland is a tale about holding onto the gifts of a vivid imagination. That is a notion I can certainly get behind, even if Alice’s mind happens to be a pretty scary place.

The Muppets Get Spooky in the Comic Collection Muppet Mash

The Muppets seem to be everywhere these days, and one enjoyable form in which they have surfaced is the comic book. Roger Langridge has crafted several books in The Muppet Show Comic Book series, one of which is the Halloween-themed Muppet Mash. Each of the four sections is meant to be an episode of the show, and each focuses on a particular type of monster, making this a silly, spooky collection fitting for this time of year.

In Chickens of the Night, Gonzo begins displaying some very strange behavior after his trip to Transylvania. While weirdness is Gonzo’s trademark, his new choice of attire and his secretive habits begin to make his friends suspect that he has returned a vampire. Are they jumping to conclusions, or does this mark a dramatic change for Gonzo? While the main story is fun, my favorite part of this segment is Casey Was a Bat, a parody of the beloved baseball poem Casey at the Bat.

That’s a Wrap introduces a woman with an Egyptian vaudeville act. Statler and Waldorf both fall for her immediately, as she reminds them so forcefully of a performer they saw in their youth. Could she actually be that same Cleopatra wannabe? This one is a lot of fun because it’s so odd to see the crusty curmudgeons attempting to be romantic, all the while undermining each other’s efforts in that department. I also enjoyed all the Egyptian puns, many of which I only got because of the crash course in Egyptology that accompanied my LOST immersion last year.

Monster Munch finds the members of the Electric Mayhem ecstatic that the legendary blues musician Howlin’ Jack Talbot will be sitting in with them for this episode. Their enthusiasm soon fades, however, when he is unable to get through a song. Similar in some ways to the first story, it revolves around the growing suspicions that this musical hero may, in fact, be a werewolf. Will the band ever manage to complete a performance with their special guest?

Finally, The Curse of Beaker is a Frankenstein-like story in which Bunsen, never particularly concerned about the welfare of his lab assistant, orders him to place his brain inside a gigantic robot he has constructed. Beaker concocts a clever way to subvert this unpleasant plan, but will the results lead to disaster? This story integrally involves a small creature called a poob, which I don’t ever recall encountering before this book. Were these cheerful furry creatures a part of the Muppetverse all along, or did Langridge invent them? This is a fun showcase for Beaker, and it also affords the entertaining opportunity of seeing the ominous-looking Sweetums in a dress.

Each story contains a hefty dose of Muppet mayhem, and as a result, it all feels a bit chaotic. There’s an ongoing story in each, but we also get regular Muppet Show segments like Veterinarian’s Hospital and the cooking corner with the Swedish Chef. It’s a little odd to see the Muppets in this flat format, but they are just as dynamic as ever, and their expressions are wonderful. Some of them look closer to their proper versions than others, but all of them are easily identifiable. Of course, you’re not getting any audio cues, and that is particularly noticeable during the many musical numbers, but the songs included here are a lot of fun anyway.

Only one of these stories takes place on Halloween, but the creepy holiday is obviously the prevailing theme. This gives the story added seasonal appeal in the fall, but it would be just as entertaining at any other time. Muppet Mash uses horror staples but transforms them into something goofy, much like the Riddikulus charm in Harry Potter. If you have trouble laughing in the face of fear, see if these Muppets might be able to help you out.

Fred MacMurray Flies High in The Absent-Minded Professor

My dad is a college computer science instructor, and like me, he has a tendency to be a bit scatter-brained. Hence, it is not a stretch to label him an absent-minded professor. However, he's got nothing on Fred MacMurray's title character in the 1961 Robert Stevenson-directed Disney movie The Absent-Minded Professor.

Ned Brainard is a brilliant scientist who is always busy experimenting, both in class and out. He's been known to set off explosions in the classroom, and when he disappears into a perplexing problem, he may not emerge for hours. He becomes oblivious to everything else in his life. The extent of this tendency becomes apparent when we learn that Ned has missed his own wedding twice.

The film opens on his third wedding day, and you just know that something is going to come along to stop him from taking those vows. His fiancée, a secretary named Betsy Carlisle (Nancy Olson), is very patient with him, but how much heartache and frustration can a gal take? Can a man who can't remember the time and date of his own wedding really care that much about the bride?

The conflict in this movie is two-fold. Ned must attempt, in the wake of his latest misfire, to win Betsy's favor again, a quest made more difficult by the presence of English professor Shelby Ashton (Elliott Reid), her arrogant ex-boyfriend. He also needs to explore the reason for his absence: his discovery of an extraordinary substance he calls Flubber. This "flying rubber" has a remarkably buoyant quality that allows it to become bouncier and bouncier each time it hits the ground. What useful applications might this have for his university and even for the White House?

The Absent-Minded Professor falls firmly in the line of broad comedies that marked most of Disney's live-action output in the early 1960s. The movie is in black-and-white, which is always a disappointment to me, but it's still a lively romp of a film. The silly factor is as high as Ned's car, which soars over the treetops when he pours Flubber in the engine. While MacMurray does a convincing job of pretending he knows what he is talking about, I suspect there is very little real science in this movie.

MacMurray was one of Disney's stock stars, and he makes a thoroughly charming leading man. He always comes across as earnest, with a calm demeanor concealing a passionate soul. He's quirkier here than in many films, but such is the way of brilliant scientists, as anyone familiar with LOST's Daniel Faraday or Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper could tell you. With all those theories and formulas zooming around in Brainard's brain, there's just no room for small matters like remembering important dates and putting on matching socks.

While I do find Ned very likable and, being rather spacey myself, can mostly forgive his forgetfulness, I did find myself troubled by some of his tactics throughout the movie. Most egregiously, though he claims the ethical high road by refusing to pass one of the basketball team's star players, Biff Hawk, he goes on to apply Flubber to the shoes of everyone on the team, giving them an unfair advantage over the rivals.

Biff, incidentally, is portrayed by Tommy Kirk, another Disney standby perhaps best known for his starring role in Old Yeller. Here, he is the son of ruthless developer Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn), who resurfaces in my favorite Herbie movie, Herbie Rides Again, as well as this movie's sequel. In a fun move, Keenan's father Ed, who I know best as the giggle-prone Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins, plays the fire chief tasked with bringing him down to earth when Ned tricks Alonzo into donning the Flubber shoes and jumping out the window.

While I don't always approve of Ned's antics here, The Absent-Minded Professor is an entertaining movie that gives me a better appreciation for how frustrating it can be for level-headed people to deal with a person like me who always has her head in the clouds - or in his case, his feet as well.

Jamie's Journal Goes Viral in Disney Channel's Read It and Weep

I have never had much luck keeping a private journal. I can’t seem to motivate myself much when I’m writing only for myself, and it’s a little nerve-wracking to be writing down things you specifically don’t want anyone else to read, because what would happen if they did? In Disney Channel original movie Read It and Weep, teen scribe Jamie Bartlett is about to find out.

Jamie (Kay Panabaker) is a quiet, geeky girl who totes her tablet computer with her everywhere and spends all her free time scribbling down her frustrations about the unfair world of high school. Except in her journal, which features fictionalized versions of everyone in the school, the geeks triumph and the jerks are humiliated. It’s a great release for her, but she is appalled when she accidentally e-mails it to her friend instead of the essay she intended to enter in the school’s contest. After it wins, she is praised as a biting satirist and given a book deal that catapults her to writing fame. But will her sudden stardom turn her into the kind of monster she derided? And how will her classmates react when they realize the characters were modeled after them?

This is pretty much your typical teen flick about an awkward kid who becomes popular, loses sight of what’s important and eventually remembers. Jamie is likable, albeit overdramatic, but then most of the characters here come across as a bit cheesy and over-the-top. Panabaker’s older sister Danielle plays Is, Jamie’s fictional alter-ego who begins to take over her life. Their confrontations are fun to watch, especially when they occur in front of other people, who, of course, can only see and hear Jamie. Is basically becomes the devil on Jamie’s shoulder, continually urging her to ignore her good impulses and stick with self-involvement and false friends like catty queen bee Sawyer (Allison Scagliotti) and guileless but lunkheaded dreamboat Marco (Chad Broskey).

Other key characters include Jamie’s best buddies, a trio of outsiders who have stuck together for years. Offbeat artist Harmony (Alexandra Krosney), animal rights activist Lindsay (Marquise Brown) and shy Connor (Jason Dolley), who is secretly in love with Jamie, eat lunch together and work at the struggling pizza parlor owned by Jamie’s parents. Both of them are kind and supportive, with her mom (Connie Young) a bundle of bubbly energy and her dad (Tom Virtue) a goofy dreamer with a bad habit of tainting his pizzas with disgusting experimental toppings like prunes and liver and onions. By contrast, Jamie’s brother Lenny (Nick Whitaker) is surly and argumentative, but that’s largely because he has a dream of his own that is not being nurtured.

I don’t know the current Disney channel line-up well enough to be familiar with the actors here, several of whom I gather are veterans of other tween Disney projects. I recognized only Krosney, and it wasn’t until I consulted with IMDb that I realized it was because she played aggressive young Other Ellie in the season five LOST episode Jughead. The acting all around is acceptable but corny, with most characters constantly displaying exaggerated expressions. The most understated performance probably comes from the instantly sympathetic Dolley.

The movie has a faux-hip vibe to it that makes it rather grating at times. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the constant shots of the journal itself, in which no two words are the same size and different colors and fonts, along with snarky doodles, scream out that this alleged work of genius is more style than substance. The speed with which it all happens is absurd, too; she seems to go from having excerpts of her journal in the school paper to full-blown published book in a matter of days. Additionally, most of the dialogue has the unmistakable whiff of writers who think they are being trendy and clever but aren’t.

Still, while the characters never felt fully real to me, the main quartet is likable enough to root for, and Jamie’s parents are quite endearing for all their quirkiness. Like most contemporary Disney channel original movies, Read It and Weep does not transcend the narrow confines of its genre, but it’s reasonably entertaining for an hour and a half.

Celebrating Art Garfunkel's 70th Birthday With Breakaway

“How terribly strange to be 70…” In the late 1960s, Paul Simon wrote those words, and Art Garfunkel sang them. At the time, they were young 20-somethings thinking ahead to old age, and their morose vision of 70 has little to do with the still-robust men they are today. Nonetheless, that age has always loomed as especially significant. Paul reached it three weeks ago, and today it’s Art’s turn. As Art’s place as my favorite living singer was cemented when I spoke with him briefly 11 years ago, I knew I’d have to find some way of marking this day, so I thought I’d turn my attention to Breakaway, one of the few solo Garfunkel albums I haven’t already reviewed. Produced, with the exception of one track, by Richard Perry, it’s an excellent example of Art’s skill as a vocalist and musical interpreter.

I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever) - Most of the songs on this album have mingled threads of romance and melancholy, so this piano-driven Stevie Wonder song is a good way to kick off the album. It’s an optimistic song, but there’s a lot of pain behind the hopeful words; it’s clear that this guy has been through a few relationships that haven’t worked out so well. Anguish tinges Art’s voice in the first verse, while the second feels less extreme. The chorus is the real kicker, though, especially the extended repetition at the end as he harmonizes with himself, flirting with the melody but rarely hitting it dead on as though to suggest that what he wants is within reach but he’s just not quite there yet. “I believe when I fall in love with you it will be forever. I believe when I fall in love, this time, it will be forever.”

Rag Doll - This song has a gentle lullaby feel to it with delicate chimes and soft percussion evocative of raindrops. Regret is the driving theme here as he sings of a woman who seems to have been just a shade offbeat. It seems that her oddity embarrassed him and it was only after he rejected her that he truly realized what a remarkable person he had lost. The tone here reminds me of Jack Shephard at the midpoint of LOST making a startling declaration about reclaiming the destiny he never wanted; he sounds very determined, but it seems most unlikely that what he desires will actually come about. Stirring. “The wind in the trees sings a sad, sad, sad song. I lie in my bed listenin’ all night long.”

Break Away - This, too, is about a fractured relationship, and while the tone is romantic, it’s hard not to read it in the context of Simon and Garfunkel, whose need for artistic space turned into a permanent breakup. Whether a singing partnership or a romance, the gist is similar; he wants to give the other person freedom but fears the consequences of a departure. Will he be left alone permanently? This was the first song on the album that I heard, and it remains one of my favorites. These days, it reminds me of Train’s Drops of Jupiter; she’s searching for herself, he’s torn between saying, “Go for it!” and “Please don’t go.” It’s sort of the opposite of Kelly Clarkson’s song of the same name, as she is the one leaving, while he is the one being left. The keyboard adds to the upbeat tone, and I love the bright vocal layers on the chorus, but this seems to be one of those songs that sounds a lot more cheerful than it actually is. “It’s not the place you’re goin’ to; it’s just a phase you’re goin’ through. Though I won’t stop you, I don’t want you to break away, fly across your ocean…”

Disney Girls - This mellow Beach Boys classic written by Bruce Johnston expresses a yearning for more innocent days gone by. The longest song on the album by more than half a minute, it’s an ideal vehicle for Art because of those exceptional Beach Boy harmonies. It too has a wistful quality to it, but the focus is on the beauty of those blissful days he’s not ready to relinquish. There’s a sense that he won’t be able to hang onto his personal Neverland forever, but for the time being, he’s going to try his hardest to live carefree. From the laid-back guitar and smooth woodwinds to the whistling at the end and the little melodic laugh on the chorus, the track certainly captures that breezy feeling. “Reality, it’s not for me, and it makes me laugh. But fantasy world and Disney girls, I’m comin’ back.”

Waters of March - This song, originally written in Portuguese by Brazilian musician Antonio Carlos Jobim, who also wrote the English lyrics, is a peculiar list of nouns. It’s made up of clipped sentences containing only a few words, and many of them begin with the words “It’s” or “It is.” The song reads a bit like one long word-association exercise; one image leads naturally to another and then another, but compare the images in one verse with another and you might not see a strong connection. There is a definite South American flavor to this guitar-driven reflection on life and all its little pleasures and discomforts. His delivery is very deliberate here as though this were a speech therapy exercise; each word is carefully pronounced, so although it’s an exhausting list, none of the lyrics are difficult to understand. “And the riverbank talks of the waters of March. It’s the promise of life; it’s the joy in your heart.”

My Little Town - It’s just a tad amusing that Simon and Garfunkel’s first post-breakup recording together would appear on an album entitled Breakaway. It also appeared on Paul’s Still Crazy After All These Years; the two titles juxtaposed are suggestive of the personal and professional tug-of-war that marked much of their association with each other in the post-duo decades. A part of them wants to just make a clean break, but ultimately, the friendship, messy as it may be at times, is just too important. At any rate, while this is a reunion, it’s also a song that reflects the album title, since it speaks of a hometown as a place of stagnation. It’s as though the speaker is trying to look back on his childhood fondly but just can’t quite manage it. The affection is disingenuous; he just wants to shake the dust off his shoes and move on. Paul’s lower voice gives this rather hard-edged song a very different sound than any of the others on the album, and there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance here because the lyrics eschew looking back, but boy, does it do the heart good to hear those voices together again. “And after it rains, there’s a rainbow, but all of the colors are black. It’s not that the colors aren’t there; it’s just imagination they lack. Everything’s the same back in my little town.”

I Only Have Eyes For You - I’ve heard many different versions of this song originally written in 1934, but this low-key version is my favorite. One certainly gets the sense that the speaker’s affections are returned, so this is perhaps the only song on the album without a hint of depression. Of course, tweak the words a tiny bit and it could be a total downer of an unrequited love anthem. Instead, however, the tone is one of pure joy that bubbles up from within him, and it’s just a delight to listen to Art’s delivery here, particularly toward the end when he hits those high notes with such enthusiasm. I also love the dense harmony on the word “garden” in the bridge. The instruments are great, though I would warn against listening to this one on the headphones; the opening bars create a curiously psychedelic ear-ringing effect that takes a few measures to shake. Nonetheless, this straightforward song of unbridled affection is one of his most romantic recordings. “You’re here; so am I. Maybe millions of people go by, but they all disappear from view, and I only have eyes for you.”

Lookin’ for the Right One - I kinda wish this track had gone before the last one so I could think of that song as the sequel to this aching one. There’s a quaver in his voice here as he sings of believing he has found “the right one,” only to be rejected time and again. Piano and guitar team up here for this sorrowful meditation. There’s a moment in the bridge that seems to be a musical quote of George Harrison’s Something, which would be fairly fitting; in fact, it seems to answer the question posed in that song in a far more despairing manner than the Beatles hit suggests. “They say there’s no use runnin’ after somethin’ you’ll never get, but my heart says, ‘Don’t say no.’ Somewhere in this lonesome city is the woman for me; will I wait another lifetime just to keep on looking for the right one?”

99 Miles from L.A. - Considering that Art is a native New Yorker, it’s interesting that the two songs on this album with the strongest positive nostalgic associations have a California connection. I remember reading that Art wasn’t sold on this song at first, but it’s one of the album’s strongest tracks, another expression of romantic regret and longing for reconciliation. I love the steady ripple of the acoustic guitar here and increasingly prominent plinking percussion that imitates the raindrops on his windshield. I’ve always presumed that he is headed to L.A. to connect with the woman he loves, though I suppose it’s possible that’s where he lives. In either case, it would seem that these two live fairly far from each other – though not far enough, perhaps, to merit a plane ticket. How did they meet in the first place? There’s a lot of story simmering under the surface here, and we’re only getting tantalizing hints as he contrasts his memories of their happy times together with his miserable present speeding along the freeway in the rain toward someone who might not want anything to do with him. “Passing the white sandy beach, we’re sailing; turning the radio on, we’re dancing. Ninety-nine miles from L.A., I want you, I need you. Please be there.”

The Same Old Tears On A New Background - This Stephen Bishop song ends the album on a note of feigned optimism. Like Paul’s American Tune, which came out a couple years earlier, it includes a repeated assurance of “I’m alright” that is basically contradicted by everything else in the song. He’s trying to put a brave face on things, but this guy is struggling. The lush piano and string combo here puts me in mind of All I Know, Art’s first smash solo hit, which covers similar thematic territory. A moody conclusion. “It’s the same old me crying the same old tears, and I’ll walk away like I always do, still in love with you…”

I’ll admit that the grainy black-and-white photo of Art with a woman on each arm, surrounded by half-empty wine glasses, is my least favorite of his album covers, particularly because one of the women is smoking a cigarette. Perhaps he was trying to break away from his largely innocent image? I’m not sure, but I could do without it, and I wish the album included something beyond a track list in the way of liner notes. With the music itself, however, I have no complaint, and it holds up well all these years later, when Art is a man of seven decades who can look back on more than half a century as a recording artist and truly be proud of his contributions. Happy 70th, Artie!

Johnny Five Teams Up With Ben in Short Circuit 2

One of my all-time favorite movies is Short Circuit, the 1986 comedy about a government robot that magically becomes sentient during a thunderstorm. I’ve watched it countless times, enjoying the improbable situations and the vivid characters, most notably Number Five, the wide-eyed robot with an innocent outlook and a strong will to live. Recently, I rewatched Short Circuit 2, directed by Kenneth Johnson, and while my attachment to the sequel is not nearly so strong, it’s still a cute movie featuring the irrepressible robot who calls himself Johnny Five.

In this movie, Newton Crosby, the reclusive scientist who helped create Number Five, has moved to Montana with Stephanie Speck, the batty animal lover with whom the robot bonded after escaping the NOVA Robotics facility. Meanwhile, Newton’s partner, Ben (whose last name mysteriously changes from Jabituya in the first movie to Jahrvi in this), has moved to the big city to make a go of it selling tiny robot replicas. Unfortunately, mass-production is not an option with his meager resources, but when he writes to Newton and Stephanie to tell them of his troubles, they send Johnny Five his way.

In this movie, Johnny (Tim Blaney) continues his journey of self-awareness. He is considerably more well-spoken here since he’s had months to soak up all sorts of input; this makes him easier to understand but also a tad less distinctive. Still, he retains his insatiable curiosity about the world as well as his idealistic streak. All he wants is to be well-educated and respected as a genuine person. While Ben tries to keep him cooped up in the warehouse where he is speedily constructing miniature robots, Johnny soon finds his way outside and discovers that the city is a pretty cold place for a robot. If people aren’t screaming in terror or shooting him nasty looks, they’re taking advantage of his super skills and naivety. Will he ever be able to enjoy the life of an actual person?

While Johnny searches for himself, Ben is in the process of becoming an American citizen, which doesn’t make a lot of sense because in the first movie he said he was from Bakersfield, California and that his ancestors were from Pittsburgh. What’s more, he was working in a high-security government facility; would he really have been able to get such a job without being a citizen? Still, because Ben’s syntax is so ridiculous and his naivety level is almost as high as Johnny’s, it’s easy to roll with this idea even though there seems to be a continuity gap.

Additionally, while I never really noticed this until my most recent viewing, half the stuff Ben says in the first movie comes out a double entendre. The idea is that he has no idea what he’s saying, but it starts to feel like a lot of Freudian slips for a scientist who would really like a little one-on-one time with a woman. However, in the sequel, while he continues to say some pretty strange stuff, the innuendo is almost absent. While he is very lovable in the original film, he’s even sweeter here, and he just seems generally more innocent.

So innocent that he can’t see that street vendor Fred (Michael McKean), who gets him his first big sale, has the heart of a con artist. So innocent that he gets completely tongue-tied when Sandy (Cynthia Gibb), the eager young buyer for a major toy company, comes anywhere near him. Can this man whose mastery of English is so incomplete successfully pass his citizenship test? Can he avoid being taken in by shysters? And does he have any chance of winning the heart of the woman he finds so irresistible?

There’s a bit of crude language in this movie, particularly from a gang of street thugs who enlist Johnny’s aid in ripping off some cars – though Ben actually chides Johnny for repeating their off-color slogan, which made me smile. The plot is more complicated than in the first film, which is so beautifully simple. Here, we’ve got Johnny embarking on a journey of self-discovery; Ben working to become a citizen and woo Sandy; Sandy attempting to prove herself to her ornery boss; Fred trying to make a quick buck but unwittingly coming under the influence of Ben and Johnny’s noble spirits; and a bunch of low-down dirty jewel thieves doing their best to make off with several million dollars’ worth of diamonds hidden in a vault near Ben’s warehouse.

It’s a lot more involved than Robot Comes Alive, Government Tries to Capture Robot, Girl Shields Robot, and not necessarily for the better. With the big-city setting, there’s usually a lot of commotion, and it can be harder to really connect with the characters here. Additionally, some of the scenes are just plain absurd, and the climax feels even more violent than the first because the brutality is more personal. Besides that, Johnny’s vendetta toward the end of the film seems a bit at odds with his peaceful approach to life.

Still, there’s a lot to like here, particularly in the interaction among the four main characters. Three years ago, I was thrilled to see Stevens resurface on LOST in a very different sort of role, so it was fun to return to this and hear him adopt that goofy pseudo-Indian accent again. He’s such a plucky, upbeat guy that you really want him to succeed. Also, as someone who understands the way that shared references can strengthen bonds between people, I absolutely love how he uses the melodies of oldies to secretly communicate with Sandy from a distance when he is in distress – especially since the only LOST episode to heavily feature Stevens involves rigging up a phone so one man can make a life-saving call to his girlfriend.

On the back of the box our video came in, a blurb indicates that Siskel and Ebert thought this was even better than the original. I would beg to differ. However, if you loved Johnny Five and Ben the first time around, you’re likely to find plenty of entertainment value in Short Circuit 2.

Celebrating Paul Simon's 70th Birthday With Graceland

Today is the 70th birthday of Paul Simon, my favorite living singer-songwriter. While that is a major milestone for everyone, it’s particularly significant for Paul, since one of the songs that he wrote for the lauded Bookends album contained the line, “Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be 70…” I knew I wanted to recognize his birthday with a review, but I covered Bookends years ago, so instead I opted for something from his solo catalog. Graceland, released in the mid-1980s, is an acclaimed creative experiment incorporating numerous styles of music, most notably ones from South Africa. Paul’s focus for this project ended up introducing these types of music to whole new audiences, and South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo gained worldwide attention. When it comes to solo albums, Graceland is one of the great ones.

The Boy in the Bubble - Forere Motloheloa, who shares composing credits with Paul on this one, plays the accordion that is so pervasive on this track. The synthesizers and pounding percussion also offset Paul’s rather rambling lyrics filled with intriguing images. The peppy, soulful feel of this song sets a tone of musical playfulness and spiritual exploration for the rest of the album. “These are the days of miracle and wonder, this is the long distance call, the way the camera follows us in slo-mo, the way we look to us all, the way we look to a distant constellation that’s dying in a corner of the sky…”

Graceland - Guitars and percussion provide a driving rhythm here that captures the sense of an epic pilgrimage. It reminds me of a locomotive, which feels appropriate for a song about traveling long distances. Demola Adepoju’s pedal steel guitar adds an irresistible flavor to the melody, which communicates a sense of yearning and excitement. The characters in this song, much like those profiled in Slip Slidin’ Away, are broken and in search of renewal. While this is about Elvis Presley’s estate on one level, “Graceland” seems to represent something deeper. The chorus, enhanced by the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, who were such essential influences for Simon and Garfunkel, takes on a profoundly spiritual quality, with the speaker seeking the redemption to be found in a land of grace. “There’s some part of me wants to see Graceland, and I may be obliged to defend every love, every ending, or maybe there’s no obligations now. Maybe I’ve a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.”

I Know What I Know - This is a very noisy song co-composed by General M.D. Shirinda and accompanied by the shrill but intriguing vocals of The Gaza Sisters. I don’t know what it is that they’re singing underneath the chorus here, but it seems to fit with the scene the song sets of two people chattering rather mindlessly in the midst of a crowd. I don’t find this one very melodic, but it captures the awkwardness of small talk even between two people who seem to want to get to know each other better. Like Boy in the Bubble, it has a bit of a rambly feel to it, especially when he tosses out the six-syllable word “cinematographer’s.” “She looked me over and I guess she thought I was all right, all right in a sort of limited way for an off-night…”

Gumboots - A very fast-paced song, which makes sense since each verse involves some sort of speedy action – riding in a cab, running at a brick wall, putting the moves on someone you’ve just met. This song, co-composed by Lulu Masilela and Jonhjon Mkhalali, takes its cues from the South African style of jive music known as mbaqanga and is partly performed by the Boyoyo Boys. The accordion returns here, and saxophones get a few bars to themselves in this upbeat number celebrating optimism in the face of defeat.  "You don't feel you could love me, but I feel you could."

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - I’ll always have a soft spot for this song because it was introduced to me by Ian, a classmate who was one of the few people I knew in high school who expressed as deep a fondness for Paul Simon’s music as I did. He brought the recording to class for a presentation one day, and though my familiarity with Paul’s solo work was pretty limited at that point, it always stuck with me. A story of love amid economic disparity, this appealingly repetitive song is the longest on the album by more than a minute. The heavily harmonic a cappella intro that Paul does with Ladysmith Black Mambazo is my favorite part of the song, closely followed by the more instrumental outro, but the rest of the track is great as well, with its almost cacophonous mix of instruments and its persistent percussion. “People say she’s crazy, she’s got diamonds on the soles of her shoes. Well, that’s one way to lose these walking blues.”

You Can Call Me Al - This peculiar but absolutely infectious song is one of my favorites on the album in large part because of that goofy video Paul did with Chevy Chase. It must’ve been ridiculously inexpensive to make since it’s nothing but the two of them in a nearly-empty room, with Paul occasionally picking up instruments but mostly just looking bored while Chevy expressively lip-synchs. It’s got to be about the least complicated music video I’ve ever seen, but it completely cracks me up every time. The song seems to be about a mid-life crisis, with the speaker feeling unsatisfied with the opportunities that have been given to him. The blast of the brass instruments and the sprightly notes of Morris Goldberg’s pennywhistle add musical interest in this popular plea for a more comprehensible life. “If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long-lost pal. I can call you Betty, and Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.”

Under African Skies - Prolific and eclectic recording artist Linda Ronstadt harmonizes with Paul on this melodic song with an upbeat tone to it. I love the percussion and the way the voices complement each other as he describes two very distinct individuals. It seems to be a tribute to Joseph Shabalala, who shares writing credits with Paul on two songs on the album, and to Ronstadt, each an exceptional musician a world apart from each other but united in their collaboration with Paul on Graceland. “Joseph’s face was black as night. The pale yellow moon shone in his eyes. His path was marked by the stars in the Southern hemisphere, and he walked his days under African skies.”

Homeless - Shabalala co-wrote this eerily beautiful a cappella song that features more Zulu than English. The harmonies are gorgeous, with the deepest voices in Ladysmith Black Mambazo giving the music greater heft. Paul’s voice is only prominent in a small portion of the song; I’m not clear on whether he’s silent the rest of the time or simply overpowered by Shabalala and the strong voices of the rest of the chanting group. This song about loss and isolation is curiously incongruous because of the sense of brotherhood the harmonies create. It becomes an anthem of solidarity and looking out for each other when the tumults of life strike. “Homeless, homeless. Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake. Homeless, homeless. Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake.”

Crazy Love Vol. II - This song with the rather perplexing title and a series of odd images – particularly the character Fat Charlie the Archangel – is performed with the group Stimela. It’s a peppy song full of fun instruments and ardent declarations of disinterest. The lyrics to the chorus are very repetitive, but they work well. “I don’t want no part of this crazy love. I don’t want no part of your love.”

That Was Your Mother - A fast-paced song that makes me think of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, as that seems to be the theme here, rather like the cheerfully nostalgic Neil Byrne song Sadie Jones and I. We have accordion again here, this time played by Alton Rubin, Sr., and Paul is joined by the group Good Rockin’ Dopsie and the Twisters. A fun and rather manic track with a distinct dialect. “Well, that was your mother and that was your father before you were born, dude, when life was great. You are the burden of my generation. I sure do love you, but let’s get that straight.”

All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints -Los Lobos contribute to this final track on the album. It’s a very melodic song, and I especially like the vocalizations at the end. This song seems to be touching upon big issues, though I can’t quite figure out what’s he’s talking about with the myth of the fingerprints. Ultimately there seems to be a message in there somewhere about having the guts to start over and try something totally different. “Over the mountain, down in the valley, lives the former talk-show host, and far and wide his name was known. He said there’s no doubt about it. It was the myth of the fingerprints; that’s why we must learn to live alone.”

Arguably the most repeated quote from LOST, my favorite TV show, is “If we can’t live together, we’re gonna die alone.” It’s a statement of intercultural cooperation that seems especially pertinent here. With Graceland, Paul Simon shows listeners both how big and how small the world really is.

Lemonade Mouth Encourages Friendship and Self-Expression

My familiarity with tween Disney phenomena is fairly limited, so before this week I had never heard of the made-for-TV movie Lemonade Mouth, but when Netflix directed me to it, I decided to take a chance on this movie that’s a bit like a mash-up of High School Musical and The Breakfast Club.

Adapted from the Mark Peter Hughes book by April Blair, this movie, directed by Patricia Riggen, could probably be instantly pegged as a tween Disney musical. It just has that look and feel to it. It’s contemporary and earnest, walking the line between hip and corny without fully landing in either territory. For the most part, it’s not as cheesy as I thought it might be, though it definitely has its moments.

Lemonade Mouth takes its name from the band that five Mesa High School students form after an impromptu musical moment in detention, which they serve in the dilapidated music room. Only one of the five is a rabble-rouser; one is there for attempting to cut class under coercion from her boyfriend, and the others are there almost by accident. The beginning of the movie introduces each of them, swiftly establishing their personalities and family issues.

Blond pianist Wen (Adam Hicks) is bitter because his dad (Bob Jesser) is head over heels in love with a 28-year-old bombshell named Sydney (Ariana Smythe) and doesn’t seem to give two hoots about how Wen feels about their quickly-progressing relationship. Half-Japanese anarchic guitarist Stella (Hayley Kiyoko) hates the world because she is living in the shadow of her super-genius parents (Aimee Dale and Scott Takeda), who just moved her across the country a month into the school year.

Floppy-haired drummer Charlie (Blake Michael) is living under his mother’s (Lora Cunningham) expectation that he will be just like his soccer star brother, and Indian-American bassist Mo (Naomi Scott) gets exceptional grades but still feels she can’t live up to her father’s (Shishir Kurup) ideal of a perfect Indian woman. Our narrator, introverted blond singer-songwriter Olivia (Bridgit Mendler), is the only one whose family dynamics come out more gradually; in the beginning, all we know is that she lives with her grandmother (Judith Rane) and sickly cat.

The movie really does an excellent job of distinguishing these characters from one another and making us care about their situations. I found myself invested in every one of them, particularly Wen, whose dad is astonishingly insensitive but whose sweet soon-to-be-stepmom is truly making an effort to reach out to him. My favorite, though, is Olivia, whose quiet disposition and writerly impulses remind me of myself. While aggressive Stella is the driving force behind the band’s formation, gentle Olivia is the most essential as the lead singer and primary songwriter.

Lemonade Mouth starts at the end, with Olivia relating the band’s story at a point at which they have become enormously successful. We see the almost instantaneous rise to fame, and while the hearing-their-song-on-the-radio-for-the-first-time moment pales in intensity to That Thing You Do! or LOST’s Greatest Hits, their joy is still infectious. More striking, however, are communal displays of favor – the Lemonade Mouth signs that start popping up around school, the moment late in the film when fans touchingly demonstrate their absorption of the band’s lyrics.

Those lyrics are generally messages of affirmation, individuality and friendship. A couple of the songs have a rebellious streak, as the band is largely a reactionary effort against Principal Brenigan (Christopher McDonald), who rules over the school with Shatneresque authoritarian cheese. His office wall is covered in surveillance feeds from around the school; his face greets students multiple times a day via video announcements; he makes the rounds of the hallway on his Segway, gleefully distributing detentions.

Brenigan’s the Big Bad, but not really; he’s too silly to be truly intimidating, and every once in a while it’s evident that he truly does care about all his students. However, his chief concern at the moment is the athletics program, which is under the thumb of a sports drink company. The lemonade from the soon-to-be-ousted machine outside the music room becomes a symbol for freedom of expression and the idea that all extracurricular activities should be given adequate attention. The only other adult in the school who we get to know is music teacher Miss Reznick (Tisha Campbell-Martin), an enthusiastic educator frustrated by the principal’s policies and eager to help the kids make their voices of dissent heard.

McDonald and Campbell-Martin give the campiest performances in the movie, but they rarely made me wince and often caused me to chuckle. The songs fall firmly into the teen pop category, so I’m not all that into the style of most of them, but I like the message of most of Lemonade Mouth’s, and their chief rivals, punk rockers Mudslide Crush, offer an amusing juxtaposition with their hostile, self-aggrandizing lyrics. I would never buy the soundtrack to the movie, but the music is enjoyable enough in context.

I expected to find Lemonade Mouth pretty silly, and at times I did, but I was surprised at how invested I got in the main quintet. By the time each of them finds some resolution to the problems pressing on them at the beginning, I actually caught myself misting up a little. I certainly recommend this to the tween crowd, but if you’re older than that, you might consider giving it a shot anyway. It sure didn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth.

New Additions Make the Second Season of The Commish My Favorite

Over the past few months, my family has been enjoying The Commish, the 1990s series about an unassuming police commissioner in Eastbridge, a small fictional town near New York City. The second season is just as enjoyable as the first, with the same quirky humor and the sweetness of a guy who truly loves his family and cares about the citizens under his watch.

Tony Scali (Michael Chiklis) is a charming fellow in his late 30s. His love of good food is a running joke throughout the series, as he’s always sneaking snacks and sometimes uses culinary delights as a way to calm down victims or tempt suspects into talking. An incredibly hands-on guy, he dives right into the mysteries that come to his department, often going on the beat himself and getting into precarious situations. His degree of direct involvement with cases is not quite realistic, but it is one of the most interesting elements of the show, especially when he uses his noggin to “regulate human behavior” and talk down a lawbreaker with little muss or fuss.

Tony is married to Rachel (Theresa Saldana), a hard-working educator, and both are deeply devoted to their son David (Kaj-Erik Eriksen), a smarter-than-average middle schooler who is a good kid but is having a tough time adjusting to the changes in his family. Chief among these is the new sister who is on the way at the beginning of the second season. The new baby plays a big role in the season, particularly the episode in which Rachel goes into labor while Tony is dealing with his old mentor, who is threatening to jump off a ledge in the wake of his forced retirement. Her recent birth also informs Tony’s desperate search for a kidnapped infant with lactose intolerance in one of the season’s most intense episodes.

At the department, the most compelling of the officers on the force continues to be Stan Kelly (Geoffrey Nauffts), a rather naïve young man with a true passion for helping others. Tony seems to take a special interest in him and often uses him in an unusual capacity on cases. While he can be a bit of a hothead sometimes, Stan is mostly an extremely lovable character. New to the show in this season is Cyd Madison (Melinda McGraw), a street-smart detective with a real gift for going undercover but a surprising vulnerability when it comes to her personal life. She makes an excellent addition to the cast, and I love the dynamic between her and Tony.

This season is full of funny moments, many of them involving the dopey custodian who is always misinterpreting Tony’s instructions like a burly Amelia Bedelia. Tony’s unconventional methods of coaxing confessions and talking down the mentally unstable continue to bring chuckles, as do some of the absurd situations in which he finds himself. In one episode, what was intended as a romantic gesture spirals into absurdity when Tony accidentally releases a balloon to which he has attached an expensive ring for Rachel. His quest to retrieve it is hilarious, as is the episode in which the Scalis try to figure out what their rather obnoxious new neighbors are getting them for Christmas so they can reciprocate appropriately.

However, it also delves into very serious topics. Rachel is severely traumatized after witnessing an armed robbery that results in the death of a grocery clerk, and David faces a moral dilemma when his best friend shoots a middle school bully in his defense. Tony must put all his people skills to work when he discovers that an old friend has developed dissociative identity disorder and his alternate personality is murderous. Telly Savalas turns up for several episodes as a mobster who claims to be retired but who seems to bring big trouble with him to Eastbridge. The guest star who excited me most was Mark Pellegrino, best known to me as Island sage Jacob on LOST, particularly since Titus Welliver, who played Jacob’s nemesis, showed up in the first season. Both are ultimately sympathetic figures, though Pellegrino’s character spends his episode in a stand-off with the police.

Each week, Tony and those in his department must work to solve the crimes of Eastbridge. Some of them are fairly frivolous, but many are a matter of life and death. The addition of Cyd and of baby Sarah makes season two even more engaging than the first and probably my favorite of the series, and while it’s always best to watch in order, if you jump in at the beginning of this season, you won’t feel too out of the loop. I’m not usually too big on cop shows, but The Commish is one I will gladly watch any time.

Ingest the Wisdom of Linus With Help Stamp Out Things That Need Stamping Out

Like most people I know, I consider Renaissance Beagle Snoopy my favorite character in Charles Schulz’s classic comic strip Peanuts. He’s so dynamic and entertaining, and I can certainly relate to his frustrations with rejection letters. When it comes to the humans, however, I tend to gravitate less toward the round-headed kid, despite my empathy for the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune sends Charlie Brown’s way, than his younger friend with the striped shirt. Linus Van Pelt is an anxious lad who is prone to philosophizing. Indeed, the two qualities often go together because thinking too much has a tendency to make one jittery. Just take a look at LOST’s frazzled physicist Faraday. Or me.

Given my love of Linus, I was tickled when, after a recent visit with my grandma, my dad brought home a tiny book that his brother had given him years ago. Entitled Help Stamp Out Things That Need Stamping Out (And Other Philosophical Gems of Linus), the green hardcover gift book published by Hallmark in 1969 is slim and pocket-sized. Within it are 11 “chapters,” each four pages long and each headed by a title beginning with the word “on.” For instance, the title, which goes with the cover image of Linus holding a picket sign featuring these words, is from “On Being Specific” and is Linus’s response to Lucy’s complaint that his sign slogan, “Help Stamp Out Things,” is too vague.

Each title rests in a box with a thin red border at the top of the first panel in the cartoon. Each page is a panel unto itself, so you’re really just getting 11 individual cartoons. The book is also rather lacking in the eye-catching department, with black and red the only colors aside from the green of the cover. Red only appears in the characters’ clothes, so at least we don’t have red grass making everything look arid, but Charlie Brown’s signature yellow shirt looks a little funny in cinnamon. Additionally, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Violet are the only characters who appear in the book with Linus, so there’s not a whole lot of variety.

Still, you can certainly get an idea of these three characters’ personalities, particularly the forceful Lucy, who displays openly antagonistic behavior to Linus in four of the sections. Most of all, you get a good sense of Linus, who is jumpy at some times, wise beyond his years at others and always intent and curious about the world around him. He can be a bit of a smart-aleck, which isn’t such a good idea when his sister is such a hot-head, but his superior intelligence is due not only to his immersion in books but to his willingness to experiment. Does a smile really make a good umbrella? What is the ideal temperature to bring out the optimum flavor in a thumb?

Many of the observations that form the punch line of each section are quite quotable. I think my favorite is, “I don’t like to do anything that interferes with my not doing anything!” Who hasn’t had such a thought when an unwanted chore interferes with a lazy afternoon? And everyone would do well to remember Linus’s disgruntled resolution, “I’ve got to stop this business of talking without thinking.” With everyday topics ranging from Mixing Categories and Interruptions to Home Remedies and Good Judgment, the book is bound to resonate with most readers at least once. For me, it’s frequent. This little collection of wit and wisdom is only one of a dozen released by Hallmark in the 1960s. I hope I come across more of them; this may not be a very extensive collection, but every cartoon is right on target.

Sing Like a Seafarer on Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy, matey! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, created in 1995 and popularized in 2002 by humorist Dave Barry. I’ve found this event amusing since I first became acquainted with it, though I haven’t quite mastered the gift of pirate gab myself. Hence, I won’t be writing a review in Piratese, but in honor of this rather ridiculous holiday, I present my September 19th list of 19 seafaring songs. While only a quarter of them involve actual pirates and there’s a fairly heavy concentration of songs from the Irish Rovers and Celtic Thunder, I hope it goes down as sweet as a goblet o’ grog.

A Professional Pirate - In this song from Muppet Treasure Island, Tim Curry leads a most unsavory crew in a litany of reasons why the pirate lifestyle is so satisfactory. A gregarious song of welcome rather reminiscent of Oliver’s Consider Yourself, it offers the wily Long John Silver a chance to persuade innocent young Jim Hawkins that piracy isn’t so terrible after all. “It’s how you look at buccaneers that makes them bad or good, and I see us as members of a noble brotherhood!”

Blow the Man Down - When it comes to traditional sea shanties, few are more famous than this one. I’ve heard it any number of times at Celtic fests and other singalong occasions, but when I think of it nowadays, what pops into my mind first is the absurd but endearing sight of brainy Sheldon Cooper and his bubbly neighbor Penny using the song to help them mass-produce hair clips on The Big Bang Theory. “I’ll sing ye a song, a good song of the sea, with a way, hey, blow the man down. I trust that you’ll join in the chorus with me. Give me some time to blow the man down!”

Calypso - John Denver wrote this song in the immediate aftermath of his ride on the Calypso, the ship belonging to ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. It’s easy to tell how inspired he was; it may be just about the most viscerally joyful song in his catalog, and given how happy so much of his music is, that’s really saying something. An exuberant tribute to Cousteau and to aquatic life. “Like the dolphin who guides you, you bring us beside you to light up the darkness and show us the way. Although we are strangers in your silent world, to live on the land we must learn from the sea to be true as the tide, free as a wind swell, joyful and loving in letting it be.”

Candle on the Water - Definitely not a sea shanty, but so rich in nautical imagery that I had to include it, especially since it is one of my very favorite Disney love songs. Helen Reddy’s Nora, a lighthouse keeper, continues to tend to her duties, hoping that one day the ship her beacon saves will be that of her fiancé Paul, who vanished at sea the year before. The lighthouse becomes a powerful metaphor for the flame in her heart that she refuses to extinguish. “A cold and friendless tide has found you. Don’t let the stormy darkness pull you down. I’ll paint a ray of hope around you, circling in the air, lighted by a prayer.”

Captain Hook - My favorite version of Peter Pan is the televised stage musical starring Mary Martin, with the outstanding Cyril Ritchard as the far more hilarious than menacing Captain Hook. A preening peacock of a man, he revels in the tribute he writes to himself, with his pirate crew chiming in on the chorus. “Who’s the swiniest swine in the world? (Captain Hook! Captain Hook!) Who’s the dirtiest dog in this wonderful world? (Captain Hook! Captain Hook!) Captain of villainy, murder and loot, eager to kill any who says that his hook isn’t cute. (It’s cute!)”

Farewell to Nova Scotia - This traditional Canadian dirge most likely dates back about a century, and I’ve heard several renditions, my favorite of which is the wistful, woodwind-soaked one by the Irish Rovers. Songs of emigration are common to Celtic music; this one stands out to me for this list because of the nautical focus of the chorus. “Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast. Let your mountains dark and dreary be. When I am far away, on the briny ocean tossed, will you ever heave a sigh or a wish for me?”

Gilligan’s Island Theme Song - Possibly the most maddeningly catchy theme song in television history. Once this song gets lodged in your head, you’re stuck with the bouncy ballad for life. These seven stranded castaways have such a cushy life that it doesn’t really matter that Gilligan manages to thwart their rescue week after week. Since the millionaire Howells seem to have packed for a three-year tour and there’s nothing that the Professor can’t build out of bamboo or coconuts, they’re set for life. Pretty lucky shipwreck! (P. S. You’re welcome.) “The mate was a mighty sailin’ man, the skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour (a three-hour tour).”

Greenland Whale Fisheries - Peter Paul and Mary sing a stirring version of this 300-year-old ballad detailing a whaling expedition gone awry. I’d never heard it before I got their boxed set five years ago, but it’s been covered by many, including The Weavers, whose rendition is perhaps the most famous. The deceptively upbeat banjo is countered by the melancholy flute in this tragic tale. “Oh, Greenland is a dreadful place. It’s a land that’s never green, where there’s ice and snow and the whale-fishes blow and daylight’s seldom seen, brave boys, and daylight’s seldom seen.”

Heartland - One of Celtic Thunder’s two signature songs, this Phil Coulter chant is a prayer for deliverance uttered by sailors in rough weather. In this way, it’s quite similar to the ballad Home From the Sea, included on a later Celtic Thunder album, but the bouncy folksiness of that song, along with the rescue at the hands of the coast guard, gives it a very different tone than this one, a reverent plea borne of desperation and deep faith. It’s a most appropriate song for the group to open with, since the Gaelic chorus, which translates to “Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy,” feels so Celtic and the stormy situation, brought to life with deep percussion, certainly takes care of the thunder. “When the winds are howling, vigil keep. Shelter us and save us from the deep!”

Into the West - Extensively hinted at earlier in the score, particularly the exquisite The Grey Havens, this is the end-credits anthem of The Return of the King. Drawing inspiration from Frodo’s vision of the West in the novel and the Tennyson-esque poem Bilbo’s Last Song, which imagines Bilbo’s poetic response to his departure from Middle-earth, this epic Annie Lennox song is slow and ethereal. While it deals specifically with the Westward journey that the heroic Bagginses undertake after their labors have ended, the song also uses nautical imagery to speak metaphorically and optimistically of death. “What can you see on the horizon? Why do the white gulls call? Across the sea, a pale moon rises. The ships have come to carry you home.”

Jack Sparrow - I distinctly remember the night six years ago when I was watching Saturday Night Live and saw my first Digital Short. I was blown away by Lazy Sunday, which was just so different and so refreshingly funny. In the video, a couple of geeky guys use hardcore rap to relate their exploits leading up to their viewing of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s hilarious and, aside from one extraneous word that seems to have been included mostly so it could be censored, perfectly clean. Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island cronies quickly got more risqué with their videos and songs on the show and off, so when this video went viral on Facebook, I was torn between keen interest and wariness. Interest won out; both were warranted. The main trio’s rapped verses are filthy, both in terms of language and activities described, but Michael Bolton’s random melodic outbursts that turn the chorus into a tribute to Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribeean make the wincing worth it. The most entertaining marriage of an epic score and absurd heights of fandom since last year’s I’ll Never Be LOST Again, it proved the perfect way to generate excitement for the fourth movie. “This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate so brave on the Seven Seas. A mystical quest to the isle of Tortuga. Raven locks sway in the ocean breeze.”

Safe in the Harbour - I just discovered this gentle Eric Bogle ballad thanks to George Donaldson’s debut solo album, The White Rose. Written in tribute to the late Canadian singer-songwriter Stan Rogers, it speaks of sailing as being akin to dreaming before using the chorus to craft a metaphor similar to the one used in Into the West. Simply gorgeous. “To every sailor comes time to drop anchor, haul in the sails and make the lines fast. You deep water dreamer, your journey is over. You’re safe in the harbour at last.”

The Irish Rover - This traditional tune from which the Irish Rovers take their name is a calamitous ballad that really should be a most mournful lament. Instead, however, the whole thing feels like a party, particularly the silly section detailing all of the cargo that the Irish Rover has in its hold. I’ve heard this song oodles of times, but nobody whoops it up like the Irish Rovers, who keep listeners on their toes by altering the lyrics slightly just about every time they record it. Never has a shipwreck been so much fun. “We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out and the ship lost its way in a fog, and the whale of a crew was reduced down to two: ‘twas meself and the captain’s old dog. Then the ship struck a rock – oh, Lord, what a shock! We nearly tumbled over. Turned nine times around and the poor old dog was drowned. I’m the last of The Irish Rover!”

The Mariner’s Revenge Song - This was the song that introduced me to The Decemberists, a truly unusual alt-folkie group fronted by Colin Meloy, who mostly writes songs that sound as though they’ve been floating around for a couple of centuries. That’s certainly true of this nine-minute-long whale of a song accompanied by accordion and tambourine and filled with words like “roustabout” and “consumptive.” After the narrator’s “poor sweet mother” charges her young son with the task of violently dispatching the ne’er-do-well who had his way with her, infected her with some foul disease and abandoned her, even Inigo Montoya would be hard-pressed to compete with his blood-thirsty drive for vengeance. Quite a nasty narrative, but oh so grandiose. “We are two mariners, our ships' sole survivors in this belly of a whale. Its ribs are ceiling beams. Its guts are carpeting. I guess we have some time to kill…”

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything - Since its first episode, one of the trademark elements of the VeggieTales line of computer-animated Christian videos has been Silly Songs With Larry. This particular Silly Song is doubly goofy because it makes its debut in a video that consists of nothing but previous Silly Songs. These lackadaisical pirates would go on to star in two full-screen flops that almost toppled the company, so I guess you might say they accidentally pillaged their own production. Nonetheless, I found the films fairly fun and the concept a hoot as gruff Pa Grape, luxuriating Mr. Lunt and oblivious Larry the Cucumber brag about all the piratey – and, in Larry’s case, just plain weird – things they’ve never actually done. “And I never hoist the mainstay, and I never swab the poop deck, and I never veer to starboard ‘cause I never sail at all. And I’ve never walked the gangplank, and I’ve never owned a parrot, and I’ve never been to Boston in the fall.”

The Voyage - This Johnny Duhan song, famously covered by Christy Moore, is another that I heard first from Celtic Thunder’s George Donaldson. In this tender love song, the speaker likens marriage to a nautical journey, instantly reminding me of LOST’s Odyssean lovers Desmond and Penny, who spend so much of their time navigating the ocean in their quest to be together. While the central metaphor comes close to being mawkish at times, it never crosses the line, at least when sung by such master balladeers as I’ve heard performing it. “I am a sailor; you’re my first mate. We signed on together; we coupled our fate. We hauled up our anchor, determined not to fail. For the heart’s treasure, together we set sail.”

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Up until the Decemberists came along, I found it hard to imagine a seafaring ballad that could eclipse this six-and-a-half-minute-long behemoth. Even in light of that song, Gordon Lightfoot’s electrified ode to the doomed titular ship remains impressive. Inspired by a straightforward newspaper account of the infamous shipwreck that occurred November 10, 1975, it also has the distinction of being the only non-local song I can think of to mention Lake Erie. I saw this song performed from the second row at a concert in 2000, and believe me, it really felt like we were out there on that roiling ocean. I’ll always think of this as the ultimate shipwreck song. “In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral. The church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Yellow Submarine - No, it’s not a boat per se, but how could I not include this cheerful ocean vessel at the heart of one of the Beatles’ peppiest, most recognizable tunes? It sure sounds like a wonderful way to see the aquatic world. “In the town where I was born there lived a man who sailed to sea, and he told us of his life in the land of submarines. So we sailed into the sun till we found the sea of green, and we lived beneath the waves in our yellow submarine.”

Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me) - I love that my alphabetization of this list landed me with pirate songs on either end. This song, very much along the same lines as A Professional Pirate, is a celebration of this lawless lifestyle and has served as the official theme song to the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions for upwards of four decades. A very singable shanty that delights in devilish deeds and a perfect way to wrap up this Talk Like a Pirate Day Playlist. “We’re beggars and blighters and ne’er-do-well cads. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho! Aye, but we’re loved by our mommies and dads. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!”

It took me a while to come up with enough songs for this list, but once they started pouring in, I had a hard time restricting myself to just 19 and had to leave out several great ones, from the Irish Rovers’ mandolin-drenched lament My Boy Willie to the hearty barrel-riding number Rolling Down the Hole from the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit. If any of you have favorite nautical songs I haven’t mentioned here, I welcome recommendations. Meanwhile, if you enjoy this type of music as much as I do, I hope I’ve helped you find an appropriate musical backdrop for this most auspicious occasion. I best be shovin’ off fer now, so fair winds to ye, matey, until this time next year!

Laura and Her Family Battle Hardships With a Smile in Little House on the Prairie

With my mom recovering from surgery, we’ve been watching a lot of television this summer. One series that has captured our attention is Little House on the Prairie, a series that has been referenced in formats as disparate as the latest VeggieTales video, which spoofs it, and LOST, in which snarly cynic Sawyer secretly considers it one of his favorite shows. While both of us had seen various episodes before, many of the episodes in the first season, which my friend lent us, were new to us, and the repeats were still entertaining the second or, in a couple of cases, third or fourth time around.

Little House on the Prairie is the long-running television series that is rather loosely based on the beloved autobiographical books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The show, which takes place in the late 1800s in the tiny town of Walnut Grove, centers around the Ingalls family, though individual episodes sometimes focus more on other townspeople. Still, at least one Ingalls is usually integrally involved in the story.

Laura (Melissa Gilbert) serves as narrator in some of the episodes, a device that harkens back to the books. This spunky pig-tailed child has a heart of gold but a knack for getting into trouble; her tomboyish tendencies are part of the reason she shares such a powerful bond with her pa, who calls her Half-Pint. Michael Landon is a bundle of warmth and humor as Charles Ingalls, though he has his stubborn and ornery moments as well. His relationship with the practical but fiery Caroline (Karen Grassle) is the cornerstone of the show, and theirs is a model marriage, albeit infused with a more modern flavor than the Ingallses we see in the books.

Less prominent than Laura but still a major player is her older sister Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson), who is ladylike and studious and often irritated by Laura’s behavior, though never for long. She’s a bit of a goody two-shoes, but there’s nothing mean-spirited in her outlook; she’s just not usually quite as fun as Laura is. Completing the Ingalls family is toddler Carrie, played by twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush. Because she is so young, she never has much of a role in anything that is happening throughout the first season, and most of her dialogue consists merely of repeating the words of others.

Beyond that core family, however, are many colorful residents. Chief among these are the Olesons, the owners of the local mercantile who stand as a sort of antithesis to the Ingallses. Richard Bull is wonderful as Nels, a hen-pecked man with a good head for business but also a kind heart and a sense of fair play. He’s a decent fellow who seems to envy Charles his devoted wife and well-mannered children. Poor Nels is stuck with Laura’s nemesis, haughty Nellie (Alison Arngrim), and her destructive little brother Willie (Jonathan Gilbert). Worst of all, though, is his shrewish wife Harriet, the scourge of the town who is played with devilish glee by Scottie MacGregor in the most consistently laugh-aloud funny role in the series.

Other recurring characters include warm-hearted Doc Baker (Kevin Hagen), whose gentle bedside manner and hearty sense of humor give him the perfect disposition for his difficult job; jovial Swede Lars Hanson (Carl Swenson), who owns the lumber mill employing several of the town’s residents; even-tempered Reverend Alden (Dabbs Greer), who ministers eloquently to his yearning congregants; and disheveled Mr. Edwards (Victor French), an earlier acquaintance whose gruff manner Laura adores and who is the only character on the show with his own theme music. While most stories focus on recurring characters, some involve characters who only turn up in that particular episode. In many cases, these are just people passing through. For instance, Red Buttons turns up as a one-man circus peddling peep shows and placebos. This storyline, which primarily involves a phony powder he passes off as a miracle drug, amused me since Buttons went on to play a similar role a couple years later in Pete’s Dragon.

Because of the harsh conditions and plentiful opportunities for injury, many episodes have a grim streak to them, and it’s not uncommon for at least one character to die. In one episode, an elderly widow on the cusp of her 80th birthday concocts a plan to pretend that she has died in order to get her children into town for the funeral. In another, Laura and family dog Jack are feared rabid after both are bitten by her pet raccoon. In the most morbid episode of the season, a typhus outbreak causes life in Walnut Grove to grind to a halt as residents begin dropping off. The sense of peril is acute, and it’s easy to imagine that even the most beloved characters could fall victim to the whims of the harsh landscape.

Nonetheless, levity is hardly hard to come by. The music of Landon’s laugh rumbles through most episodes multiple times, and Laura’s antics often elicit a chuckle, to say nothing of the calamitous occurrences in the Oleson household. It may be a time of simple pleasures, but those pleasures are very visceral. There’s genuine joy in the pick-up baseball games and the picnics that are such a favorite after-church pastime, with homemade goodies spread out over blankets under a sunny sky. The faith of these hard-working and hard-playing residents helps sustain them as they move along toward their next set of challenges.

And of course, there is love. The Ingallses are a model for the whole community in this regard, both in terms of the familial relationship and the strong partnership between Charles and Caroline. The Olesons model a very different sort of marriage, but love is present there as well, as evidenced by the conclusion of the episode in which the two of them have an explosive fight and nearly split up. We see puppy love when Laura falls for an older classmate, who, in a later episode, falls for a burlesque dancer he meets when he decides to run away from home. The romantic storyline that intrigued me most involves Doc Baker and Harriet’s visiting niece forming a swift mutual affection for one another, only to be thwarted by an unfortunate circumstance, though not the one I expected.

The first season includes several iconic episodes, including Harvest of Friends, in which the Ingalls family sets up house at Plum Creek and becomes acquainted with the townspeople, and The Lord Is My Shepherd, the two-parter in which Caroline has a baby who dies and a guilt-stricken Laura, who was bitterly jealous of him, literally heads for the hills in an effort to convince God to swap her life for that of her baby brother. This episode covers a span of at least a year, which throws the timeline off a bit. For instance, in the Christmas episode, Mary mentions that this is the first Christmas at Plum Creek, but it would have to be at least the second. Nonetheless, it’s a powerful episode and one of several in which Christian faith plays a significant role, which is one of the reasons the show is so popular with people like my grandma, who bemoans the lack of traditional values on contemporary television.

Little House on the Prairie is a wholesome show that blends the old-fashioned with more modern sensibilities. Charles and Caroline sometimes seem a little too hip for the 1880s, and some of the topics they broach seem to reflect the 1970s more than that earlier era. It’s definitely a different animal than the books, but if you enjoyed reading about Laura’s pioneer adventures, chances are you will like watching the stories that unfold in a mildly fictionalized version of that world. And if the old-timey setting doesn’t appeal to you, give it a try, and you may just find that the residents of Walnut Grove are not so very different from us.

Dueling Perspectives Accentuate the Communication Gap in Rob Reiner's Flipped

One of my favorite moments in all of LOST occurs in season three, when we get a glimpse into the childhood of Benjamin Linus, arguably the most complex character in the series. In this scene, a girl named Annie shows him two dolls she has made, one to represent her, the other him. She presents him with the Annie doll and explains, “Now we never have to be away from each other.”

It’s a shining moment of true friendship in the otherwise deeply troubled life of a Machiavelli in the making. So powerful was its impact that although she only appeared in that episode, Annie remains one of my favorite characters on the show. When I discovered that Flipped, a 2010 Rob Reiner film I found while browsing IMDb, features Madeline Carroll, the actress who portrayed Annie, I knew I had to rent it. The cover photograph of two 14-year-old friends sharing a tree perch, reminiscent of Annie and Ben sharing a swing set, was the icing on the cake.

In Flipped, adapted from the Wendelin Van Draanen novel by Reiner and Andrew Scheinman, Carroll plays Juli Baker, an eighth grader who has been smitten with her neighbor, Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe), ever since he moved in across the street six years earlier. Bryce considers her more of a nuisance than a real friend, while she treasures their relationship and imagines that his feelings run deeper than he is willing to let on. It’s the early 1960s, and painful secrets lurk beneath the surface of a seemingly placid neighborhood. Everything is about to get more complicated for both Juli and Bryce, and how they relate to one another will have an important effect on their lives in this year of transition.

The look and feel of the movie is appealing, with Thomas Del Ruth’s sunny cinematography reflecting the innocence of the chief characters, while early sock hop hits pepper the soundtrack. Bryce watches Bonanza with his family; Juli confesses to a crush on the Everly Brothers and can’t decide which of the duo she prefers. Both of the central families are close-knit but don’t speak with each other as freely as they should; the communication gap there mirrors the chasm that exists between Bryce and Juli.

In Juli’s family, the most engaging character is her eccentric dad (Aidan Quinn), who looks at the world with an artist’s eye but fails to see that his unkempt lawn has become the bane of the neighborhood. The family is struggling, but we don’t really understand why until an eye-opening visit with Juli’s uncle (Kevin Weisman) partway through the movie. Her mother (Penelope Ann Miller) is frustrated but kind, and both parents encourage the musical aspirations of her twin brothers (Michael Bolten and Shane Harper).

Cheerful teens Mark and Matt spend a lot of time with Bryce’s older sister Lynetta (Cody Horn), much to the disapproval of Bryce’s spiteful father (Anthony Edwards), who has had nothing good to say about the Baker clan from day one. Bryce’s mother (Rebecca de Mornay) is more understanding, but it’s his withdrawn, widowed grandfather, Chet (John Mahoney), who has the largest role to play thanks to his fondness for Juli, which gradually brings him out of his shell and helps to bridge the division that develops between the youngsters.

While I found this movie thoroughly enjoyable on several levels, what appealed to me most is the way we alternate between Bryce and Juli’s perspectives. One narrates for a while, and then we switch over to the other, usually with some overlap that gives us a very different reading on what we just saw in the previous scene. Bryce’s narration, especially toward the beginning, is a bit aggressive; he just can’t understand why Juli won’t leave him alone, and he would be mortified to realize that she thinks he is giving off encouraging signals.

Meanwhile, her tone is generally dreamy; she spends a lot of time with her head in the clouds, which may partly account for the disconnect between her perceptions and reality. Bryce thinks she’s a loon, but Chet, who begins spending his afternoons helping her landscape her front lawn, insists she’s special. Finally, Bryce’s impression of her begins to change, but not before his insensitivity causes Juli to seriously reconsider her long-held affections…

McAuliffe, who I’d never encountered before, turns in a good performance as Bryce, who generally comes across as shallower than Juli but matures as the year progresses. However, it was Carroll who really impressed me. Of course, I was predisposed to like Juli because of LOST and Chet because of Frasier, so that may have influenced me, but I generally found that Juli’s half of the storyline was more poignant and profound. Most often, her problems are more pressing, and she reacts with more compassion to the trials of others.

Chet’s admiration for her blooms after she makes a brave stand to save the majestic sycamore tree that serves as her favorite thoughtful spot, and she takes it upon herself to beautify her family’s property, accepting her neighbor’s aid in part because she realizes his need for kindred companionship. Later, she comes to understand the painful truth behind her family’s financial difficulties, and her kindness compels her to make a surprising decision during a school fundraiser. Carroll has more dramatic material to work with, while McAuliffe’s veers more often toward the comical.

Flipped is a mirthful movie that exposes the very different ways in which people, especially teenage boys and girls, think. It’s common for one person to be completely oblivious to something the other thinks is obvious, and these missed signals have great comedic heft. At the same time, all these misunderstandings have the capacity to derail a friendship, and one wonders while watching whether it might be better if two people in such a situation could simply, as Gordon Lightfoot wistfully proposed, read each other’s minds. Or would knowing too much present just as many pitfalls as not knowing enough?

What is clear after watching the movie is that everyday interactions only skim the surface of a person’s innermost thoughts, and whether you’re 14 or 41, delving deeper is a dance whose complicated choreography is never the same for any two people. For Juli and Bryce, the steps are awkward indeed, but the final waltz is as graceful as the slope of a sycamore limb under a fiery sky.

Eloise Speaks Her Mind and Runs Wild in Eloise at the Plaza

As an ardent fan of LOST, the first character who springs to mind when I hear the name “Eloise” is Eloise Hawking, one of the most unsettling maternal figures television has ever seared into my brain. However, the name has had a prominent place in children’s literature for decades. While I somehow have never read the Eloise books by Kay Thompson, I recently watched the 2003 made-for-TV adaptation Eloise at the Plaza, so if I get tired of having an austere British matron materialize at the mention of “Eloise,” I have a rambunctious six-year-old American to fall back on.

Sofia Vassilieva stars as Eloise, the free-spirited blonde girl who lives in the Plaza Hotel with her faithful caretaker Nanny (Julie Andrews). Eloise is a whirling dervish, and Vassilieva keeps her in perpetual motion. It’s exhausting to watch her dash here and there, zooming up and down hallways, incessantly ringing the bell at the front desk, stirring up mischief on the elevator. She has a very short attention span, and it’s never long before she’s off on some new project. As tiring as her movements are, that’s nothing compared to her tongue. The girl can talk a blue streak, and she has no mental filter. “I always say what’s in my head,” she explains early on. “It’s so much easier that way.”

Her strategy is often exasperating to those around her, and her uppity affectations – particularly the way she pronounces “rather,” one of her favorite words – grate a bit. Nonetheless, her frank manner inspires many of those in her acquaintance, and perhaps the strongest theme running through the movie is the trouble that can ensue where open and honest communication is absent.

Molly (Stephanie Mills), a sweet high school senior, is afraid to tell her overbearing, high society mother (Eve Crawford) that she wants to travel instead of going to college and date not an aristocrat but a man who shares her passions. Eloise’s harried French tutor, Philip (Jonas Chernik), is too insecure to let slip that he would like to be that guy. Leon (Kintaro Akiyama), a polite, sheltered nine-year-old who spends a whirlwind day getting a taste of Eloise’s lifestyle, shrinks from confessing to his distant father (Dennis Akiyama), recently widowed, that he wants to leave boarding school and return home. Uptight hotel manager Mr. Salomone (Jeffrey Tambor) is so focused on vainly trying to keep Eloise unaware of the big event and the special guest that have the hotel in an uproar that he can scarcely make the preparations. And Eloise’s own beloved Nanny is too timid to tell the distinguished Sir Wilkes (Kenneth Welsh), another longtime guest, how much she likes him.

Eloise simply can’t fathom this lack of forthrightness, but she hopes to make up for it with a little finagling. She may be a bit of a hooligan at times, but she has a generous heart, and one of her passions is “fixing things that are broken.” In this movie, things get more broken before they get fixed, and there should be slapstick enough to satisfy the youngest viewers, who will likely find the thought of having free reign to wander through a posh hotel quite appealing. Adding to the confusion are Eloise’s pug and turtle, who have a knack for turning up at inopportune moments. While the chaos is a bit much at times, quiet scenes bring balance; the heart-to-heart between Eloise and the pensive Leon as they share a carriage ride through Central Park is simply lovely.

The movie, directed by Kevin Lima, makes liberal use of Hilary Knight’s illustrations, both incorporating them into the film and meticulously recreating them in live-action form. I highly recommend the making-of documentary in the special features, especially if you have little familiarity with the books. It’s fascinating to see the close kinship between the two art forms, and it made me appreciate the movie all the more. The plaza is a gorgeous piece of architecture, full of splendor and a touch of whimsy, and our glimpse of New York City at large is magical.

While I confess Vassilieva wears on me a bit, she has the perfect energy for the role, and there’s an undeniable charm to her as well. Still, it’s the much quieter Akiyama who really wins me over. I was surprised to see that this was his second and final film role; for me, he is the heart of the movie. It’s also a treat to see Andrews portraying what she describes in the documentary as “the anti-Mary Poppins.” That isn’t to say that she’s incompetent; she’s just about the only person who has any control over Eloise at all. But she is frazzled and unkempt, with a lowbrow accent and a fondness for boxing and booze. She is certainly not “practically perfect in every way,” but she is practically perfect for her young charge. Tambor is hilariously overwrought, Daniels and Chernik are adorable together and Welsh and the elder Akiyama exude dignified kindness. On the whole, it’s a top-notch cast.

Eloise at the Plaza is a fun romp for kids, while adults can marvel at the care taken to recreate a beloved children’s book for the screen. The movie may also serve as encouragement for those who, like so many of us, have trouble being as communicative as Eloise. The expressive and the withdrawn alike will have someone with whom to identify here, and those on either end of the spectrum should not find it too difficult to get swept away in the fun of the Plaza Hotel.

Remember the 2010 Winter Olympics With Quatchi

Last February, I turned 29. On the day I went out for my birthday dinner, my mind was mostly occupied with thoughts of LOST, as the final season of my favorite TV series had begun the week before and I was busy trying to find ways to use that as a springboard for my own creativity. However, when we got home, we turned on the television to find the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics occurring, and I quickly got caught up in the excitement of this international event. While I’ve never been too attuned to sporting events in general, I love the spirit of intercultural communication and unity that pervades the Olympics. Yes, it’s a competition, but it’s also a time when it’s easy to feel a sense of kinship with people around the world as millions of eyes focus upon the same displays of athletic prowess. The world always feels a little smaller when I watch the Olympics.

The next day, a package arrived from my friend Cynthia, who lives in Toronto. I don’t recall discussing the impending Olympics with her ahead of time, but I opened the box to find it full of official gear. Because they were held in Vancouver, the Olympics were a matter of national pride throughout Canada, and I appreciated Cynthia’s thoughtfulness in making me feel more fully a part of the festivities. For the rest of the winter, I could often be seen wearing an ice-blue scarf and matching hat with flaps that cozily covered my ears, both bearing the emblem of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Along with these practical items, I also got a plush Quatchi, the irresistible mascot of the 2010 games.

Quatchi is meant to be a Sasquatch, though he doesn’t look much like a traditional Bigfoot to me, at least the one I have. He’s a cuddly little butterball, almost perfectly round with arms that dangle at his sides. His hands are beige; he seems to be wearing mittens. Meanwhile, he appears to be wearing boots, which are striped in alternating shades of brown. On the left boot is the 2010 Olympics symbol. The bottoms of the boots are a lighter brown and ridged like corduroy. Aside from the hands and boots, the only part of Quatchi that is smooth is his face, which stretches across the middle front of his head and is just large enough to accommodate a thick black smile and two black eyes, as far apart as they can get, and a shiny brown plastic nose.

The rest of Quatchi is covered in shaggy brown hair about the shade of the titular alien on the campy 1980s TV series ALF. Just underneath his chin is a tuft of hair that is more beige in color, but otherwise the hair is uniformly medium brown. Quatchi’s fur is incredibly soft, as is whatever he is stuffed with. The tag indicates that he is made up of polyester fibers. There’s variation in the textures of this little guy, particularly when you factor in the crystal blue earmuffs resting atop his head, but he is 100 percent snuggly.

I only wish he were a bit bigger. At seven and a half inches tall, he’s a little larger than your average Tribble, a wheat-eating furball that causes Captain Kirk oodles of headaches in a classic Star Trek episode. That smaller size makes him an ideal desktop decoration, but he’s so cuddly that he’d make a great substitute for a teddy bear if he were maybe four times the size he is now. That would also make him look more Bigfootish, I imagine; right now he’s more of a Littlefoot. But whatever his size, he sure is cute with that soft fur, the arms that seem to be begging for a hug and the understated but expansive grin that exudes friendliness. The 2010 Winter Olympics are long over now, but Quatchi serves as a welcome reminder of that great moment in Vancouver history.