Oct. 6th, 2016

tvordlj: (Movies)
Let me see... Oh . We went to a movie last weekend, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It's a Tim Burton movie based on the first of a trilogy of books. It's very fantasy, lots of cgi which doesn't ordinarily thrill me but for this to work, it had to be done. It doesn't seem like they will make a movie for each of the three, though, because they changed the last third of the book and ending to wrap up the story. You don't normally like major changes from book to movie but in this case, given that they wanted to finish it in one, I think they did a good job and made a good choice for how it was ended. It fit in with the rest of it,  at least.

While they never said how the children came to the orphanage or why, these children are all peculiar, having a strange and odd ability, each different from the other. One floats if not wearing lead shoes, another is invisible, another is a super strong little girl, one boy can bring dead things back to life, another sweet little girl has an ugly toothy mouth in the back of her head hidden under her hair. That's a bit creepy. The headmistress, Miss Peregrine (played by Eva Green), can change into a bird, a peregrine falcon. She is an ybryn and there are others like her, charged to look after these children. They all change to birds of one sort or another. We met one other, Miss Avocet who was played by Judi Dench.

A teenage boy, Jacob, sees his grandfather killed by what appears to be a monster but a psychiatrist seems to have convinced him that he was seeing things. His grandfather used to tell him the most fantastic stories when he was a boy, purporting them all to be true. These were stories about strange children and monsters etc. His grandfather was often away and his father seems to have grown up resenting it. He has no relationship with his father and isn't much of a dad himself. Growing up with an absent father doesn't give you much of an example. Jacom finds a letter, written fairly recently, from a Miss Peregrine to his grandfather and a reference to an island in Wales and the psychiatrist suggests he visit the island, for closure if nothing else so he manages to convince his father to take him. His father is apparently bird watching and intending on writing a book, something it sounds like he's been attempting for years.

When he's on the island at the ruined orphanage where no MIss Peregrine appears to be, he finds some children of various ages including a teenage girl. They take him through a sort of cave and he's transported back to a day in 1943, the day the orphange is bombed and destroyed. Turns out this is a time loop, controlled by MIss Peregrine. The children there are the peculiars and they all live the same day over and over, the day being reset just before the bomb hits. They grow older but they never grow up past the age they were when they were first brought to the time loop. There are other time loops in the world as well, all at different time periods in history. An Ymbryn can actually create a loop. His grandfather lived there for awhile but then left the loop and joined the Navy during WWII.

But there's danger. There really are monsters, called Hollowghasts, or Hollows for short and they are the result of an experiment gone badly, trying to gain the spirits from ymbryns. They were transformed into these invisible monster who, if they eat the eyes of enough peculiar children, may transform to some semblence of a human again. Some already have and they can shape shift to any other human form. They're determined to hunt down all the time loops and all the children and ymbryns so everyone is in danger. Jacob's grandfather was chasing this Hollows all over the world to kill them before they got their mitts on peculiar children, he having the ability to see them. Turns out Jacob has that talent too, his peculiarity which is very valuable in helping to keep these people safe.

So that's the background and part of the movie. Jacob has to battle against the Hollows who are out to get all of them and who have captured many of the Ymbryns in the world including MIss Peregrine. He has to lead the children to find her.

It's very true to Tim Burton's style and quirkiness. No Helena Bonham Carter (I think they divorced, didn't they?) but there is a young woman in the move that reminds me of her quite a bit. Eva Green is wonderful and the children are all very good. Mostly the cgi is great though there are occasions when it's annoying but that's only my own personal "thing" about cgi (i.e. when they have a human battling a fantasy character and the human is quite obviously cgi and it looks like a computer game sequence rather than real. That irks me. It just does.)

If you like that sort of thing or have read and enjoyed the books, you might like it. As i said, there are a few things unexplained and I can't remember from the book why and how the children first came to the time loops but it doesn't matter to me. It's fantasy so I don't always need these things explained. Also, they end up going to Blackpool (in the 1943 period) to save Miss Peregrine. Graham wondered, why Blackpool. Since this is not in the book, I figured it was because Blackpool isn't altogether that far from Wales where the small island is supposed to be. And it's got the tower and the piers. Much more interesting than just a place in the countryside somewhere, I reckon.

Back to reality.

Now that G. is on my Blue cross plan at work, he's been to the dentist. It's not been fun. He'd stopped going quite awhile ago. He was unemployed so was able to go on the NHS but when he got the call centre job, he would have to pay and couldn't afford to, living from pay to pay as he was. Needless to say his teeth need a lot of work. Two appointments so far for the cleaning with one more to finish up. Ouch. Then inJanuary he has to have a few fillings and possibly a root canal. OUch again. But once it's done, it won't be so bad going forward, if i must use a "buzz speak" phrase. That's actually one of the very few I don't mind.

These trendy buzz words and phrases drive me nuts. Action is NOT a verb, people. And you can still have meetings or discussions rather than calling them conversations. There was another one that nearly had me weeping with consternation recently, "socializing" something instead of presenting it or (urg) bringing it to the table. I wrote about all this before.

Thanksgiving for Canada is this weekend so there is a holiday Monday and a big meal at my sister's on Sunday. I have to get pies. No, i'm not making any. My attempts at pie crust are always hit or miss, usually miss. I don't make them enough to perfect it. It's been years since I made a pie crust from scratch. 

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