the father review redo
- April 02, 2008
- By Dale McGowan
- In reviews
- 23
Okay, I’m feeling properly chastened. As some of you pointed out, both in comments and in email, my review of The Golden Compass was a tad harsh. You’re right!
Let me explain. There are two things in particular that really make a movie for me: originality and music. Golden Compass (the film) is brimming with brilliance, but it let me down on those two points by including intrusive, overwrought music and by dropping the ball on the most original aspect of the book: the intensity of the human/daemon relationship. As a result, I sulked out of the opening day showing, went straight home and wrote my unbalanced review, leaving out much that was awesome in the flick. And there’s a lot.
So mea culpa.
Nearly four months later, when we finally got around to posting our father-son review, I slapped mine up there without reconsidering it in the light of passed time. So here it is again, this time with commentary in italics:
10. It’s bloody difficult to make a 2-hour reduction of a book of the scope, depth, and texture of The Golden Compass. That said, they blew it.
“Blew it” is way too harsh. They did many things incredibly well, though I don’t know how anyone who hasn’t read the book could follow it. It’s gaspingly beautiful and imaginatively textured, and the acting is great. Then there’s the daemon thing. I’ll get there.
9. Despite predictions to the contrary, it is made entirely clear that “the Magisterium” is the church and the Authority is God. The officers look like catholic cardinals, the Magisterium buildings are decorated with saints and icons, Asriel is accused of “heresy,” its opponents are called freethinkers, and Mrs. Coulter refers to the “error of our ancestors” that brought “dust” (sin) into the world. Plenty clear.
They did this reeeeeally well. Many freethought types were worried the war-on-the-church core of the book would be compromised, a la Da Vinci Code. It isn’t compromised. Support the troops!
8. The human/daemon relationship was made so intensely real in the book that both Connor and I longed for daemons of our own. This was the most remarkable, most brilliant, most emotionally captivating element of the book, yet the movie fails to make daemons anything more than beloved pets.
Considering how disappointed I was in this aspect, this part of the review is too mild. When Connor and I reached the intercision scene while reading, we were both nearly in tears. And Roger holding the dried fish in the shack… jeez, I’m tearing up now. In the movie, I didn’t feel either moment much at all. Only by showing Mrs. Coulter in slo-mo and (somehow) ratcheting the music up even more was the intensity of the moment made noticeable.
7. In the book, the witches are thousand-year-old beings, transcendent and wise, with an entirely different perspective on existence, amazing and original seers and sages. In the movie, they fly. That’s about it.
Again, a movingly original aspect of the book is left fallow.
6. I spent the six months prior to the film’s release depressed because I thought chirpy, doe-eyed Dakota Fanning had been cast as Lyra. Turns out it’s Dakota Blue Richards, and she’s PERFECT. Strong, petulant, independent, but also vulnerable and good.
This was an enormous relief. After watching Dakota Fanning transform strong, gutsy Fern into a cutie pie in Charlotte’s Web, I couldn’t believe they had cast her as Lyra Belacqua. You can’t imagine my relief when Dakota Blue Richards came on screen instead. Heh.
5. The music is absolutely terrible — a combination of overwrought wallpaper (never shuts up) and Mickey Mousing (imitates small visual actions with musical gestures).
Way too harsh. The music itself is not at all terrible. I’ve since heard it separated from the film, and it’s a lovely, brooding, harmonic clockwork kind of a thing. Very nice. The problem is the scoring— that is, the use of the music. Among other things, it is way, way too present, which is a mortal sin for film scoring after about 1975.
I’ll blog about film music at some point. Having studied it and considered entering the field myself for several years, I’m full of opinions and preferences. What does poor scoring do to me? Picture Tom Hanks in The Green Mile when, with John Coffey in the chair, he says “Roll on two.” Now picture Richard Simmons doing “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” behind him. Distracting, eh? Tell me about it.
4. The bear fight, despite some fine CGI, somehow manages to be a yawner.
3. Sam Elliott is spot-on as Lee Scoresby.
2. Coulter’s monkey is exquisitely creepy and hateworthy.
1. The ending is indescribably, epically, abysmally lame.
That’s not true. The ending is describably lame. I’m talking about the whole ending, all the way back to the escape from Bolvangar, when the fleeing kids confront the random hoard of Tartars — whose identities and loyalties have not been sufficiently established in the film for the confrontation to mean much more than Cute Kidlets vs. Bearded Baddies. The disappearing wolves are cool, though.
You should definitely see the film. It’s a visual feast, the acting is superb, and Pullman’s worlds are so incredible it would be a Dust to miss a chance at seeing into it. Even with an insistent, moaning orchestra in each ear.
The Golden Compass Father-Son Review
- March 31, 2008
- By Dale McGowan
- In reviews
- 20
PARTIAL SYNOPSIS (from www.imdb.com)
Lyra Belacqua is an orphan living at Jordan College in the Oxford of an alternate universe. In Lyra’s world every person is accompanied by a daemon, a physical representation of their soul in animal form. Because she is young, Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon can change his shape to appear as any animal he chooses. Adults’ daemons settle into one shape and don’t change.Lyra overhears a conversation between the master of Jordan College and Fra Pavel, a representative of the powerful and sinister religious body called the Magisterium. They’re discussing an expedition to the far north planned by Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel; he wants to study a mysterious substance called Dust that seems to enter Lyra’s world from parallel universes.
Even before we meet Lyra, boys and girls have been disappearing, snatched off the streets. The children call the kidnappers Gobblers. Lyra and her friend Roger promise one another that if either is caught, the other will come to the rescue. That night, while Lyra is at dinner being introduced to Mrs. Coulter, Roger and another friend, Billy Costa are taken by the Gobblers.
Lyra is taken with her new acquaintance and agrees eagerly when Mrs. Coulter, who is also planning a trip to the far north, proposes that Lyra come along as her assistant. The morning of Lyra’s departure, the master gives her a strange golden instrument called an alethiometer. He tells her that it is capable of telling the truth, but he can’t tell her much about how it works. He admonishes her to keep the alethiometer to herself…
I saw The Golden Compass with my son Connor on opening day after reading the book to him. I promised y’all a dual father-son review at the time, but life intervened. Here it is at last, a few weeks before the DVD release…
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
review by Connor McGowan (12)
I thought the movie was very good, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking, “Why did they skip through that so fast?” and “What happened to that other thing that he took a whole chapter explaining in the book?” After the movie, my dad agreed with me but explained that you can’t fit a book that large and detailed into a two-hour movie and keep it interesting for kids.
I remember thinking the same thing in the first Harry Potter movie. One of my favorite scenes in the book was the potions room in the dungeon, when Hermione solved the task. I was SO MAD when they left that out! But they have to make choices, I guess.
The special effects were just amazing, especially with the snow bears and the daemons. But I didn’t feel the same connection between the daemons and the humans as I did in the book. I wanted my own daemon more than anything.
Overall for me, keeping in mind the limitations of the movie’s director, I liked it enough to see it again. Unfortunately, it did horribly on its opening weekend and there were only a handful of people in the theatre with us.
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
review by Dale McGowan (45)
[NOTE: I’ve reconsidered and rephrased some of these comments in the next post.]
TOP TEN THOUGHTS
10. It’s bloody difficult to make a 2-hour reduction of a book of the scope, depth, and texture of The Golden Compass. That said, they blew it.
9. Despite predictions to the contrary, it is made entirely clear that “the Magisterium” is the church and the Authority is God. The officers look like catholic cardinals, the Magisterium buildings are decorated with saints and icons, Asriel is accused of “heresy,” its opponents are called freethinkers, and Mrs. Coulter refers to the “error of our ancestors” that brought “dust” (sin) into the world. Plenty clear.
8. The human/daemon relationship was made so intensely real in the book that both Connor and I longed for daemons of our own. This was the most remarkable, most brilliant, most emotionally captivating element of the book, yet the movie fails to make daemons anything more than beloved pets.
7. In the book, the witches are thousand-year-old beings, transcendent and wise, with an entirely different perspective on existence, amazing and original seers and sages. In the movie, they fly. That’s about it.
6. I spent the six months prior to the film’s release depressed because I thought chirpy, doe-eyed Dakota Fanning had been cast as Lyra. Turns out it’s Dakota Blue Richards, and she’s PERFECT. Strong, petulant, independent, but also vulnerable and good.
5. The music is absolutely terrible — a combination of overwrought wallpaper (never shuts up) and Mickey Mousing (imitates small visual actions with musical gestures).
4. The bear fight, despite some fine CGI, somehow manages to be a yawner.
3. Sam Elliott is spot-on as Lee Scoresby.
2. Coulter’s monkey is exquisitely creepy and hateworthy.
1. The ending is indescribably, epically, abysmally lame.
Anyone who has not read the book should read it before seeing the movie, then skip the movie. [Fine. That was over-the-top. See the movie.]
LEVITICUS (bookin’ through the bible 10)
[back to ECCLESIASTES and SONG OF SONGS]
Now Moses was very humble—more humble than any other person on earth.
Numbers 12:3 (The traditionally-claimed author of Numbers is, well…Moses)
The wicked man desires the booty of evil men.
Proverbs 12:12
Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts.
Jeremiah 4:4
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.
Ezekiel 23:20
There are many candidates for funniest verse in the Bible, but for me there’s a clear winner—and it’s found, surprisingly enough, in Leviticus, the least funny book of the Bible:
If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death.
Leviticus 24:17
During the ethics portion of my half-day nonreligious parenting seminar, and in a previous post, I talk about what I call “boiling-pot parenting”—the notion that our children are, at root, boiling pots of depravity, and that our foremost occupation as parents is sitting hard on their lids lest their naturally sinful natures o’erflow.
I quote Christian parenting author Reb Bradley who warns that “all children are born delinquent….Given free reign to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a killer, a thief, and a rapist.” I mention The Lord of the Flies, a novel that convincingly plays out Bradley’s nightmares.
I then make what I hope is a convincing case that this is all rather silly and thoroughly unsupported by the best research in the social and developmental sciences.
Leviticus (“of the Levites”) is the book of the Bible that most directly reflects the boiling pot mindset. And though it’s tempting to lay the blame at the foot of Leviticus, that would be silly, too. The Bible didn’t create this mindset any more than it created self-delusion, self-contradiction, bigotry and fear. These are far more ancient and basic human frailties of which the Bible is merely a potent reflection, a handy place to go when we need to feel good about our lazy inability to do any better than ignorant Bronze Age goatherds.
Because I’ve come to see Leviticus as a reflection of our fears rather than the inspiration for them, it doesn’t get under my skin anymore. It’s fascinating anthropology. The fear of disorder—the absolute terror that the second law of thermodynamics governs human life as well as the physical world—is at the root of all Abrahamic religion. We’re all hurtling toward a cliff every second of our lives, says the Salvationist, with Sin leaning on the accelerator. That’s why Leviticus, the “morality” chapter in the OT, is not a steering wheel but an emergency brake. Don’t do X, never do Y, watch out for Z. Leviticus boils down to this idea: Follow God’s rules or die.
And such rules! There are rules for the wringing off of pigeon heads, precise instructions for the killing, burning, distribution, cutting, and “heaving” of animal sacrifices, for the all-important “waving” of the entrails, for the girding of men with “curious girdles.” There are rules for allowing fields to lie fallow and for washing pots, cautions against mixing this and that—different grains, different threads, same genders, the sacred and the profane. Don’t touch a menstruating woman. Don’t think an impure thought. And if you do… If you do… (Damn. What should we say?) I’ve got it! An invisible and quite powerful force will smite you.
No, that’s not exactly right, is it. One of the things I find most curious about Leviticus is that God is telling the people to do the smiting. He’s quite busy, granted, but I can’t help thinking it strange. Why bother with intermediaries? How much more efficient it would be if God would simply set things up so the scores of capital crimes in the bible are rewarded with a nice, sudden aortic rupture. Imagine Hitler crumpling on the spot before he quite got the order to invade Poland out of his mouth. Imagine how many children would have been spared if the first child-abusing priest had keeled over, pants around his ankles, as a warning to the others. Imagine all the disobedient children, astrologers, seed-spillers, marriers of their wives’ mothers, every one of them dropped where they stand. Instead, this weird system of intermediaries. I’m sure there’s a reason.
Leviticus is often maligned for its clear and happy endorsement of slavery. But dig deep enough—granted, you’ll need a big, big shovel—and there’s a hint of moral progress here. The Israelite is instructed to treat all Israelite slaves generously: “You must not rule over him ruthlessly,” and he must be released before the periodic “Jubilee year.” A miracle of progressive thinking.
You quickly note the obvious flipside—that non-Israelite slaves are designated as property “for all time” and can be treated however you like—that this is just bigotry compounded by distinguishing between those worthy of mercy (those most like one’s self) and all others. Give me a break. I’m digging for gold under a latrine here.
The book ends with an epic speech by Jehovah in which he promises bad juju if the rules are broken:
If you reject My laws and spurn My rules … I will wreak misery upon you … you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it … I will break your proud glory. I will make your skies like iron and your earth like copper. … I will go on smiting you sevenfold for your sins. I will loose wild beasts against you, and they shall bereave you of your children … though you eat, you shall not be satisfied … your land shall become a desolation and your cities a ruin …
And then some stuff about taxes.
Leviticus is an early attempt to impose the order of rules on the perceived chaos of the human condition, to articulate a workable morality. In the absence of systematic evidence, we were feeling our way forward, trying to come up with rules to live by, trying to avoid screwing up—an activity in the midst of which we generally screw up far worse.
And there’s the human comedy for ya.
Far less forgivable to me is the fact that anyone in the 21st century—anyone with access to the knowledge and insight and history these guys didn’t have—still finds a single scrap of Leviticus good for anything beyond cultural anthropology. And the occasion chortle.
UP NEXT
April 3: Deuteronomy
Believers on Deuteronomy
Skeptics on Deuteronomy
Slate blog on Deuteronomy
awakenings!
- March 25, 2008
- By Dale McGowan
- In Parenting, PBB
- 8
Doe! — H. Simpson
Those of you who visit regularly — and hey, thanks for that, by the way — surely noticed a drop in activity at the Meming of Life in recent weeks. I found myself awash in 2 much 2 do: the webinars, the seminars, working on the follow-up book for Parenting Beyond Belief, finishing enormous freelance projects for the clients who feed my children, researching a proposal for a third book, and more. Oh, like parenting. Heh.
I’m emerging from it now, gradually. As a result, the Meming of Life is reawakening, blinking in the bright light of the Internet like a spring fawn. Stick that freakin light, says wee blinking fawn.
What to expect:
I’ll be back to a regular posting schedule of twice a week, usually Monday and Thursday.
The serialization of my occasionally humorous death-obsessed secular travel narrative Northing at Midlife is back on track. The current post is the end of chapter three and the Cotswold Way, after which we head into the north of England and the Coast-to-Coast Walk, where I nearly or actually die, I won’t tell you which.
I’ll put some new links into Ten Wonderfull Things very shortly.
The next installment of Bookin’ through the Bible will go up later this week. Leviticus, uh…woohoo!
I’ll also continue the Laughing Matters series, trying ever so hard to remember my original point.
I’ll share the single weirdest and most thought-provoking statistic I have ever heard.
I’ll fill y’all in on how the seminar tour is going (pretty darn well, and getting better all the time) and share some of the content, as well as the joys and silliness of life on the road.
I’ll bring you up-to-date on the next book, which has just been titled–and hey, titled well!
Several recent fun facts indicate that nonreligious parenting continues to grow and flourish around the country:
1. Parenting Beyond Belief has climbed in Amazon sales again, recently rising to 2400–the top one-tenth of one percent, and even higher than it opened nearly one year ago. It is (at this writing) once again the #1 Parenting Reference on Amazon and #2 in Parenting Education;
2. Several nonreligious parenting groups and humanist children’s programs have formed in recent months around the country, including Portland OR, Albuquerque NM, Raleigh NC, Palo Alto CA, and New York City;
3. Each month since last September, this website has logged thousands more visitors than the previous month. Yesterday the PBB site had over 1400 visitors –the most ever in a single day;
4. I’ve begun to get a steady trickle of unintentionally funny emails from fundamentalists.
So I’m back in the saddle as we head for the one year anniversary on April 9. Happy spring, you secular parents you.
the gregory walsh interview
I’m sitting in the Albuquerque airport Easter morning after a really lovely visit with folks from the Humanist Society of New Mexico. Spoke to the chapter meeting, sold some books, gave the seminar, had a great dinner in the gorgeous home of the chapter president with a painfully beautiful view of the Sandia Mountains.
As nice as the trip has been, I’m awfully glad I won’t be winding through another airport security line for five weeks.
Several trips back, after speaking at the Center for Inquiry in DC, I sat down for an interview with Gregory Walsh, a filmmaker working on a documentary about religious disbelief in America. Greg did quite a nice job editing me into coherence:
The ‘Out’ Parent: column by Noell Hyman (Agnostic Mom)
The “Out” Parent
guest column by Noell Hyman
This column also appears in the March 19 issue of Humanist Network News.
________________
I walked into my child’s preschool one day right before class was to let out. There was a lobby full of parents and one of them raised her voice above the crowd to say to me, “I noticed your license plate says AGMOM. What does that mean?”
Those of you who have read my articles or blog will recognize it as my blog name, Agnostic Mom. While most of my friends know about this, it wasn’t something I wanted to shout across a crowded room of parents at my child’s preschool. Yet there they all were, staring at me, curious.
I had figured out an evasive strategy for these types of situations. It goes like this. 1) Give a vague, answer, like “Oh, it’s just a blog name I used to use.” 2) Immediately change the subject. For example, “What are the kids doing? I was so worried I’d be late today because I was…”
My strategy, which I only used in the most threatening situations, seemed to work until the principal of my older children’s elementary school took notice of the plates. Thanks to my state’s Open Enrollment policy, my kids attend a progressive public school that is outside of our district. But don’t get the wrong idea. The school is progressive by Mormon-dominated Mesa, Arizona standards, and most of the students are Mormon or active in some other Christian religion.
As I was dropping my kids off at the front of the school one morning, the principal, always happy and enthusiastic, swung the car door open for the kids to get out and asked me, “What does AGMOM mean?”
I gave my usual “blog name” response, but before I could move on to strategy step number two he persisted, “But what does the AG stand for?”
I had one of those moments where the world somehow pauses for you while a page worth of thoughts and images swim through your mind. This is the argument happening in my mind during that moment:
He can easily kick my kids out of this school or not allow them back next year.
Yeah, but he’s progressive and liberal in his philosophies.
Progressive or not, he’s a Mormon and a believer.
But he has filled the school with non-Mormon teachers…he’s got a reputation for openness.
I blurted it out, “It means Agnostic Mom.”
He got a look on his face that suggested a realization he had probed in the wrong place; as if to say, “Sorry for making you answer that. It’s really not my business.”
He waved goodbye, and immediately the librarian stopped me to say hi. “What does your license plate mean?”
I couldn’t believe it. Twice within a minute? But the worst was done. The man with the power to end the type of education that is perfect for my children already knows what it means. Nothing else matters now.
“It means Agnostic Mom,” I said, and flashed the librarian a big smile.
Surprised, he let me go, and life has continued as usual. My children were accepted to return to the school next year and even my preschooler will get to start in August for kindergarten.
While Arizona is conservative, the state leans libertarian. Even most Mormons follow a “Live and Let Live” mentality. Things might have gone differently if we were living in Kansas, a part of the less-tolerant Bible-Belt where I finished high school. But after five years of telling people I’m atheist or agnostic (whichever term I feel like using at the time) I have not lost a friend and neither have my children. They have chosen to be open about not believing in gods, as well.
Once in a while there is even a surprise response. Like the time my daughter replied to a cafeteria discussion of Jesus with, “I don’t believe in Jesus.” Her closest friend, whose mother I befriended more than two years prior, answered, “I don’t either.”
In all those play dates when we swapped ideas on vegetarianism, environmentalism, travel and arts, religion never came into our minds. I had no idea. So when my daughter told me her story, I called and the mother was just as surprised and delighted as I was.
Then last week, my washer repairman asked me what my license plate means and I told him, “Agnostic Mom.”
A smile grew on his face and he practically shouted, “You don’t believe in god?” I laughed, “No.” And suddenly he wouldn’t stop talking, like I was the first person in years he could share his stories with.
I can’t think of a circumstance now where I wouldn’t feel comfortable answering a question about my license plate. Venturing into that territory has been a positive thing for me. Introducing believers to a happy godless person is a positive thing for everyone.
____________________________
Noell Hyman (pictured with son Aiden) is a stay-at-home mom of three children, living in Mesa, Arizona. The once-blogger for AgnosticMom.com, was a regular columnist for Humanist Network News. She is the author of two articles in Parenting Beyond Belief. She now blogs and podcasts on her favorite subject, which is the visual art of story-telling through scrapbooking. Visit Noell at Agnostic Mom or at Paperclipping.