I'm a sucker for a good stick figure. Ben, my son, has directed me to a very cool stick figure activity, where you can send dancing figures to your friends, with music and sound effects too.
The link is an offshoot of a Disney production High School Musical.

My kids really enjoyed this movie whilst I cringed a lot with the sugary-ness of it. That's probably because I'm cynical and jaded, and they simply relate to an innocent story about teenagers.
Send it to yourself first, so you can see what you've created.

June 30, 2006 in , , , , , , | It's lovely isn't it? It is a poem featured in the movie In Her Shoes. This poem is read by the dyslexic Maggie, in what turns out to be her first reading lesson with a dying professor.

The image is one of the poet herself, Elizabeth Bishop.
Click here to link to the site.
June 27, 2006 in , , , | The film In Her Shoes (see ) has a delightful scene where an elderly and blind professor gives the wayward Maggie a reading lesson.

He asks her when she starts to make up excuses why she can't read to him, Is it dyslexia? He then instructs, something along the lines of:

Listen to the word before you say it. 9 times out of 10, you'll correct it before you say it.

..Otherwise, you'll just make an ass out of yourself.

He goes onto asking her questions about the poem she has read (again, not word for word):

Prof: What's it about?
Maggie: (defiantly) I don't know!
Prof: YES YOU DO!

NOW TELL ME - What is the poem about!

And at the end of the scene, he gives her an A+ .
I'd suspect this method of instruction ( 'listening' to the word before it's said) would only be relevant to a reader who already has some basic skills.

But I'd love any feedback on it.
June 11, 2006 in , , , | This is such a great movie. The story is about the relationship between two sisters, but it explores so many important subjects.

The character that has intrigued me the most as it turns out, is the one that is absent. Caroline. She is the mother of the two girls and died many years before.

She suffered a mental illness and her death was a tragic one. This character forms the central axis around which the other character's become real. There is a deep impact on family when mental illness is present and this movie handles it beautifully.

Cameron Diaz plays Maggie, a young woman who is virtually unemployable but is pretty and sexy and uses her looks to get by. Thus, she's always in trouble. (That's a great message I think).

But it turns out she has a deeper and more historical problem than promiscuity. She's dyslexic. The relationship she forms with a dying professor is very moving and incorporates a lesson on how to teach reading to dyslexic people.

(The definition of someone who is 'dyslexic' or 'learning disabled' changes, but as a rule of thumb, it is someone of average to above average intelligence who has a reading age 2 years+ behind their chronological age. Delays in maths/numbers are also common, as is ADHD).
There's also, in this film, one of the most dropdead and weep your heart out poems I've ever heard, by ee cummings.

A film directed by Australian Neil Armfield has just been released here. It stars Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Garry McDonald, Noni Hazelhurst, and Geoffrey Rush. That's a hell of a cast already.

, explores youthful love which expresses and shares great dreaming, passion and then addiction (heroin in this case) takes over.
I'm seeing it as soon as I can. It looks to be one of those Oz films that, whilst speaking of themes already well explored, has it's own unique take on it.

Sublime and moving. Hope I'm not disappointed! More later.

..
I saw an 2004 episode of tonight where Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep got on to talk about well.

.. each other and how fabulous they both were, in relationship to the film A Series of Unfortunate Events .

What is more outdated than the interview itself, is the fierce determination to over-praise a co-star when you're supposed to be talking about a film.
In the whole interview, not once was made mention of the outstanding performances of the child/adolescent MAIN CHARACTERS. Oh yes, we got stars but not a sceric about, Oh we just play evil fools and it was the children who were the epitome of heroic and classic characters and we owe so much to a 14 year old Melbourne actress who played , the inventive genius.

Not to mention the quiet intelligence portrayed by and the delightful hilarity played out by in the form of Sunny, the youngest Baudelaire orphan.. etc.

You get my drift.
I just thought, 'Wow you'r e evil and neurotic in real life too'. That's a shame, because I liked Meryl and Jim before I saw them giggling together saying, Oooo he's so - so unpredictable and Oh God!

Wake me up! She's giving me a compliment!
That film is brilliant and this sort of thing is really boring and entirely dismissive of the children not only involved but those who it aims to comfort and inspire.

What is it that I love about the story A Series of Unfortunate Events ?
The darkness? The appeal to children who know all too well, by their own experience, that life sometimes throws a perfectly horrible thing into your lap and then.

..well, it just gets worse?

I love all of this, but most of all I love that the only heroes in this story are the children themselves. Violet, Klaus and Sunny are constantly surrounded by adults who are either neurotic, clueless or just plain evil.
I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant.

It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe.
And I'm sorry to say that this is real life for too many kids.

I (carefully) recommend this story, in book or film version, to some of my young clients. Of course it has particular appeal for those who have lost a parent. But this story reaches beyond and into an experience of childhood despair.

But with one pivotal fact: These children are clever, inventive and more insightful than anyone around them.
I hope that the kids I refer to this story will find comfort and inspiration from the beautiful language and visual feast it has to offer. And also, that it may provide a little boat for them to be rocked in as they journey through what may be their stormiest passage so far.