Baby Crazy

Juno: loved it, loved it, loved it.

But not, I think, why everyone else loved it. Yes, Ellen Page? Total cutie, and I would have totall wanted to be her friend in high school but would have been way to shy to think that I could be amusing enough to hang with her. And I love JK Simmons and Allison Janney.

But what grabbed me was Jennifer Garner and Justin Bateman as the would-be adoptive parents.

Shocker, I know. I hope you were sitting down on that one.

There was a review that I had read that talked about them and the words from the review that stuck with me--I can't even remember the context now, but they had called them "immature". But I never got that feeling. And I can't tell you how relieved I am about that.

The childless couple--the baby-crazy would-be mama--is really easy to parody, to have a pre-made image in your head about what they are going to be like. For instance, Tina Fey's new movie, Baby Mama. Which might make me throw up a little in my mouth. But my friends and family have done it, too. One asked me last summer, "So, are you, like, totally baby crazy, now?" And I've never thought of myself that way. And yet, I still answered yes. Not because I'm baby crazy--I wasn't buying baby clothes in preparation (and, oddly enough, I'm still not) or yplanning baby things or even trying on imaginary baby names--but just because I wanted one, constantly. Like a constant soundtrack in a movie, that desire was just always there. But I couldn't explain that at the time, in the noisy bar we were in, how that is, but it isn't, baby crazy.

The Jennifer Garner character reminded me of that. Of that really delicate balance you try to maintain, that game face that's almost always on, that doesn't deny your desire but also can't really let the full impact of it show. But how it sneaks out, at times. And how that's mistaken for blindness/baby crazy/immaturity. I was well impressed with the movie, how the sort of complexity of her desire wasn't simplified to snark or slapstick or pathos.

I've been thinking about it a lot because recently I've been sort of backhandedly(really, not so backhandedly) called "crazy" for the path we took to expand our family and I can't shake it. I can't shake how much it hurt to have months of agonizing about decisions, each new decision a new path of "Should we do this?" soul searching between me and Andrew, reduced to "crazy". I guess I'd not be surprised by that comment from a stranger who hadn't ever talked to me, but that's not the case here. I feel like a movie had more empathy for how unfriendly conception can be, and how personal the process is, than a friend.

In the end, I guess, it's a mindframe no one understand unless they are open to it. Blessed are they who try.

Things I learned from watching The 300

• Women don't generally talk.
• Queens/wives/mothers don't get names.
• Shouting platitudes can apparently get people to do really desperate things.
• Dark skinned people are eeeeevil!
• Nose rings are eeeeeevil!
• Girls who sleep together are eeeeevil!
• Eeeeevil kings will wear girlie makeup!
• (and I can be totally jealous of whatever the hell was on his lips!)
• Dark skinned girls will sleep together.
• And be eeeeeevil!
• Any men who do not have sculpted (and perhaps, just perhaps, cgi'd) abs are pussy weakliartraitors.
• Hey also: blackmailing a woman into sex isn't rape!
• Ancient Greeks, especially Spartans, had really great dental plans.
• Persians, not so much.
• No, seriously, those Greeks? For the most part: really white, straight, clean teeth. With fillings.
• Any society that accepts imperfection: eeeeeevil!
• Facial piercings: eeeeeeevil!
• Also: when it comes to movies I might enjoy, a craptastic script rife with cliched dialogue, homophobia, xenophobia and misogyny cannot make up for visually stunning cinematography. Apparently I need some there there.

(For those who wondered: yes, there is only one woman who has any lines at all in this movie, and she doesn't get a name. Oh, wait, there's the adolescent "oracle" who gets to show some tit and whisper some ancient Greek, but she doesn't get a name either. Or, y'know, a personality. Just a tit and some cool cinematography.)

Maybe not the best choice.

Um. So. Pan's Labyrinth.

A wanted to give it a C. I definitely liked it better than him, but I did spend a good 15 minutes total out of the film hiding behind my fingers because dear sweet God, the gore! The gore! At one point, I even had to plug my ears because the sound is just so... visceral. For those who don't know the plot, in a nutshell: it's the end days of World War II, we're in Spain where Franco's fascist army is defeating the Communist Resistance, and in a wooded outpost, a small girl deals with the violence around her by retreating to a fantasy world where she may or may not be the reincarnation of the long-lost princess. Fauns, fairies, magical trials, and scary beasties (including, but not limited to, a barfing toad and the ever-present Dude With Eyeballs In His Palms) abound. The special effects were really cool, and I really liked the imaginary-land part, but it's crossed with bone-smashing, skin-searing violence, both physical and emotional, that was really hard to take. Which, I suppose, is the whole point.

I think, however, the movie is best summed up (at least for us) as we walked out the doors to the parking lot.

"For the next few months, hon..." I said, as A held the door open for me, "how bout we don't go see any movies ever that involve a hugely pregnant woman's grisly and bloody death during childbirth?"