I took my kids Sam (7) and Kit (5) to see The Clone Wars. I've been reading so much invective directed against this movie, I honestly didn't know what to expect. Online voices are torn: some people seem to hate it, some people seem to merely dislike it, some people feel it is a monstrous act of betrayal. My favorite, a hysterical non-review by "Moriarty" at Ain't-It-Cool-News, is so full of hurt and anger that it goes so far as to insist that the reviewer will never write about Star Wars ever again -- You hear him? Never!  Take that, George Lucas!  Moriarty shuts the Iron Door.

I went in fully braced for an atrocity, a soul-scorching, childish, grating, dead-end cinematic nightmare.

Sorry haters -- it's actually not bad. It's actually pretty good.

Ceiling can taste freedom.

Booie, the littlest and, frankly, weediest of our latest mantis army, died quietly in the night a few days ago. In accordance with mantis tradition, his body was devoured by crickets.

In what's becoming an Alcott family tradition, the death of the weakest mantis is a signal that the others' days are numbered, and the survivors should be released into the wild, where they might mate and create another mantis army to menace the insects of tomorrow. The liberation ceremony for Ceiling and Snacks was held this morning on our front porch.

Dad took Sam (7) and Kit (5) to see Space Chimps. In terms of artistic achievement, Dad found the movie placed a little south of Kagemusha, but acknowledges that it is most likely not intended for an audience of cranky, middle-aged screenwriters. However, the movie did get one genuine laugh out of him, and if you were one of the handful of people in the movie theater with us, you might have witnessed this scene:

ONSCREEN:

Two chimps in a rocket ship. (all dialogue paraphrased)

CHIMP 1. Let's face it, I'm not a real astronaut.
CHIMP 2. Are you wearing an aluminum suit?
CHIMP 1. Yes, but...
CHIMP 2. Are you inside a space ship?
CHIMP 1. Well, yes...
CHIMP 2. Are you in space?
CHIMP 1. Yes, but I...
CHIMP 2. Are you David Bowie?
CHIMP 1. Nnnooo...
CHIMP 2. Then you're an astronaut!

IN THE AUDIENCE:

DAD. (laughs)
SAM. (noting Dad's laugh) What does that even mean?
DAD. (beat -- how to put?) David Bowie is a singer. He had a famous song about being an astronaut. So it's a joke about that.
SAM. (beat, then, trying it out) "Are you David Bowie?" (laugh)

(Dad did not go on to explain that the real reason for his laugh is that there is another, slightly funnier aspect to the line for him, which is that Chimp 2 is voiced by Patrick Warburton, who also voices the character Brock Samson on the TV series The Venture Bros, a show which also prominently features David Bowie as a character. One step at a time for teaching Sam showbiz in-jokes.)

While you're waiting for my exhaustive, multi-part, scene-by-scene analysis of Schindler's List, here is my daughter Kit (5)'s interpretation of the climax of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

At the top, of course, is the name of the protagonist. Directly below that is the row of "false grails" that Indy has ignored. Finally, at the bottom, we see Indy with the true grail. We know it's Indy because of his hat. Indy, as we can see, is very happy to have chosen the true grail. Perhaps drinking from the true grail will get him to re-grow his lower body.

Now that Hillary Clinton has reminded us that there's still time to assassinate Barack Obama before the convention, I feel it is incumbent upon me to present a corrective to ugliness and despair, Little Birdy, the newest volume by my daughter Kit (5). Take note, Caldecott committee.

Faced with headlines like this, the world is ready, I believe, for a story about a unicorn, and a little girl, and a hat, and a circus.

Dad is not the only storyteller in the Alcott family. This is by Kit (5). As difficult as it is for me to wrap my mind around the idea that my daughter, when, given the chance, thinks up stories about unicorns, little girls, and hats, and circuses, I cannot argue with the sweep and punch of the results.



Hollywood studio executives will no doubt note Kit's grasp of the surprise twist ending. Not content with one, she here supplies us with two.  Or three.  Take that, M. Night Shyamalan!

UPDATE: Fox has just called regarding the rights to The Wonder Unicorn.  They're thinking of Queen Latifah as a streetwise, sassy unicorn and Evan Rachel Wood as the little girl.

 

My apologies to my readers who wait with bated breath for my analysis of The Color Purple.  My son Sam (6) had a day off from school, and my daughter Kit (5) has a school that consists primarily of her being out of the house for four hours, so my wife and I decided to take them to Disneyland.

Sam (6) has discovered money, and the power of money, and the glory of money. Money, he has realized, can buy Star Wars toys, and a great deal of money can buy big Star Wars toys.

So Sam is willing to do just about anything at this point to get some money.

My wife, seizing upon this new capitalistic streak, has put him to work around the house, performing more-or-less useful tasks that pose no immediate threat to his health or to local property values.

Yesterday she puts him to work washing our patio doors (which, to be fair, need washing). For the performance of this task she offers him two dollars. The deal is accepted and he goes to work with a pail and sponge.

Enter Kit, kid sister (5). Kit sees Sam washing the windows and wonders how she ever felt fulfillment playing with Polly Pocket. She now wants to wash windows too -- not for the money, but to be included, and for the sheer giddy joy of it.

In another time, in another story, Tom Sawyer once put the whole neighborhood to work whitewashing a fence because he was lazy and canny, and he knew it would make a good plot-point in a deathless novel. But in the year 2007, kids and household tasks have changed. Kit approached Sam and asked if she could help and Sam became hysterical. Cries of rage and dishonor echoed around the block. Sam was furious, not because Kit might be cutting in on his window-washing fun, but because he was worried that if Kit was willing to wash windows for nothing, the job could be done without Sam and Sam would be out his two dollars.

Just another example of skilled workers struggling to keep their jobs against a tide of newcomers willing to do the job for less -- California economics in a nutshell. And the WGA strike too, I suppose.

DAD. Kit, I love your new drawing!
KIT (4). Thank you!
DAD.  What does the "TM" mean?
KIT.  That means nobody can steal it!

It's not my intention to turn this journal into a "kids art" blog, but I would be remiss if I didn't include some drawings by my daughter Kit (4).  Kit does not have her older brother Sam's single-minded, monomaniacal drive regarding superheroes, but she does have a healthy interest in them, leavened by interests in other things, like, say, Maisy, Speed Racer, Tom and Jerry, Polly Pocket and so forth.

Above are two of her drawings, of Wonder Woman (with her tiara) and Cinderella (with her beehive and bow).  The thick black line sticking out of WW's head is her hair -- Kit doesn't quite get the whole gravity thing yet.  And Cinderella's hands are not on fire; those are her fingers.

Kit's favorite joke:


Kit: Knock knock!
Dad: Who's there?
Kit: Yellow.
Dad: Yellow who?
Kit: Yellow banana!

(repeat fifty times.)

(Kit is three.)