Fairy Tale Scrutiny - Week 3

This week we're taking on the classic tale of Cinderella as presented by Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. You can see it here!

So I forgot to finish this post which I was writing on my sister's computer instead of my own for untold reasons, so she hijacked it and started filling my post with nonsense!

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend

of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to

Howth Castle and Environs.

Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-

core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy

isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor

had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse

to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper

all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to

tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a

kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in

vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe.

The Barbie Movie Drinking Game

For all of us who take care of little girls or are driven by finals week to do strange things:

The Barbie Movie Drinking Game!

WARNING: DO NOT DRINK ANY BEVERAGE CONTAINING ALCOHOL FOR THIS GAME. YOU WILL DIE.

Take a drink if
\~/ There is a racially ambiguous best friend
\~/ Barbie is playing a role she's too old for
\~/ Kelly shows up
\~/ Another if her name isn't Kelly, but it rhymes
\~/ Barbie is the only person with pink eyeshadow
\~/ Barbie's whole room is pink
\~/ The villain has a goatee
\~/ The personification of animals includes makeup
\~/ There's a forbidden or enchanted forest
\~/ There's a deus ex machina
\~/\~/\~/\~/\~/ There's an 'outtakes reel'
\~/ With an extra for each 'outtake' with the animal sidekick
\~/ The music doesn't match the story
\~/ Another if the credits are even worse
\~/ There's an obvious Designated Love Interest sighting
\~/ The DLI's name rhymes with Eric
\~/ The DLI's hair is slicked back
\~/ There's a role reversal between a tyrannical supervisor and a servant/slave
\~/ The villain is the most detailed character

Not quite dead? Good!

Take a drink every time
\~/ Barbie says "I'm not a child anymore!" or "You don't understand me!"
\~/ Barbie's hair moves as one solid mass
\~/ Barbie's hair is in a weird up-do
\~/ Barbie's hair makes you want to die
\~/ A set of twins share sentences
\~/ People with accents turn out to be either comic relief or evil
\~/ Kelly whines
\~/ The Aryan character is favored as bravest, prettiest, etc.
\~/ The animal subplot is annoying as hell
\~/ Tchaikovsky is abused/rolls in his grave
\~/ Barbie's outfit is anachronistic
\~/ Barbie wears a choker
\~/ Everyone is completely oblivious to something utterly out of place
\~/ They try at evil foreshadowing
\~/ There's a 'something wicked this way comes' moment
\~/ There's a 'beauty and the beast' transformation scene
\~/ There's a 'does the rolling help?' moment
\~/ Someone makes a buzzer noise
\~/ There's a name like 'cloud kingdom'
\~/ A horse looks reptilian
\~/ Barbie's Mary Sue powers activate
\~/ You find yourself wishing bodily harm on the protagonist
\~/ You say 'kill me'
\~/ The villain uses a pun
\~/ Or other anachronistic phrase
\~/ The animal sidekick talks
\~/\~/ The animal sidekick uses a pun
\~/\~/\~/ An animal sings
\~/ ANYONE refers to themselves in third person
\~/ A threat falls victim to its own stupidity
\~/ The animation style of the scenery doesn't match the people
\~/ The people are inappropriately dressed for the weather
\~/ Provisions magically appear
\~/ There's a flashback
\~/ Someone uses a stupid catch phrase
\~/ An animal is evil for no reason
\~/ Barbie and DLI speak in unison
\~/ People hug without really touching - this one alone will kill you

Fairy Tale Scrutiny - Week 2

It's finals week, so I'm afraid this is all you get.

Fairy Tale Scrutiny - Week 1

Have you ever taken a close look at the stories you loved as a kid? They're pretty messed up. As an example, let's take a look at one of my personal favorites, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon."

The story starts out with a very poor family with several children huddled together in their cottage, trying to ward off the winter's bitter cold. There's a knock at the door, and the father answers it to find a polar bear.

Fairy tale. Okay, whatever. What happens next is messed up no matter how you look at it. The polar bear told the father that he would grant the family riches in exchange for the youngest daughter's hand in marriage.


The father says that he'll have to ask his daughter about it. Wait, what? A bear just asked you if it could have your youngest daughter. A BEAR! Maybe he's an enchanted prince or something. Fairy tale. Fine.

The girl says no outright. Good for her!

The father tells the bear to come back in a week. What? What?!
During the following week, the father pestered the girl until she agreed to accept the bear's offer.

FEMINIST RAGE!

This father obviously has no love for any of his children, selling off his baby girl for a song to a bear. A polar bear. A large, carnivorous wild animal. I don't care if it can talk; it's still a polar bear.

So the girl leaves with the bear. Imagine how she feels now. She just discovered that her father does not love her at all and she's riding on the back of a beast that could quite easily just eat her, and probably would, once it had had its fill of bestiality. Ew.

The bear asked the girl if she was afraid. She said no, she wasn't. Would you want to admit fear, under those circumstances? Allow the poor girl what little dignity is left her.

The bear takes the girl to a mountain and knocks on a cliff wall. The wall opens up to a magnificent underground palace. The bear takes the girl inside and the wall closes behind them. The young girl should be thinking something along the lines of, "I'm trapped. There's no way out. Oh gods above, please help me." Should be. She's just amazed at how pretty everything is and thinks of how hungry she is and how she would like a bath. I guess she is her father's daughter after all.

The bear gives the girl, who, as is typical of fairy tales, never gets a name, a silver bell. If she needs anything, she's supposed to ring it. Instant escape! *ding ding*

. . .

Dangit.

Actually, she doesn't even try. We'll say she's in shock and isn't thinking clearly. She wishes for dinner and a magnificent meal magically appears. After she has eaten her fill, she decides it's bedtime. *ding* Suddenly she finds herself in a huge bedroom which she assumes is now her room. Reasonable enough, yes? Until she goes to bed and just as she's about to fall asleep, all the lights, including the fire, go out and someone lies down in the bed next to her.

Seriously, what is this? It's not enough to make the girl freeze all night, but you're making her share a room? With a total stranger? Who is this person? Is it a woman? A man? A troll? Perfect. You move into a palace with a bear and have to share a room, and a bed, with a troll. GET ME OUT OF HERE! *ding ding ding ding ding*

Still not working.

It turns out that the mysterious bedfellow is actually the polar bear himself. He changes into a man at night, but no one is allowed to see his face. . . . I'm still creeped out. In fact, I may even be more creeped out now. Yep, I think I am.

Anyway, life continues like this, with the girl passing her days pretty much by herself and spending the nights with the polar bear/man sleeping next to her. After a while, the girl starts to feel homesick. The polar bear told her that she could visit home, but she must promise not to walk and talk alone with her mother.

Um, okay? Honestly, what's with this? Is it okay for the girl to spill her guts to her sister, then? How about her whole family? What is so significant about walking and talking alone with her mother?

Whatever. The girl promises and gets to spend a week with her family. They are now living in comfort in a grand house. Everyone is overjoyed to see her and-

Excuse me?

I could not, for the life of me, find a smiley that conveyed the proper mix of skepticism and annoyance, so this gets a ninja instead.
Moving on. The week goes by and the girl manages to avoid walking and talking alone with her mother, despite her mother's best efforts. Finally, on the last day of the visit, the mother corners the girl and she tells her mother everything. Her mother is horribly worried about the nightly visitor and-


You sold this girl to a bear. NOW you're worried about her safety? Fail.

The mother gives the girl a candle and flint and convinces her to get a look at the man and make sure he isn't a troll or something.

And what does the girl do? You guessed it. She went BACK with the bear rather than staying with her family, and that night, she lit the candle and looked at the man she had been sleeping next to for months. Wrong promise to break, you ninny. You should have stayed home.

Just wait; it gets better. The man is a handsome prince and the girl falls instantly in love with him. In fact, she feels that if she does not kiss him right then and there, she'll die.

. . .

FEMINIST RAGE!

As she leans forward to kiss him, she spills some wax on the guy and he wakes up. Brilliant.

"What have you done?" he cried. In just three months the spell would have been broken. Gee, that would have been nice to know a bit sooner, you blithering idiot. Now, as per the curse, the prince must go to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon to marry the troll princess with a nose three ells long.

lolwut? Um, okay. That's unique, I guess. BTW - 1 ell is anywhere from 27 to 45 inches long.

Anyway, everything vanishes and the girl is left alone in a forest with nothing but the rags she brought with her to begin with. She of course takes the most logical course of action left to her and cries herself sick. Shock, remember.

After she's had her cry, the girl set off to find the castle east of the sun and west of the moon to rescue her true love.
She walked for days and finally came to an old hag. She told the hag her story and the hag told her that she had no idea of the way to the castle, but she would let the girl borrow her horse to ask her neighbor. Oh, and have a golden apple.

Okay, so there's an old lady, presumably senile and practically debilitated, who prefers to live in squalor when she could sell the golden apple and live in relative comfort for the rest of her life. This apple must mean a lot to her, then. And she gave it to a total stranger. Right.

Moving on. The neighbor was another old hag with a gold carding comb. She didn't know either, so she sent the girl to her other neighbor. Care to take a guess who it is? That's right! It's another old hag living in squalor with a fortune sitting in a lump of gold, this time in the shape of a spinning wheel.

The third hag sends the girl on her way with her newly acquired golden apple, carding comb, and spinning wheel to another neighbor. Another hag? No! It's the East Wind!

Rly? The East Wind? No way! I want to meet the East Wind! Awesome!

So the East Wind says he has no idea where the castle is, but his brother the West Wind might know. Does this sound familiar? At least the East Wind doesn't give her any more stuff to carry. He carried her to the West Wind who takes her to the South Wind, who takes her to the North Wind. Motion sick yet?
The North Wind fortunately has been to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. He says he would take her there in the morning, since it would take all day to get there.

The next morning, they speed off over cliff and cavern, crevasse and chasm, cave and canyon, helter-skelter to the shore of an island. The North Wind collapses within sight of the castle east of the sun and west of the moon.

Hooray! Now the girl can go and save the prince through her cunning plan to . . . um . . . yeah.

The girl goes up to the castle and sits outside playing with her golden apple. Excuse me, what? You walked for days, spoke to three old hags who gave you heavy things to carry with you, traveled with the winds over cliff and cavern, crevasse and chasm, cave and canyon, helter-skelter to this castle to save your beloved prince, and you sit there playing with an apple? What the Belgium?!

And as if it wasn't crazy enough to begin with, it works! The princess with the nose three ells long sees the apple and decides she wants it.
The girl says that she will only trade the apple for a chance to see the prince alone. Princess Long Nose agrees and tells the girl to come to the castle gates at sunset.

Dash it all, I just have to give the girl a name. How about Ninny? That's a good name for this chick.

So Ninny shows up at the castle at sunset and is taken to the prince's room. She rushes to Prince Clod's side-- and he's asleep. Ninny tries all night to wake him, but only succeeds in keeping everyone else in the castle east of the sun and west of the moon awake. In the morning, Ninny is sent back outside.

Ninny tries again with the carding comb. Same deal. Same thing happens. She tries with the spinning wheel. Same deal.

Now, some of the people Ninny had been keeping up all night were some good people held prisoner by the trolls. They manage to tell Prince Clod about the beautiful young girl who had visited him the past two nights and tried desperately to wake him. From that, Prince Clod deduces that Princess Long Nose was giving him drugged wine and resolved to not drink any that night.

When Ninny went in to see her prince, he was wide awake. They swapped sob stories and then set to work on their masterful escape plan: Ninny was going to wash his shirt.

I'm serious; that's the plan. The next day is the wedding and the prince declares that before he marries Princess Long Nose, he wants to see if she's good for anything. He asks her to wash his nightshirt with the drops of wax Ninny spilled on it.

Yeah. I was a little hesitant, but I think this calls for another instance of

FEMINIST RAGE!

Anyway, trolls can't wash, so the more the troll princess tried, the muckier the shirt got.

I know. Just roll with it.

Finally, Prince Clod declares that Princess Long Nose isn't worth salt and calls in Ninny as an example of just how worthless the troll princess is: 'Look! Even a human beggar can do that!'

Ninny takes the shirt and, of course, it becomes sparkly clean almost before she even starts washing. The troll princess and all the rest of the trolls are so enraged by this turn of events that they all burst on the spot. This is not a cop out. They all just explode and Ninny has a lot more washing to do.

So Ninny and Prince Clod save all the good people and everyone escapes from the castle east of the sun and west of the moon and they all live happily ever after. Ninja.

Potential

You know what? Twilight had potential.

Think of it - whiny brat girl moves in with her dad to give her mom alone time with her new hubby. Okay so far. The girl starts out at a new school and catches the eye of one of the weird kids. Still okay.

We continue the story and Whiny Brat Girl and Weird Boy get closer to having a relationship, but Whiny Brat Girl is suspicious of Weird Boy and tries to figure out why he's so weird. Turns out Weird Boy is actually Vampire!

The vampires have a sort of reign of terror over the whole town. They keep things pretty normal because they like it that way. Whiny Brat Girl is afraid to jilt the undead cretin because he would eat her. She may even have conflicting emotions because she finds herself attracted to Vampire.

It takes fear of abusive boyfriend to a whole new level. There's potential for character development as Whiny Brat Girl learns to get past her own petty complaints. And what does she do? Does she continue to live in fear that her boyfriend will eat her? Does she run? Does she find a way to defend herself? Does she even want to?

It had potential. Too bad.

www.waterforpeople.org/contest

You know you want to do it.

OMtotheG! - Wings

Wings by Aprilynne Pike is the story of a young girl named Laurel who suddenly discovered that her whole life was a lie. She was a faerie. And she had a huge flower growing out of her back.

This is a pretty good story and a fun and very light read. I feel the need here to point out that I am not a fan of Twilight. There are many similarities between the two stories, but I feel that Wings is what SMeyer wanted Twilight to be. My brother described it as Twilight minus the suck.

Wings rating: Cheesy, but not too bad.

OMtotheG! - I Am Not A Serial Killer

I Am Not A Serial Killer is a book by Dan Wells. And I'm going to review it. Hutcha!

John Wayne Cleaver is a 15-year-old boy in Nowhere, USA. He is determined to not become a serial killer. His chances of success are slim.

One of the reviews on the back cover referred to the book as "unputdownable." I would have to disagree, but only because "unputdownable" is such a silly word. This book is well written and addicting. I stayed up ridiculously late to finish it in one night, and I was very glad my teddy bear was easy to find when I finally finished and tried to go to sleep.

This book is riveting! Dan Wells obviously did his homework and researched carefully. The characters are fascinating and the story is nothing if not unique.

I Am Not A Serial Killer rating: Top shelf!

China Stories! - Friendly Neighborhood Street Vendor

Street vendors are everywhere in China! Well, everywhere that tourists are likely to go; I can't vouch for the rest. This is a picture of one of the guys that would hang around our hotel in Beijing:


He sold lots of things, including hats just like his! You can get just about anything!

kthxbai - Toy Story 3

When I first heard that there was going to be a Toy Story 3, I was dubious. I worried that Disney was leaning on Pixar and that the story would be typical Disney. It was a delightful surprise to see the beauty that is Toy Story 3. The film brings the audience through the whole spectrum of emotion, from belly laughter to heartfelt tears.

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 have a special place in my heart, and I am pleased to say that Toy Story 3 has joined them there. All of my misgivings were blown away and I believe that this final chapter of the story of Andy's toys is the best of them all.

Toy Story 3 rating: buy it!

China Stories! - Traffic horror

A few people have heard me say that words cannot describe the traffic in China. It's true. These are a couple pictures from an intersection in Beijing where our bus driver turned into the oncoming lane. Exciting times.

See those two cars coming toward us? Well, size matters in China. They had to back up to give us space to cut into the correct lane of traffic, which would have been easier if the lane had been treated as the single lane it was rather than two lanes. This is the view on the side of the bus:


Remember, this is one lane! It wasn't just this intersection--this is fairly typical of traffic in China, as far as we could tell. It will be some time before I complain about Utah drivers.

Komodo Dragon Spit

Available for a limited time only. This is a video that I made for my microbiology class.

My latest project

kthxbai - Avatar

A good friend of mine told me that if this review isn’t funny, he’ll have to kill me. I see no point in putting a great deal of effort into something if I’m just going to be killed for it either way. So, here goes:

This movie is very pretty. The CG effects were masterfully done and the music is stunning. The story left much to be desired.

Imagine someone gave you a present, and it was the most spectacularly packaged and wrapped present you had ever seen. If the wrapping is that great, the present itself must be magnificent! Well, it’s one of those old alphabet blocks.

At least you got cool wrapping paper.

Avatar rating: Borrow it.

kthxbai - Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Flint Lockwood could never get anything right--until the day he made it rain cheeseburgers.

Ridiculous? Yes. Hilarious? Very yes.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs rating: Buy it!