Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Movie Review: Okja (2017)


Okja is a moving and amusing satire. It's a story about family, values, the environment, and--I have to say it--the power of being pigheaded. Ohoho. Anchored by An Seo Hyun's performance and a script with plenty of twists, the movie skewers consumerism and capitalism while also showing the lengths and limits of earnest heroics.

Okja's strong opening, complete with cheery music from your nightmares and Tilda Swinton's bananas performance as Mirando Corporation's CEO Lucy, establishes the tale: Mirando has created "super pigs," and kicks off an international, ten-year competition to see who raises the best piggy. The winning pig will get a parade in New York City. Cut to Mija and Okja's idyllic life in the mountains of South Korea, where it becomes clear that girl and pig have a long history and a very special bond. Trouble comes when Jake Gyllenhaal's TV presenter character shows up to judge how Okja fares compared to the other super pigs (spoiler: she's the best!).

Hijinks ensue as Mija chases after Okja, first to Seoul, then all the way to New York. She receives help from an unexpected group, led by my secret boyfriend Paul Dano (so secret even he doesn't know!) and which includes The Walking Dead's Steven Yeung, who deserves better than that show anyway. As Lucy tries to deal with the PR fallout, Gyllenhaal's Dr. Johnny falls to even lower depths, with poor Okja bearing the brunt of it all.

The settings, action, and writing are the film's strengths; however, the lack of character development detracts from the overall impact of Okja. For instance, Mija is the same throughout the movie: stubborn, determined, clever, and resourceful. She learns English, but that's about the only change she goes through. At the same time, Lucy is a one-note antagonist: clearly neurotic and borderline psychopathic, with a barely-concealed yearning for success and approval. And Okja is a damsel in distress: all she does is be magical, suffer for it, then get rescued.

Another gripe I have is the over-the-top performances, especially Gyllenhaal's. Even Swinton's oddball tics eventually underline how thinly sketched her character is. I enjoy scenery chewing, but these two were just sad and annoying. Which is perhaps the point...?

I think the biggest issue is the focus on pigs. Okja shows the brutality of modern factory farming, where land animals are kept in crowded, unsanitary conditions, then slaughtered and processed en masse by immigrants. Beef is by far the most resource-intensive product churned out by these factories, so it might have hit harder if Okja were a cute super cow instead of, let's be honest, a hippopotamus.

That said, it's a highly enjoyable movie with lots of startling turns and laugh-out-loud moments. One scene in particular stands out in its incongruous use of "You Fill  Up My Senses," but because of the "Hallelujah" scene in Watchmen, this is nothing.

TL;DR: Nutty CEOs! Super pigs! Tears! Laughter! Recommended!

---

This post brought to you by a week-old cookie that I am slowly nibbling into nonexistence!

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Free Fun Friday at the Boston Children's Museum

As background, Junior loves the Boston Children's Museum, so we became members last year and go there whenever the weather sucks.
Photo from last year in case you forgot Junior is adorable

It looked like rain yesterday, so at the last minute I changed our plans from riding the Frog Pond Carousel to spending an hour at the Children's Museum. And thus our tale begins...

The Highland Street Foundation, bless its heart, runs a Free Fun Fridays program for communities in and around Boston. One of them happened to be at the Boston Children's Museum yesterday, and Junior and I unintentionally wandered in because there's Crazy Prepared Mom and there's Clueless Mom, and then there's me: Crazy Clueless Mom. The Children's Museum, a very popular destination on ordinary days, had transformed into an utter madhouse:
Original image from Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc.

I was like, "Seriously? Why is this happening???"

Since I'm extra special, according to my own mother (the word she uses is "tanga"), it literally took me several hours to figure out why the place was so insanely crowded. But in my defense, every day is a "free" day for us (in quotes because we paid for it to be free, capitalism is so confusing), so when I waltzed in ahead of everyone 'twas business as usual. Yes, dahhh-ling, you must get a membership to get ahead of the riff-raff. I guess the fact that they set up a stroller valet outside -- A STROLLER VALET, D'YOU HEAR ME -- should have been my first clue that I was entering the danger zone.

Once inside, I couldn't hear anything over the ruckus. It was crowd-fighting territory, so Junior and I plowed through the other families and ran up the stairs to the Construction Zone on the third floor. That section was not as nuts, so Junior got to play a little bit:
This is apparently the "big" skid steer

But then came a line of kids demanding a turn at the skid steer, which Junior is not used to. This was actually the first time I saw him get mad at other kids, anger that he expressed by furiously working the levers and refusing to get out. I lured him out by promising to take him to the trains, on the second floor.

When we got there, another red flag waved itself furiously in front of me: the play space for kids under three was at capacity, and we could only get in when people came out. Luckily, a couple of families were leaving as we planted ourselves in front of the swing door, so we got in pretty fast. Junior settled into playing with the train set.

About ten minutes later, the friend we were meeting for lunch texted to say she was pretty close to the city, so Junior and I headed out. The crowds and the noise tuckered him out; I could tell because he obediently followed when I said it was time to go.

Getting out was harder than getting in because by this point there were even more people. Before we could reach the main level, we had to wait at the top of a staircase for about sixteen thousand children to pass with their chaperones. The struggle is real, people.

We met my friend, had lunch, went home, and napped. It was only after I woke up that a light bulb went over my head and I exclaimed, "It must have been a Free Fun Friday today, that's why there were so many people!"

The lesson here is: Do Not Leave Your House on a Free Fun Friday.

TL;DR: The Boston Children's Museum was mad crowded on Free Fun Friday, spoiler alert.

---

This post brought to you by the 4th of July weekend!