At the movies with Amy part trios

In this current day and age where sexism runs rapid through the current presidential election and Paris Hilton is held up as being a role model for young girls. And with reality TV shows such as "The Bachelor" and films such as "Enchanted". And women getting their lips pumped full of goo, eliminating wrinkles by injecting a form of botulism in their faces and dieting down to the point of where they look like walking skeletons, all in an effort to live up to this unobtainable and cartoonish standard of youth and beauty society puts on females. All I can say is thank goodness for Resse Witherspoon and a little film she produced called "Penelope".

I saw "Penelope" last night, I loved it! Christina Ricci, stars as a young woman named Penelope who is from a wealthy family whose great great great grandfather is cursed by a gypsy woman after he rejects the gypsy woman's daughter. The curse the gypsy woman puts on the family is that the first born daughter will be born with a pig snout and the only way the curse can be broken is if she marries a fellow blue blood. For generations sons have been born into the family and Penelope is the first daughter born into the family and so she is born with a pig snout. Her mother who is played the amazing and very funny Catherine O'Hara who is obsessed with keeping up all appearances of a beautiful and wealthy family, all the while trying to get her daughter married off to a fellow blue blood in order to break the curse and continue the tradition of being part of the elite. A tabloid reporter played by "The Station Agent's" Peter Dinkledge along with another one of Penelope's scared off blue blood suitors tries to get an average guy masquerading as a blue blood to try and get a picture of Penelope. The average guy Max is played by my new boyfriend "Atonement's" James McAvoy. After talking with Penelope through a two way mirror over the course of a few days, Max starts to have feelings for Penelope, when he sees her in person he is startled and runs off.

Penelope runs away to find Max and to find herself and in the process she finds friends who accept her for who she is. One of these friends is a tough as nails rocker delivery chick played by Resse Witherspoon and another person she befriends is a bartender at a pub Max tells her about. The evil blue blood suitor who was working with the tabloid reporter comes back into the picture and wants to marry Penelope all in an effort to make himself not appear crazy and to further his father's company. I will say this without giving anything away Penelope realizes that it's her and her alone who can break the curse. But you have to see the film to see how that all unfolds!!

This film is a smartly done chick flick!! The story is a very cute and quirky one and I thought there was not one bad acting performance in this film. The message was a great girl power message of loving and accepting yourself for who you are and riding your own wave and making your own mark in life! My only complaint with this film was that even with the pig's snout Christina Ricci still looked cute!! It's worth the eleven dollars and it's worth taking all of our young girls to see!!


Today I saw the documentary film "The Chicago Ten", the film is a very unique look at the Chicago Seven trial. For all of you who aren't history geeks such as myself the trial of the Chicago Seven (actually there was ten) was ten anti-war activists including Bobby Seale, Abby Hoffman and Tom Hayden were brought on trial for conspiracy to incite violent protest during the 1968 Democratic Convention. William Kuntsler, who many remember as the defense lawyer for Colin Furgeson and Lenny Bruce acted as the defense attorney for the Chicago Seven.

The anti-war activists wanted to have a protest in Chicago's Lincoln Park during the duration of the Democratic Convention. Most of the protests got ugly with police on orders from the Chicago mayor at the time Richard Daley (who pretty much made Chicago a police state) beating the protesters, at the time the US government was so afraid of the anti war movement and what was going on, on college campuses. Most of the charges that were brought up against the Chicago Seven were fabricated charges due to government paranoia and just about all of the Chicago seven were acquitted.

Seeing what was going on then is very much what seems to be going on now. We have an unjust and illegal war going on where US service people are being killed everyday as are innocent Iraqi civilians, much like the Vietnam war. Just like the Vietnam era, there also seems to be a lot of government paranoia about all those speaking out against the Iraq war. And the film uses Rage Against the Machine and Eminem as musical choices rather then music from the late 1960's to make that exact point.

This film uses the transcripts from the actual trial and the trial scenes are animated as are a few other scenes. The rest of the film used archive footage from the '68 convention and footage of the Chicago seven.
Actors such as Hank Azaria, Jeffery Wright, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schriber and the late Roy Schider all provide voices. The animation was really well done, the trial scenes are computer animated with what looks like that computer program Simms and the rest is traditionally animated. There is one animation sequence where the art almost reminds me of that of the animation from the Pink Floyd movie "The Wall".

I thought this film was very timely and very uniquely done. And if your a political/history geek like me...you'll love it!! Worth the $11 I say!!