WWYDB?

What Would Your Daemon Be? This is the question that I have pondered since watching "The Golden Compass" for the second time earlier this week. This film is based on Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy of books. There was quite an uproar over the film when it was originally released in theaters by the Catholic Church, who thought that the film's portrayal of The Magisterium hit a little too close to home, and fans of the book, who were disappointed by what they viewed as the generalization and elimination of some of the book's religious themes. I haven't read the books yet, but plan to and the movie very much intrigued me. In the alternate world that "His Dark Materials" takes place in, every human is born with a daemon that represents his/her soul. This daemon changes shape at will during childhood, but upon reaching adolescence, settles into one form. Our heroine Lyra Belacqua's daemon is Pantalaimon (Pan). Some forms of daemons are reserved for classes of people - servant daemons are dogs, scholars/Master daemons are birds, and so on. I am going to give this movie four stars but with a couple caveats - first, I don't think you should read the book first. Second, if you don't like "The Fellowship of the Rings" or "Harry Potter", don't bother.

Time to reflect and to watch movies

During this unexpected time off, I have time to reflect. I will hopefully be spending time figuring out what kind of job I want next. Yesterday at class, we dissected a great case regarding Taran Swan and Nickelodeon. Taran seemed to be a great boss and had great ideas about developing her people and how to make them successful not just in their current job, but in all their future jobs. Last night's discussion and last week's great guest speaker about emotional intelligence have started these reflection ideas percolating.

Before that, I have been watching and seeing a fair amount of movies. First up was "Twilight", the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's hit book. I persuaded Lucas to join myself and our friends Andrea and Bryan to go see the movie on opening day. Wow - holy screaming teenage girls, Batman! They screamed when the lights dimmed, they screamed when Edward was on the screen for the first time, they screamed during the scene in Port Angeles, they screamed during the kiss scene. I think Lucas was a bit overwhelmed. Review - not bad; three and a half stars out of five. They did a decent job adapting the book and making Bella a little less dopey. Rosalie, Emmett, Esme, and Alice were great. Jasper had the odd habit of looking like a total sociopath the whole time. Carlisle was insanely and frighteninly pale. Jacob was a horrible actor. Charlie was phenomenal and Bella's house and Forks, WA were very much like I pictured them. I actually wanted to watch it again after it was over, which is always a good sign.

Next up was "Persepolis". Great movie - four stars. "Persepolis" is based on the graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi about her growing up in Iran pre- and post-revolution and her schooling in Austria. It is a cartoon and the drawings and visual style are very unique. The film is in French with English subtitles. The movie does a good job of portraying the circumstances around and after the Iranian Revolution. While it is obvious now that the Shah probably wasn't the greatest leader in the world, the Iranian people were hoping to replace him with a more democratic and fair leader. What they got, as we know, was fundamentalist oppression. What would Iran be like if the U.S. had intervened?

Last weekend, Lucas and I were treated by my parents to "Four Christmases". I had high hopes for this Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon flick, especially when I saw the trailer featuring the quote by Vince Vaughn about rather being hunted by a crazy millionaire on an island. Priceless. Unfortunately, this comedy is not. I give it two and a half stars - there are some funny moments (the Christmas pageant is a good one), but it is a lot like "Step Brothers" - you can tell that more lines/scenes were supposed to be funny, but they fell FLAT.

I have also watched "The Golden Compass", but I am going back for a second viewing before making any judgements. I'm looking forward to increasing my diet of Netflix once school is over for the semester and for the slew of end of the year award contender releases like "Frost/Nixon", "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", "The Reader", "Revolutionary Road", and "Slumdog Millionaire". I also still need to see "Quantum of Solace". And maybe "Doubt".