What We Think: Brave

Addi: "Can we go see 'Brave'? It just came out yesterday."
Sara: "Probably. We'll look into it."
Darren: [Texts babysitter and checks showtimes online.]

It's only within the past two or three years that our older two will sit through a movie in a theater, so Family Movie Time is pretty new and fun. And that's how the four of us landed at the 1:50 showing of Pixar's Brave this afternoon.


Judges' results:

Darren and Sara: It was pretty good. As a friend said, it's more Disney than Pixar.
Addi and Stuart: Woohoo! Great movie! Loved it! The will o'wisps were cute! The TRIPLETS! HAHAHA!

The main reason why I wasn't won over was not because the animation lacked anything. Absolutely beautiful work. The light, water, and Merida's hair were especially enchanting. And the music was all Scottish and Celticish. In all, the movie was very much a pleasure to experience.

But Scotland, although part of my heritage and full of great legends, just doesn't spark my imagination. For one thing, the big bad creature in this story was... a bear. Bears just don't make my heart quail, although I'm sure that opinion would change if I ever actually met one. And Celtic magic isn't flashy and sparkly. It all seemed pretty mundane.

Also, the movie was populated by the usual Disney-brand of idiotic males. They served as foils for the intelligent, capable females. But in past Pixar movies, male characters didn't have to be fools in order to prove that the female characters were smart (Bob and Helen Parr -- Mr. and Mrs. Incredible -- come to mind.) So that affected my enchantment level, also.

And the whole part where the princess persuades the clans to break with tradition and let their young people choose who they want to love? Sounds great to twenty-first century America, but rather stupid in a setting where marriage was part of politics and treaties.

 But wasn't there anything good? Yes. Lots. For one thing, what I love about Pixar movies is that they focus on relationships other than romantic ones. Finding Nemo was all about a father and son. Up followed an old man and a young boy. The Incredibles featured a whole family. Likewise, Brave deals with a mother and daughter who have to learn to meet halfway. The script was (haha) brave enough not to include a romantic angle at all, except between the king and queen.

There was a lot of Girl Power in the movie, but not in an overstated way. I certainly daydreamed about being the kind of princess who could gallop through the woods and fire arrows at hanging targets -- hitting them dead center every time. On the other hand, one of the best scenes was when the queen quelled an entire roomful of brawling men simply by walking with quiet dignity through the middle of them.

You can tell I'm a grownup. I didn't even mention the usual Disney sidekick, which in this case was split into three: the princess's triplet brothers, who orchestrate elaborate shenanigans throughout the movie. Addi and Stuart were big fans of the triplets.

If you're thinking of seeing the movie, you ought to. You probably won't regret the hour and a half you spend with Merida in ancient Scotland. Oh, right, and the triplets.

-- SJ

Sh&Sw: Sunday Observations

Because our congregation was too small to keep going, our church of the last six or seven years closed last month. We've been trying out a small Anglican congregation for the past three or four Sundays. Well, Darren and I are "trying it out." As soon as the kids discovered that there were classes for all of them -- including Addi and Stuart for most of the service -- they embraced it as their very own home church.

I, jaded and burned out with the Sunday rigamarole, am really just along for the ride. But I've been able to sit through the entire service with Darren beside me the whole time. That's been much more refreshing than I expected.

I mean, mostly I'm burned out. But there are a few things you can say to me to kindle a passion, nay, a nuclear explosion. Things along the lines of, "Children shouldn't have toys or entertainment during the service. They're there to WORSHIP!" or "You can train your kids at home to sit still and quiet during the service, so they don't disrupt others' worship on Sunday." or "Part of your job as a mother is training your children to worship, so even though you don't feel like you get anything out of the service, you know you're doing what God wants you to do!" How about you just talk to myself of four years ago? She was still listening to you. Now, I'll just content myself by saying, "Shut up."

(Hm, this is shaping up to be not so short or sweet.)

One last observation. Even if the visiting pastor gives a sermon that's really good on the grace-love-mercy part of God, but gets rather amorphous when it gets to how Jesus relates to all this, a liturgical service fills in the gaps. We still read several passages of Scripture, heard traditional prayers, said a communal confession of sin, and recited the Nicene creed. It's all there, if you're paying any attention.

(Which kids don't, which was why they were instead in their own rooms with their own crafts and happy about it.)

-- SJ

Three's a Charm

A funny thing happened on our way into June this year.

Here we were, a family of five people and one extremely cute baby. That baby became a toddler. It was my fourth time through the toddler stage, and this time was I almost certain I was going to lose my mind. But I didn't, and the toddler grew in wisdom (sort of), stature (quite a bit) and favor with God and his siblings, who still consider him the cutest thing on two well-built little legs.

And then came this June -- this day, in fact -- when that cute little toddler stepped over the threshold into the world of Little Boy. He loves monster trucks, trains, sword fighting, and pizza. He's still working on his talking, but has some pretty important concepts down, like "Addi/Stuart/Daphne in Pip's room for Quiet Play?" or "No! This toy is MY job!"

He has absolutely no idea that today is in any way significant. But we think it's worth mentioning. Happy birthday to our incredibly cute three-year-old boy!

We love you, Pip!



Thanks to my sister-in-law, Jessica, for this picture, which I stole from her album on Facebook.

-- SJ, DJ, AMJ, SMJ, DMJ