Cinema studies with Raffi, part 2
Can you believe that the first time I wrote about undertaking Cinema Studies with my now 5 1/3 year old son, I hadn’t ever seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, EITHER version? To think that there was a time when some version of the Oompa Loompa song wasn’t playing in my brain! To think that I hadn’t acknowledged the genius of Gene Wilder, or wondered where the actress who played Violet Beauregarde is now! (Please don’t google that, it’s actually very sad.)
Now it’s several months later and Raffi and I have seen a lot more movies, many of which were probably bad choices for Raffi, but again, it’s an ongoing emergency and we have to do whatever we need to do in order to make it through til bedtime (even if watching tv right before bedtime goes against all known advice.) Lately I am pushing my agenda of watching Halloween-season movies, which I would happily watch all year long. I’m not sure why but there’s something intensely comforting about the mere existence of Halloween as a concept this year. And this is coming from me, someone who previously self-identified as a Halloween Grinch! Maybe it’s something to do with how Halloween originated as a festival that normalizes death as part of the cycle of life? Is that too galaxy-brain? It might just be that Raffi is finally old enough to really appreciate spookiness and scariness, to get into the *ahem* spirit of Halloween. Whatever it is, it made me extremely happy in an unalloyed way to be able to watch the kids carve a pumpkin upstate with my dad while listening to an Apple Music generated “Halloween party” playlist that included The Monster Mash.
Whatever there was in me that once feared or hated my own basic-ness is now dead. I embrace my basic-ness. I only wish that we had been drinking mulled cider while this was happening, or something “pumpkin spiced.”
The Addams Family (1991)
Parts of this movie seemed familiar to me but I don’t think I ever saw it as a kid — the familiarity probably comes from its later life as meme-fodder. It’s about a creepy, spooky, etc family that lives in a wonderful mansion. I mean, you’re familiar with The Addams Family. Morticia Addams is played by Anjelica Huston, who as we have already established is my ideal woman, at the peak of her perfection (age 40.) They’re very rich and they have magical powers to some extent. They’re also very bumbling and inept which prevents them from actually being scary. Despite their batty ineptitude things always work out ok for them. I guess this is the key to the charm — they are always talking about murdering people, Wednesday and Pugsley (the kids) are always trying to kill each other, but no one is ever killed or even hurt. So it’s actually a very cozy movie? The tension, such as it is, is about whether their Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) has actually returned to them after a long absence or whether he’s an impostor (he’s the real Uncle Fester but thinks he’s an impostor — not a spoiler, it was obvious even to Raffi from the outset.)
The little boy from Jurassic Park who looks like Cat Cohen is also in this for a split second, in the school play scene.
Addams Family Values (1993)
In this one Uncle Fester is pursued by a Black Widow who’s after his family fortune, played with insane relish by Joan Cusack in a series of delightful 40s/80s pinup girl outfits. In a subplot, Wednesday and Pugsley go to a WASPy summer camp and burn it down. Some people think this sequel is even better than the original. I think it’s absolutely fine and we’re lucky it exists at all.
The Addams Family Movie (2019)
Whoosh! Zoom! Something is flying towards the screen! Must be a cartoon movie of recent vintage!! Ugh I hate this shit!! Stop making everything constantly zoom around for no reason!!!!! I know that animation is now capable of doing so many cool camera angles but there is simply no reason why it should, all the time.
There’s a cute moment when Morticia pours a pot of coffee down the toilet to appease the spirit who haunts the creepy mansion but otherwise this movie is 1000% charmless. Charlize Theron and Oscar Isaac are Morticia and Gomez and their talents are totally wasted, they could be voiced by the anonymous heroes who do voice acting on literally any Netflix kids’ show. Since the Addams Family IP is now controlled by the people who made this (apparently) we can probably expect another sequel in this vein and my only request is that they just let everything onscreen stay still and let the characters talk to each other for at least a solid 20-30 seconds sometime, just for fun, to try it.
That’s all we’ve managed so far but there’s still plenty of October to get through, so your spooky film suggestions are very welcome. We’ve seen Beetlejuice but I’m always down to watch it again because it’s seriously one of my favorite movies of all time.
Also, I forgot to mention this last time but I sneakily added a subscription option to the newsletter. You should feel zero pressure to subscribe, but of course I’d love it if you did.
I may even do a subscriber-only issue next time to see what that feels like. (Freeing?) 50% of proceeds this month will go to Every Mother Counts.