Enchanted

Friday night we went to the movies. It’s great having a soon-to-be eight year-old along as it lessens the discussion time over what movie to see.

Enchanted

Funny, sweet, subtle sex (if a gorgeous woman has just gotten out of the shower and wraps herself in a towel then it's unlikely she’s wearing anything else, so when she lands on top of Patrick Dempsey and straddles him on the floor there is something going on or up). Which means that if Disney can dumb down Cinderella then it can dumb down sex.

Political spoiler: The New York Times published an article several days later describing the terrible conditions in India where many of New York’s UTILITY-hole covers are made. It’s unlikely that Disney used fair trade UTILITY–hole covers in the movie. Although it was not unnoticed by concerned and observant movie-going liberals that Susan Sarandon’s UTILITY-hole cover blew off and smashed the giant Times Square Coke sign Edward Abbey-style. Yeah for Disney’s anti-corporate message. Whoop, whoop. If only the NYT knew what those round things are called in these times.

Enchanted sure tried to hit most of the cliched characters: one very excited, very butch gay guy, a Jew as evidenced by the mezuzah on the apartment door and seen only by the truly observant (and played by Judy Kuhn who may well be Jewish and who was one of the Disney princesses to have cameos -- she sang the Pochohantas role), and some ethnic characters (although I think they were the animated creatures). Also, John Travalto's sister was in it but she's not a cliche although he might be by now.

Good movie for girls, boys, less-cynical adults. Even our 13 year-old Alan liked it when Linda took him.

We just rented a a fairy tale more for adults:

Celestial Clockwork

A Venezuelan, French, Spanish movie that uses the Cinderella story in a cute, funny way and tries to be in the Magical Realism genre of 100 Years of Solitude. It's unrated and the review said it had no sex or violence but that's by Venezuelan standards. Plenty of drug use and gay camaraderie. It starts off in Caracas and then moves to Paris which I only know because I looked it up on IMBD. We ordered it from the Blockbuster DVD-by-mail service.