I also rigged up a way to set up my swift and ball winder in the living room (they usually live in my bedroom; I have a dedicated stool to attach the ball winder to and the swift clips onto the top of a low bookshelf) so I could wind up the yarn for planned break projects while watching (yet again) "Elf":
I like "Elf" a lot. Like many of my favorite movies, it has at its heart (or what I see as being at its heart) a story of redemption: the terrible biological father of Buddy finds his heart again and winds up doing what he really loves without having to be beholden to a board that cares mostly about money. And Buddy realizes that he fits in and people love him even though he's too big to be an elf and is, by human standards, pretty weird and innocent. And Michael realizes he really loves his goofy half-brother....
And I really love the scene towards the end where (unknowingly, mostly) the people gathered outside Central Park get Santa's sleigh going again by singing....the sleigh runs on Christmas cheer, which, as Santa noted, had declined over the years. (It's a complete "Tinkerbell" moment - like in the stage- play version of Peter Pan, where the audience is encouraged to clap if they believe in fairies. I like to think that when the movie ran in theaters - I've only ever seen it on dvd or television - that people in at least some of the theaters started singing along, too).
I commented before that for a modern movie, it's surprisingly acynical, and I like that also. There's too much slickness and cynicism and snark in the world, I think, and not enough genuine earnestness and enthusiasm. (I admit I teared up a little when Buddy and Jovie were out on their first date, and they were skipping - well, Buddy was - through the streets of New York. Again, as I've said: I long to be that lighthearted.)
***
Also, last night, I FINALLY got around to watching "Inside Out," after having the dvd sitting on my table for a month. I liked it; I think it captures a lot of things about growing up that are true, if some of them are maybe a little sad. But there were also a lot of nice touches:
* The idea that sadness can also encourage empathy - when Sadness sat down next to Bing-Bong and listened to him, and made him feel better, just because she listened.
* The hopeful idea that even though the "personality islands" informed by core memories could crumble, they could also be rebuilt - and come back stronger and better than before.
* (It also makes me wonder what my "personality islands" would be. Work would surely be one, and the crafts I do would be another....)
* Joy's realization that memories could be BOTH happy and sad, and that the same memory may have sad and happy aspects to it.
I think too often in our culture we push for unalloyed happiness, and we push sadness aside, without understanding that it's a part of life.
(That said: I think Disgust had the best character design.)
* The part I found saddest was not perhaps the part most people found saddest (which would be a spoiler). Rather, it was when Joy had fallen down into the pit, before she managed to get back out, and this was where all the "unneeded" memories got thrown, and they faded away or burned up. And I thought: couldn't there be some happy and valuable childhood memories that fell down there and are now lost forever*? And it made me wonder what maybe I had forgotten.
(*Though I've also read that that's not quite how memory works; it's not that they are GONE so much as you can't access them)
* As is typical for movies of this type, there's a funny end-credits bit. (The one with the cats made me laugh a lot. Especially Disgust Cat. I won't say more about it than that in case you haven't seen the movie yet)
* I also thought it was interesting how blind, in a way, Riley's parents were: talking about how she was still their "happy girl" and how strong she had been in the move, and I was like "Can they not see she's suffering?" But again maybe that's a true to life thing: sometimes it's hard for people to see someone is struggling unless that person tells them and I admit there have been times I've been struggling emotionally and either haven't wanted to or been able to say anything to anyone about it, and yet, I found myself feeling slightly resentful that other people weren't picking up on the fact that I wasn't doing as well as I normally did.
I also watched the short "Lava" that was apparently showed in theaters before the movie, because some of the people I read who wrote about the movie said it touched them more than the main movie. I admit to me it seemed kind of pat, frankly, and I wasn't as touched by it as I was by the main feature. (Then again, arguably, I've never been in love, and I've accepted that I will live my life alone, so that might play a role in my reaction.)
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