Cynthia Hawkins

Two-dozen little shoe soles squeaked and squelched across the linoleum of the hallway. The teacher at our church school, leading the way, walked backwards for a few steps, winding the cord of her whistle around her finger. The whistle clacked against her rings. She pivoted to lead us into the library, and the squeaks turned to shuffling on the carpet in the dark. We could see the shapes of things we moved between – tables and shelves. We could see the projector and the screen, and with a click of sound the screen held a square of light and the square of light held our moving shadows. When we lowered to sit on a cleared space on the floor, there was a tingle at my fingertips that traveled all the way up my arm, across my chest, buzzing in my rib cage. A movie.

Last time, we’d watched a teeny tiny animated submarine chugging through the currents of somebody’s animated blood stream. The time before that, Ben Hur (anything featuring Charlton Heston in man-sandals was a winner here). And before that, a cartoon tooth demonstrating how to brush himself. It didn’t really matter to me what it was. I could be in class braiding the strips torn off the edges of spiral notebook pages or I could be sitting here watching the film threading through the projector and producing dark blips on the screen. I loved the blips and I loved the pop of sound coming on and I loved the rapid clacking of the reels as the film, whatever it was, began in earnest.

Today, it was something quite different, as the teacher with her hand overlapping the other in the projector stream had told us ….

Read the rest here.

The Nervous Breakdown’s Arts and Culture Associate Editor Simon Smithson and I recently discussed Smithson’s favorite genre, ’80s action films, for a new TNB post you can find right here.

Here’s a little of what I have to say about what makes this era of action film unique:

“’80s action flicks were equal parts mullet, saxophone, slip-on shoes, and kicking ass. But more importantly, I think what seems to set the ’80s action flicks apart as a golden era is that they departed from the gritty realism of the ’70s action flicks and took action movies over the top. Everything was bigger and flashier — the actors, their personalities, the explosions. The same thing was happening in music as well, if you think about it. It’s like going from Boston to Motley Crue.”

Stay tuned for a part II on The Expendables.

… that I’m late in posting here.  First, I offer a few alternatives to the late-summer, early-fall movie slump that plagues us each year in Watch This, Not That.  Then, after seeing Inception no less than three times (so far), I’ve finally figured it out: there is no figuring it out.  Also, I call Christopher Nolan a smart-ass cheat, and I mean that endearingly.  Lastly, for now, I explain why my grandfather crush on Robert Duvall should be yours in a review of his latest film Get Low.

Meet Hannah, the only kid I know who takes notes in movies.  As bad as I am now, in terms of movie nerd-dom, she’s destined to be three times worse.  I recently took Hannah, who has quickly become “Avatar: The Last Airbender” obsessed, to a screening of The Last Airbender and asked her a few questions afterward to get a feel for the differences between the series and the film.  You can find our conversation below and my review of The Last Airbender at The Nervous Breakdown.

Cynthia:  So, what did you think?

Hannah:  I really don’t like that a fish died.

C:  Does a fish not die in the series?

H:  He turned into that little circle of peace thing.  What’s that circle of peace thing with the two parts?

C:  You must mean yin and yang.

H:  Yeah, yin and yang.  That’s what it did in the series, but –

C:  But we don’t want to give anything away for people who want to see it.  So you’re saying that scene wasn’t like the series.  What else wasn’t like the series?

H:  Um …

C:  Without giving things away.

H:  Well, Prince Zuko only had a small scar.  It didn’t really look burned like it looks in the series.

C:  His scar wasn’t prominent enough in the movie?

H:  No.

C:  Okay, but this sounds like you’re just finding little things that are different. What about the story, the overall story and what happens?

H:  Well, usually their visits to the different villages take a bit longer.  I was surprised the movie went by really fast.  A lot faster.

C:  And the big battle in the end – does that happen in the series?

H:  No.  That doesn’t happen.

C.  Oh.  Really?  That doesn’t happen at all?

H:  No …. Well.  I haven’t watched it all.

C:  So tell me what you’ve watched.

H:  I’ve watched all of Book One except the last episode.*

C:  So you haven’t gotten there yet.  It could still happen.

H:  Yes.  Probably.

C:  So what did you think of all the characters?  Were they what you expected?

H: The brother was a little different than I expected.

C:  Yes, he was quite serious in the movie.

H:  Yeah.  He was more serious.  And also when he met the princess, she was engaged.

C:  Oh.  So there was a lot more story to it.

H:  Yes.

C:  Well, sometimes they can’t put everything in because then it’d be six hours.

H:  But that’d be okay.

C:  What about Aang?

H:  Oh, well, in the series his name is …

C:  They pronounce it “ayng” in the series but “ahng” in the movie, but it’s the same name.   I really liked him in the movie.  I thought he was super cute.

H:  Actually, I like him better in the series.  I think he looked better animated than in real life.

C:  Really?  Why do you think so?

H:  I don’t know. He just does.

C:  Interesting.  You know what?  I liked him far better in the movie than in the series, because in the series he’s a little bit … obnoxious.  A lot obnoxious.  He’s not obnoxious in the movie at all.  He’s really sweet.  What do you think?

H:  Yeah.  I think he might have been sweeter in the movie, and in the series he gets fussy sometimes and I don’t really like that.

C:  You were telling me something about that earlier, that you thought he could be a real big brat.

H:  Yes!

C:  In the series, you said he did things like withheld information from the others that was really important.  Things like that.

H:  He did that several times.  I think because in the series, it’s longer than the movie.  If they don’t have time to explain him, then you just wouldn’t like him when he does things like that.

C:  So, right after the movie, you turned to me and made the “so-so” sign with your hand. Why did you do that?

H:  It was kind of iffy in some parts.

C:  Why?

H:  There were things that weren’t in the movie that were in the series that I missed.

C:  A lot of things or just some things?

H:  Just some things.

C:  Overall, would you recommend it to someone who already likes the series?

H:  Yes!

C:  Why?

H:  Well, if I could forget about the iffy parts, then I would recommend it because it really is a very good movie.  Is that it?  Because I wanted to say something else.

C:  Sure.  Say something else.

H:  I liked Appa, the flying bison.  He looked exactly the same.  And the special effects for Appa were really good.  Okay.  That’s it.  Hannah out.

*Hannah watched the last episode of Book One the day after this exchange and reported, aghast, that, “There is no big wave!”

So, my latest at The Nervous Breakdown, If the Shoe Fits …, was inspired by two things:  my surprisingly impulsive denial after a friend said to me, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were that into Star Trek” and then my daughter announcing the other day, “My mind is full of logic, like Spock,” while making the shape of a heart with both hands.  I thought it’d be funny to discuss the ways in which Star Trek intersects with everyday life while at the same time trying to pretend it doesn’t.  Hopefully I pulled it off, and if I didn’t you can just enjoy this photo I’ve titled “Damnit Jim!”:

Now at The Nervous Breakdown, my essay on preserving the integrity of my Netflix queue:

Mine was the first family on our street to own a VCR.  I’d walk the neighborhood kids in and show them the buttons on the player the size of an industrial microwave oven.  “We can record stuff on T.V.,” I’d explain, head cocked back with the smugness of a Scorcese gangster, “and play it back.”  The irony being we had nothing to record, although we had found an airing of Nighthawks on a Saturday matinee.  We were the first with a VCR, but the very last with cable.  Dad was holding out on principle.  “Pay for television?  Only a fool would pay for something that you should get for free,” he’d say before queuing up Nighthawks.  Again.

Radio Shack was the only place we could rent movies after an extensive application process that delved back three generations and required your home, wrist watch, and teeth fillings as collateral.  It wasn’t long before we’d gone through all ten titles in stock, half of which starred Don Knotts.

“All right,” dad said one afternoon as the near-useless VCR sat, staring back at him, big-buttoned in silent mockery.  “We’ll do it.”  And he didn’t mean we’d be getting cable.

Back we went to Radio Shack where he planned to shell out the $100 required for buying a movie on VHS.  One we could keep forever and shove under the noses of the neighborhood kids!  Except mom and dad bought the Jane Fonda Workout.  I dragged my hand all the way down the banister to the parking lot in protest and accidentally cut my finger on a rusty nail.  I had to get a tetanus shot because of Jane Fonda.

At any given moment in my house for months, you could walk through my living room and find someone doing butt squeezes with Jane in her belted leotard.  And I’ll tell you something no one outside of my family has ever known.  My dad owned silver tights for the purpose.  (I mean really, dad, one-hundred bucks on Jane Fonda when Cannonball Run was sitting right there on the shelf next to it?) read more here

The Farrah Fawcett.  Circa “Charlie’s Angels.”  This was my first celebrity haircut.  I remember it quite clearly – shuffling into the salon with its white-painted trellis dividers between stations, the brown and green mushroom-print wallpaper behind domes of the hair dryers, and the pendant lights hanging from gold chains over each swiveling seat.  There is only one person whom a female of any age walking into this very setting could possibly ask to resemble by the time she walks out of it.  No matter the time period.  Farrah with her perfectly sun-streaked blond wings and fat ringlets cascading past the shoulders.  I asked for just that as I scooted back onto the booster in the chair and stretched my neck to accommodate the cape covering up my corduroy jumpsuit with a swoosh of sound.  My mom, however, leaned to whisper into the hair-stylist’s ear a suggestion that I can reasonably speculate to have been: “Actually, I was thinking of something a little more Three-Stoogy.”

The Kristy McNichol.  Circa Little Darlings.  I wasn’t even allowed to see it, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try for my own version of prepubescent sexpot.  I mean, where else does one go when you’ve started with Farrah?  Apparently, the stylist thought one goes with Eddie Van Halen.

The Barbara Carrera.  Circa Condorman.  Aka the Natalia.  Aka the movie no one else saw with the character no one else asked to look like.  Which explains the ambiguous nature of this haircut.  Does it want to be a mullet?  A pixie?  A shag?  How about all of the above just to cover all the bases?  Surely, in some way, from one angle or another, it resembles the wavy, flowing tresses of a vaguely-Eastern-European super spy.  I went to Whataburger right after this picture was taken at age eleven and got mistaken for a boozy soccer mom at the mustard and ketchup station.

The Molly Ringwald.  Circa Sixteen Candles.  It would be many years before the Ringwald effect released its firm grip on my locks.  It never occurred to me that I was modeling myself after the girl most likely to be viciously snarled at by boys named Stefan.  Though if it hadn’t been the haircut that put me in similar standing in middle school, surely it would have been the hubcap-sized homemade Oreo Darla Myer had unveiled from the lunch bag she’d snatched out of my hands.  That thing was on display in the school cafeteria until it petrified.  Thanks mom!

Julia Roberts.  Circa Mystic Pizza.  Okay, so I got a little carried away.

Julia Roberts.  Circa Pretty Woman.  Julia had once steered my early John Hughes teen-hood into all-I-need-is-a-six-pack-and-a-smile territory.  How could I abandon her on my special day?

Julia Roberts.  Circa Dying Young.  I see this hair, and I hear Kenny G.

Julia Roberts.  Circa Hook.  This would be the “career ender” cut.  The woman chops it off to play Tinker Bell and somehow this means she’s entered loony-town, never to return?  I was so incensed with the backlash that I stood in solidarity with a Hook-chop of my own.  And by that I mean I followed suit before I was aware that everyone else thought this was the worst haircut possible.

The Juliet Binoche.  Circa Blue.  On her it looks French chic, on me it looks like I’m finally growing out that bowl cut from kindergarten.

The Charlize Theron.  Circa The Astronaut’s Wife.  A professor of mine at the time told me the quickness with which I changed hairstyles indicated that I was uncertain of my own identity.  But he was just saying that because he didn’t know me during the very long period I was certain I was Julia.

The Uma Thurman.  Circa Pulp Fiction.  For one brief Halloween I achieved a look with a Betty Page wig and some Vamp nail-polish that, to this day, I would love to pull off full-time.  You know, taking the girls to school, going for a jog, giving “Eye of the Tiger” my best church-lady vocal on Rock Band.  All that’s missing is the five-dollar shake.  And a syringe in the chest.

Out today on Monkeybicycle, Admit One, excerpted from my creative non-fiction work on all things movie-related, Girl on Film.  I really should confess, though — I do have a movie buddy.  I had to give birth to her to make this possible, but I do have one.  Problem is, she drags me to things like The Tooth Fairy.  Yeesh.  About how many years, do you think, until she’s ready for Tarantino?

OCD like a ‘Fox; Yes, Wes is a Perfectionist

A little late in posting this one, but here you are … my review of the Toy Story flicks updated in Disney 3D.  I fought the temptation to burn my word count on bemoaning the death of hand-drawn animation.  Maybe this is a sign that I’ve finally gotten over it and forgiven Pixar.  Enjoy! Toy Story & Toy Story 2