Sunday, August 29, 2010
Earthsea
A four hour mini-series loosely based on a set of fantasy books. In magic as in most things a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Knowledge and power without wisdom can prove one’s undoing. Just because one knows how to do a thing and has the capacity to perform the act doesn’t mean it is necessarily wise to do so. How many bodybuilders along with amateur and professional athletes alike have used performance enhancing drugs to mold magnificent physiques, great endurance, and recuperative powers only to pay the price in mental instability, heart disease, and other health problems. No one should perform any act or ask any question unless one is sure of the answer and the consequences of that action. No drug is without its side-effects and one must be certain the good it may do outways its consequences. The scientists who discovered radioactivity died of the cancer it caused, those who developed nuclear weapons discovered the ‘killer of worlds’. Genie’s that are let out of bottles are not so easily put back inside.
Shawn Ashmore plays Ged the impetuous mage and Chris Gauthier who later played the chef in Eureka plays his buddy Vetch who looks at everything for its potential as something to eat. Kristin Kreuk, Lana Lang in Smallville plays the Druidess, Tenar and Alan Scarfe, the archmagus. The movie is more a cult of personalities than the story of Earthsea and magic. The young magus spends a great deal of time sailing among the islands of the archipelago in a tiny skull. There is a great deal more action than plot line development, very little magic, no philosophy, and an all too typical Hollywood ending. Mages don’t usually get the girl, or as in this case the priestess.
Shawn Ashmore plays Ged the impetuous mage and Chris Gauthier who later played the chef in Eureka plays his buddy Vetch who looks at everything for its potential as something to eat. Kristin Kreuk, Lana Lang in Smallville plays the Druidess, Tenar and Alan Scarfe, the archmagus. The movie is more a cult of personalities than the story of Earthsea and magic. The young magus spends a great deal of time sailing among the islands of the archipelago in a tiny skull. There is a great deal more action than plot line development, very little magic, no philosophy, and an all too typical Hollywood ending. Mages don’t usually get the girl, or as in this case the priestess.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Cure
Two mothers attempting to raise sons with absent fathers but there the comparison ends. One a chain-smoking red-neck with a resentful boy whose father is in New Orleans chasing a trollop; the other a long suffering single-parent caring for an eleven-year-old dying of AIDS acquired from a blood transfusion. What’s remarkable is the fact that the two boys meet over their backyard fence and strike up an unlikely friendship. The older boy is too much an outsider and too devil-may-care to be bothered by what the neighbours or his mother may think or what the risks may be. Together they embark on a summer of adventures playing with their action figures, battleship, raiding the candy store, searching out herbal cures, floating down the local stream in an inner tube and riding the streets in a shopping cart and eventually floating down the Mississippi a la Huckleberry Finn.
The marvel is that Dexter’s Mother is able to swallow her qualms about the dangers and exploitation that Erik poses and recognize his ability to divert her son’s attention from the grim realities of a life-threatening disease and allow him to concentrate on being a boy again for one more magic summer. Her ability to let go and grant his freedom to a gravely ill little boy when she knows he may be doing things injurious to his health, to share those last precious days of his all-to-short life with a stranger, to allow a child to have fun rather then be a patient; set her apart from most parents. Even during his final illness in hospital she drives Erik to the hospital where the boys play games with Dexter hooked up to monitors and intervenus drips. It is Erik’s ability to ignore the gravity of the situation and find fun with his sick friend that moves his Mother to allow them these last precious moments together without her hovering over them. They even make a game of scaring the wits out of hospital staff with the fact that Dexter may have stopped breathing until one day it proves to be an all too real.
Their drive home from the hospital that day has a unique poignancy. It is the joy this pair of boys share in each other’s company that raises this above the disease of the week movie status. Dexter’s mother’s ability to welcome a stranger into her home, feed him on a regular basis, and put up with his bad hygiene, manners, and boorish behaviour without being judgemental or overtly critical for the sake of her son’s mental well-being give her a near sainty status. In their final scene together at the funeral home she invites Erik to drop by as their shared experience will help fill the void in both their lives.
The marvel is that Dexter’s Mother is able to swallow her qualms about the dangers and exploitation that Erik poses and recognize his ability to divert her son’s attention from the grim realities of a life-threatening disease and allow him to concentrate on being a boy again for one more magic summer. Her ability to let go and grant his freedom to a gravely ill little boy when she knows he may be doing things injurious to his health, to share those last precious days of his all-to-short life with a stranger, to allow a child to have fun rather then be a patient; set her apart from most parents. Even during his final illness in hospital she drives Erik to the hospital where the boys play games with Dexter hooked up to monitors and intervenus drips. It is Erik’s ability to ignore the gravity of the situation and find fun with his sick friend that moves his Mother to allow them these last precious moments together without her hovering over them. They even make a game of scaring the wits out of hospital staff with the fact that Dexter may have stopped breathing until one day it proves to be an all too real.
Their drive home from the hospital that day has a unique poignancy. It is the joy this pair of boys share in each other’s company that raises this above the disease of the week movie status. Dexter’s mother’s ability to welcome a stranger into her home, feed him on a regular basis, and put up with his bad hygiene, manners, and boorish behaviour without being judgemental or overtly critical for the sake of her son’s mental well-being give her a near sainty status. In their final scene together at the funeral home she invites Erik to drop by as their shared experience will help fill the void in both their lives.
