Mama

A Mother's Love is Forever

Information: Release date January 18, 2013.  Genre: horror.  Directed by Andres Muschietti.  Starring Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

Synopsis: At the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, a man named Jeffery kills his business partners and wife, and takes his three and one year old daughters.  While driving fast on snow and ice, the car goes off the edge and into the woods. Surviving, Jeffery takes the girls into the woods until they come to a cabin.  In there he breaks down and is about to kill the girls when a shadowy figure kills him.  Through opening credits we learn that the shadowy figure takes care of them.

Five years later the girls are found and taken to a clinic. Their uncle Lucus (their father’s brother) takes them in with his girlfriend Annabel to a house –supplied by the girl’s psychologist –to live a “normal life”.  There’s just one problem, the shadowy figure has followed the girls.  The girls talk to her and call her mama.

Pros:

This movie has a fairy tale aspect to it and even opens up with “Once upon a time….”  There are series of pictures made by the girls that help tell the story of their survival. Even when the girls are found they look like woodland anorexics.  Who can blame them when all they’ve lived off was cherries?  The idea that two sisters are taken in by a mother spirit/monster shows that there is a comfort in where they are.  When removed from that place the girls break off in two ways.  Victoria, the older sister who is eight, is ready to go back to the “normal life” that she remembers.  Lily, who is only six, has only known the cabin and Mama.  There is this tug of war between them as to whether they should stay with Mama or their uncle.

Annabel, who plays in a band and is not ready to be a mother, could almost play off as the wicked stepmother.  Yet there are moments when she truly shows mother-like love and tenderness to the girls and eventually cares for them as her own. 

This horror movie can easily be seen as a fairy tale about a mother’s love and sibling struggle.  With all that pop-ups of Mama, strange and freaky movements of Mama’s body (seriously messed up movements) you’ll get a thrill and may even scream over this spooky ghost story.

Cons:

It’s just another movie dressed up in American clothes and accents. Yup, it’s based on Andres Muschietti’s 2008 Spanish-language short film of the same name.  While that’s not all that important, however, some people would be irritated that Hollywood has to be inspired by other works (foreign films, books or stories).  The only thing about this is that Muschietti directed both, so really he just recycled an idea/story and made it longer.  Most people wouldn’t see this as a con but some would.

There’s no blood and gore (at least none seen that could make you gag).  Only in pictures by the girls do we see any blood and even that is childlike and unreal.  Since a lot of Mama’s appearances are pop-ups and quick scares, there’s nothing really new to this movie that hasn't  in some way or another, been done by someone else.

Final verdict:

I went a day after the opening and the theater was a full house (the movie sold out in minutes).  During the movie three girls got up and left, one saying “F*** this movie” right after a scary scene.  I will admit myself that I wanted to leave; only I needed to use the bathroom and wanted to come back.  But I stayed for the whole film and even laughed at a few things the girls did.  There was humor and lots of scare in this movie, along with characters you could believe.  My only problem with the movie was the end. The bizarre twist that I didn’t see coming and the abrupt ending (yes, a WTF ending) left me unhappy.  I would have been fine with the predictable ending but this twist just made me want to scream, “Why?”

Aside from my unhappiness with the end –which I’m sure, will grow on me in time –this movie was really good and worth checking out.  I’d have to give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Flowers in the Attic

“We lived in the attic,

Christopher, Cory, Carrie, and me.  

Now there are only three.” 

― V.C. Andrews, 

Flowers in the Attic

Information:  Written by V.C. Andrews (Virgina Andrews). Published in 1979, with 340-400 pages (depending on the edition) and split into two parts. 

In part 1 we have a prologue and 12 chapters with the verse (only the first two lines are used):

What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator.
    Does a clay pot argue with its maker?
Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying,
    ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’
Does the pot exclaim,
    ‘How clumsy can you be?’  

Isaiah 45:9

In part 2 we have 10 chapters with the verse (again, only the first two lines are used):

Until the day breaks
    and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved,
    and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag
    on the rugged hills.  

Song of Solomon 2:17

Synopsis:  

Chris, Cathy, Carrie and Cory are the four children of Corrine and Christopher Dollanganger.  They have a happy American life; a father who travels and brings home gifts for the family, a dutiful and beautiful stay-at-home mother. All in a fairly nice home and neighborhood.  Chris is lovingly called the future doctor (the brains of the family), Cathy wants to be a dancer, and Carrie and Cory are three and a half year old twins who just like to play.

When their father dies and their mother has to sell everything to pay their debts, it seems like the end of the world.  But mother has been sending letters to her parents – grandparents the kids didn’t know about – and tells the children that they will be moving to live there.  However, the mother was written out of her dying father’s will.  She must win back his love to get the money to shower her children with a lifetime of happiness.  The catch?  The grandfather doesn’t know he has grandchildren.  The mother decides to hide them in a room (connected to the attic, hence the title) until A) she wins over his love and gets back in the will or B) the grandfather dies.

The room the children sleep in has a closet which also holds the stairs to the attic, Chris (14 years old), Cathy (twelve), and the twins (3.5) wait for mother.  But the mother’s visits become fewer until she stops visiting them completely.

“Way upstairs there are four secrets hidden.  Blond, beautiful, innocent, struggling to stay alive….” – V.C. Andrews (her synopsis of Flowers in the Attic)

Pros:

V. C. Andrews wrote Flowers in the Attic in 1979, and the story takes place in the mid to late 1950s (Wikipedia say 1957 but I didn’t see that anywhere in the book).  So you see this “American Dream” idea play out with the stay-at-home mom, who is beautiful and the hard working, handsome, dad.  The children are bright and obedient and everything seems perfect.  Until the father dies and life becomes more realistic.

It becomes a type of horror in which we meet a religious fanatic grandmother who believes the children are “the devil’s issue” and has a willow switch (whip) to threaten them with punishment.  The children are locked up in a room, cut off from other children, sunlight and schooling.  Cathy thinks they should forget waiting for the grandfather to die and try to escape but Chris believes in his mother and trusts her.

This book is a tale of horror, of being locked in a room with only an attic to play in and make paper flowers to make it look like a garden.  It’s told through the point of view of Cathy and is truly a story of survival.  You keep turning the page wondering if mother is going to visit, if grandmother will catch them doing something “sinful” or if the maids will catch the children hiding in the room when the go upstairs to clean the unlocked rooms.

Chris and Cathy become like parents to the twins and even try to be their teachers.  It’s heartfelt how much they take care of each other and the love they have.  Cathy is there for the twins every day and even lets them call her momma from time to time.  And the first time the mother comes to visit –after a long period of not visiting – they act as if they don’t know her and hide behind Cathy.  It’s a scene that is both tender and sad, to see a sister being a better mother than the real one.

Cons:

Purple prose is everywhere (which is ironic given the title.  And for those who don’t know, purple prose is flowery writing: i.e. the yellow sun glowed like an orange in summer after the rain).  I had to skip some parts because that’s all there was.  There’s also an irritating problem with Cathy and her expressions “good golly” or “golly lolly”.  If I had a drink for every time she said it, I would be drunk before part two.  Yeah, the book is in two parts.  Part one is about the first year, and the second jumps so it’s been like two and a half years.  Wow, Andrews, you took a big jump; however that is less of a con and more of a fact.

So you need to know that Cathy was twelve and Chris was fourteen when they entered the attic.  By part two they are fourteen and seventeen.  Hello puberty.  If you think living with your siblings (if you have any) was painful during that time, try sharing a room, an attic, and one bathroom with them.  And that’s it.  You may be able to guess the issue here, but I’ll spell it out.  Some incestuous stuff goes down.  If you’re not into it you may want to skip this book.

Aside from the purple prose and incestuous relationships, there’s also the issue of Electra/Oedipus complexes.  What’s that?  Electra complex is when a girl sees her father as the most wonderful, beautiful, idealistic man, lover and husband in the world.  And she wants to have a man just like him (or as Freud would say, have sex with her father).  Same goes for an Oedipus complex for Chris.  He loves his mother sooo much, calling her his “goddess” and forgiving her for not visiting them as often as she used to. He wants to marry a woman like her.   Ultimately, he becomes angry with his mother when he learns she’s remarried and takes his frustrations out on Cathy. 

By the way, you get over dramatic (soap opera like) episodes between characters.  Because of this, Flowers in the Attic (or anything by V.C. Andrews) could be defined as a trashy soap opera that just gets ridiculous as it goes on.

Final verdict:

I read this book in less than a week.  I found this book when I watched the 1980s movie one day.  I saw that it was based on a book and decided to get it from the library.  Long story short, I had a few problems (see cons) but by the end of the book I was on the edge of tears.  I think V.C. Andrews could have developed the characters more, but for the underlining psychological issues I think it was perfect.  Flowers in the Attic is placed in fiction, but it is confusing as to what genre.  Horror tends to be the number one, but I feel that Gothic (a combination of horror and romance, or horromance) is more accurate.  The imagery of the location (an attic and small room in a mansion in the country) and the characters are both aesthetic and obscene. 

Final verdict?  Trashy novel or not, I think you should read it (unless the incest bothers you). Obviously it didn’t bother me and I look forward to reading more by V.C. Andrews.

   

Book Review: Forever Amber

Forever Amber and 

the 100 Lovers!!!

This is a review I did on Goodreads.com

PLOT:
Abandoned pregnant and penniless on the teeming streets of London, 16-year-old Amber St. Clare manages, by using her wits, beauty, and courage, to climb to the highest position a woman could achieve in Restoration England-that of favorite mistress of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. From whores and highwaymen to courtiers and noblemen, from events such as the Great Plague and the Fire of London to the intimate passions of ordinary-and extraordinary-men and women, Amber experiences it all. But throughout her trials and escapades, she remains, in her heart, true to the one man she really loves, the one man she can never have. Frequently compared to Gone with the Wind, Forever Amber is the other great historical romance, outselling every other American novel of the 1940s-despite being banned in Boston for its sheer sexiness. A book to read and reread, this edition brings back to print an unforgettable romance and a timeless masterpiece.

My Review:
I'll keep this short. I picked this up, out of interest and it took me less than a month to finish it. I don't regret reading it, I'm glad I did, but it's not for everyone. I really feel mixed about my feeling towards this book. I was entertained, and enjoyed it even though I hated certain characters (and their actions).
To show you how I felt (overall) I will sum up my feelings for each part of the book without spoilers...I hope.

Part 1:
I'm so on Amber's side. Be strong!

Part 2:
Amber...I do believe you made a mistake somewhere down the line.

Part 3:
Why did I pick this up? I hate her, I hate him, I F**kin' hate everyone in this book right now. WTF!!!

Part 4:
Okay, I love Amber now, I love Bruce again.  I'm enjoying this again and...uhh okay...um, Amber if you were real, I'd B----h slap you right now. What is wrong with you?

Part 5:
*shaking my head* Amber...I know this was going to happen (back of book said so - see plot) but...why don't you plan stuff out? Are you that stupid? How hard is it to sit down and think things through logically?

Part 6:
Amber, just die. You need to die and become a warning for young girls who want to go to the big city with their older boyfriends.  Just shut up and die.

My thoughts on the ending:
While the author admitted that much of the book was cut out so it could be published there is a lot missing.  I have questions about characters and their past (especially Amber's friend who has a baby and 12 chapters later it's forgotten about - never mentioned again).  That, and the ending was rather rushed in my opinion (was she thinking of a sequel ).

Also: The author was inspired by her husbands collection of Charles the II history...it doesn't mean I want to hear everything about King Charles (especially the ending which didn't feel so climatic as Amber's).

          

I mean, we get it, royal people (especially kings) had lots and lots of babies (bastards).  I don't need to know everything about him.  I kept getting the impression that she was telling a story about a poor girl during Charles the II and his rain but had to put in parts with the king himself.  WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST WRITE A BOOK WITH HIM AS THE MAIN CHARACTER????  Honestly, she could have written a series about Amber St. Claire and a side series/sub-series/a tie-in book or whatever about Charles the II.  Further more, it's pretty sad that of all the characters in the book the only ones I liked were Bruce's best-friend (who could be an A$$ every now and then) and the King (to a limit - one story about a whore and you've heard it all).

Overall:

Again, it's not a book for everyone.  It has 60-70 Chapters, close to a 1000 pages long and full of purple pose and long descriptions of "The Duke of Blah blah, who owns La la land which is somewhere I don't give a hoot!".  By the way, I got this book from the library, I would suggest checking it out there first before setting out to buy it.  Thank God I did because as much as I was entertained if this book had a place on my shelf I would either get mad at it or have to hide it behind other books.

Signed, The Carnivorous Rabbit. Om nom nom!