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I went with my family to see the Spiderwick Chronicles-a fantasy movie based on the book-which my boys wanted to see. It was generally entertaining but I don’t like the way the movie presented fathers.
The main dad, Dr. Spiderwick, disappears while doing battle with the evil goblins, hard to explain the goblins-see the movie, abandoning his 8 year old daughter who waits her entire life for his return. Eventually she’s committed to an asylum because no one believes her wild story about her father. He spends his life in an enchanted meadow while she’s left holding the bag.
The other dad apparently, played by Andrew McCarthy, left his family for another woman and doesn’t have the guts to explain things to his clearly upset son. He also ignores the boy’s increasingly frantic phone calls leaving his entire family, 2 boys and a girl, to defend themselves against the onslaught of goblins, trolls and ogres, again, see the movie if you need to. In the climactic scene the bad ogre transforms himself into a copy of the father to trick the boy but the boy tests him by asking what the father has come to tell him. The disguised ogre responds, “I came to tell you that I love you.” The boy responds by stabbing the ogre, who looks just like his father, with a huge kitchen knife. He knows his father would never say that.
I’m a dad. I tell my boys that I love them and they never stab me-so far. Are Dads becoming the new evil stepmothers? Where are these images coming from? Are Dads working too much and not spending enough time with their sons? Are we abandoning our wives and families?

I, too, saw The Spiderwick Chronicles last weekend. Your comments about the portrayal of fathers make sense to me….now that you mention it. I, however, focused on the mother in the movie. She seems disconnected from her children–well, at least from her son, Jared, the kid who first finds the field guide and meets the goblins; she seems short tempered and preoccupied; she seems like she wants to be a better mother, but may not know just how to do that. I found myself at first turned off by her character and then wondering if it was because I saw traits of myself in her… insecurities about my own role as Mother to my daughters. Am I disconnected from their magical three-year-old and five-year-old worlds? Am I preoccupied with the rest of my job and responsibilities? Do I yell too much? After watching this movie, I was thinking the answers were yes, yes, and yes.

My point is this: The character flaws we see in others that make us twitch are often the flaws we have ourselves–or at least, we worry that we might.

With that said, I agree that the movie portrays fathers in a negative way–so does my husband, who thought the movie’s focus is fathers who abandon their children, be it in pursuit of fairies or in pursuit of women half their age. But for so many kids, absentee fathers, cheating fathers, and fathers obsessed with work are the norm. Just today, one of my freshmen told me how her father is just a sperm donor to her, which led to another kid saying how his father only calls once a year, and then has nothing real to say to him. So maybe The Spiderwick Chronicles is simply a story that reflects the real family lives of too many kids in its target audience…and maybe those kids appreciate seeing that reflected in literature and on screen.

I completely agree except that in this movie the portrayal of both parents goes too far. At least the mom comes around in the end-the dad gets stabbed with a kitchen. He kills his father and reconciles with his mother-excuse me Dr. Freud, do you have any open sessions.

I created a larger response to this on the “Characters that Make US Twitch Page.” Thanks to Allan for the title

Hey- Olivia and I just finished watching Rebel Without a cause. We didn’t like it very much because it was long and slow moving, and pointless, but we can see how it relates to Holden cualfield in many ways. At the beginning of the movie when the three kids are in the police office, they all just want the adults to basically leave them alone, but you can also tell they crave their attention and acceptance. That’s like when Holden goes to see his teacher Thurmer but then can’t stand being there.
There is another scence in the movie where The main Character gets himself involuntarily into a knife fight but then doesn’t want to hurt anyone, that’s kind of like how Holden puts himself into situations that are potentially dangerous but then he doesn’t like to be there.
Janie, the girl in the movie wants her dad to treat her like a little kid and he refuses to. She does not like the fact that she has crossed that threshold against her will,and she’s jealous of how her dad treats her little brother. When Holden is in the park, and the little kids won’t accept him because he’s an adult, it’s sort of the same thing.
Holden wears his red hat all the time to set himself apart he ends up giving it to Janie. The guy in “Rebel” gives the red jacket he is wearing to his friend who got shot.
Even though we almost fell asleep during this really long boring movie, we are glad we watched it and now we can see how it relates to “Catcher in the rye”.

On Monday May 5th Myself-Ekene and Brittany B. saw the movie “Rebel without a cause”. I thought it would be very interesting, Brittany thought it was going to be the most boaring movie. While I was watching the movie it reminded me of the movie “Westside Story”. I think because of all the music and dance moves. I really enjoyed the chicken fight, and the knife fight. We both thought the movie was a little too dramatic on some of the parts. In the end we both thought it was a good story line bad acting though.

After we watched the movie “Rebel without a cause”, we watched “Love Dont cost a thing”. We both thought this movie best related to the teenagers today. This movie was about a talented upcoming engineer,who has a pool cleaning job. He is so desperate to be popula,. So when he sees the most popular girl at school get into a little car trouble, he jumps at the chance. He offers to fix her car. He uses 1500 dollars that was saved up for his enigineering competition and bargains with the girl to make him become popular and hell fix her car. This didnt turn out so well in the end but the ended up a couple after all their trouble.

HOLDENS GIFT

Dear Holden,
I woud like to give you a mirror as your gift. I am giving you this gift for you to see the beautiful person you really are. I want you too see the things that others see when they look at you. I also want you to see that without you, many teenagers would definitley be lost. With this mirror you are able to see your past, present and future. In your past, I hope you may see ALLIE through your own reflection and see that just because he’s not here on earth doent mean you’re lost. Through your present, I hope you may see yourself with your family. See that family is all anyone ever has in this world. When you look at your future, I hope you may see that you will soon mold great people and do great things. So Holden use this mirror wiseley and stay strong.

Joe B. and I just finished watching Rebel Without a Cause. We both found it to be very slow moving and not too interesting. We did think that there was a connection to Holden Caulfield . In this movie, the character looked out for kids. He just wanted to be nice. Like Holden, he wanted to keep kids innocent. In this movie the man was lost in his feelings much of the time. He was unable to save Plato’s life much like Holden could not save Allie. The hat that Holden gave to his sister is like the coat the man gave to the boy. Teenagers in this movie were not taken seriously by authority. The police showed no trust for them during their meeting.

Last night I watched the movie The Breakfast Club from the early 1980s. I actually thought parts of this movie were cool. The teenagers in this movie got a detention and had to serve on Saturday. I was surprised that they were held on the weekend. The teacher came across as very harsh. He treated the kids badly, like the one he locked in a closet for showing off. Every time the teacher turned his back, they made fun of him. When the kids were talking among themselves, it seemed like they were having problems much like we do today. What made the group interesting was the fact they came from different cliques in the school, yet found they had things in common. Watching this movie made me realize that no matter what the decade was, teenagers still had troubles that needed to be solved and they usually turn to their friends first.

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