...it's gonna be a bad buncha reviews when The Tale of Despereaux is uppermost on Mojo's mind as best of the bunch. It was okay. Surprisingly stellar cast, I must admit. I've never read the book (shame, eternal shame on Mojo!) but it's an award-winner and I SHOULD read it. Mental note: get it from the lieberry and read it while the patrons are browsing. One of the many perks of the job, don'tcha know.

We also saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which was likewise okay. I think we last saw Frances McDormand on a re-watching of Fargo, and it was good to see her do something entirely different. The front cover has some writer/reviewer from People Magazine call it "A delightful champagne cocktail of a comedy!" and while I would probably excise both the exclamation point as well as the word "delightful"--or, better yet, modify it with the adverb "occasionally"--it was predictable fluff, but not bad.

Predictable fluff that was well-nigh unwatchable was Marley and Me. I admit I flipped through the book and determined I didn't really need to read it, and I was already committed to the idea that I didn't need to see the movie, but I attempted to anyway. Mojo has a THING against pet owners who whimsically decide to get a pet when they don't have a CLUE how to care for them. And then derive humor from their complete and utter lack of husbandry skills. I personally find it horrifying that an animal be mishandled and prove to be the scourge of the neighborhood--Mojo might have many faults, but being an irresponsible pet owner is not one of them--and not at all ha-ha funny. We tried time-and-a-halfing it, but eventually gave up when the Clueless Yuppie thing got too treacly-thick.

And then, while my Favorite Husband gave up and went upstairs to read, I time-and-a-halfed Across the Universe, Julie Taymor's latest preciously artsy-fartsy delve into Cinematic Brilliance. I found the boring songs to be only a hair draggy at time-and-a-half, so I am grateful I didn't sit through their dirges at regular speed. I should also point out that, despite their popularity, I DID like the costumes and the masks of The Lion King when I saw it on Broadway, thanks to the largess of my Favorite Younger Sister (and perhaps my Favorite Brother was in on the gift as well? I forget). As for the show itself, well, it's pretty much just the movie, which I thought was "okay". I loved the opening scene with the animals all marching down the aisle--the Favorite Younger Sister got us excellent seats, bless her--and spent the rest of the performance in disappointment wondering how they were going to top that (short answer: they didn't.). Thought the wildebeest stampede was interesting, wondering how it was going to be staged. That's about all I remember, except the closing they tried to replicate the opening sequence but didn't pull it off.

So I was all set to give Taymor the benefit of the doubt, until I sat through Titus. Granted, Titus is not Shakespeare's best effort, so it's not something I would have devoted my life to in the first place, but under Taymor, Shakespeare's mediocrity is jazzed up with a bunch of bells and whistles and Freaky Lady With Branches In Place of Arms. Mojo likes the theater and even sat through a particularly dreadful artsy student production of Lorca's Blood Wedding, and I have the sneaking suspicion Taymor would have sat through that same production agog with the wonderment of it all. I am also told that the young people have totally embraced Across the Universe in the same inexplicable way they embraced the equally leaden and dull Moulin Rouge, so far be it for Mojo to guess what's right or wrong in the world. Suffice to say, Mojo can take or leave artsy-fartsyness, but I *DO* ask for characters I can actually CARE about, and Across the Universe is just chock full of Cardboard Sixties Stereotypes, to the point that Mojo begins, despite her calm and placid nature, to actively root for them to be shipped off to Vietnam or get themselves blown up in some Weather Underground mishap. Although that one girl did do a fair-to-middlin' impression of Janis Joplin. Not good enough for Mojo to want to slow the DVD down, but eh, whatever.

I also made the huge, huge mistake of idly wondering what all the big hubbub is about W. C. Fields, so I bought a box set for the library. And promptly regretted it. I went through three or four of them, and my idle wondering is now replaced with, well, it's not strong enough for loathing, but there's maybe one funny line in each movie I saw and lots of meanspiritedness.  He himself I have no complaint with, but the cruel family that abuses him in each movie was a little too hard to take for very long. It left Mojo feeling sort of icky.

Anyway, that's it for now. On the Good front, I just got in some CDs I ordered which fills out my Billie Holiday collection in its entirety--being the last three discs of the Quintessential Billie Holiday--as well as one of the very FIRST Ellas ever recorded, Pure Ella. So I am happy.

Mojo