A really strange but charming little Alice in Wonderland-esque film. Very British, very original (visually speaking, at least), and very fun. Apparently this movie is very similar to its follow-up, Coraline, which I have never seen but I remember from the trailers having kind of a similar sensibility. Anyway, I really enjoyed this plus the guy from The Trip is in it! And he's great and always very fun so that's even more reason why you should probably just go watch it because I highly doubt any amount of plot recap or explanation of themes or visual motifs will do it justice. Just go watch it, and then maybe watch it again because there's a lot happening and you may have missed some stuff the first time around.
Also: So for Halloween I led a bunch of themed lessons with all the grades, which I was really proud of because it was the first time I'd really taken over and run the classes while my co-teachers assisted and also because, through the use of Russian candy and "draw your costume" creative time, I effectively won my students over on the idea of Halloween, something the Georgian Orthodox Church is pretty strongly against. And I'm not saying this was some coup for cultural imperialism, in part because most of my students already knew all about Halloween from American movies and television, and I'm not saying I was trying to indoctrinate them into our country's pop cultural obsession with witches, vampires, and zombies (because trust me, they are already THERE. When asked what Halloween costume they wanted, most kids did not know the English word for "ghost" or "witch" or "monster" and opted instead to be something they already knew, "Spiderman" being a popular option and "zebra" a close second, but the most popular choice by far was "zombie", which most of the boys in every grade level were ALL ABOUT).
So, okay, maybe I trying to indoctrinate a little bit. Or at least show that Halloween is in general a pretty harmless and fun thing and does not really endorse nor encourage Satanism. Instead of indoctrinate (such a strong word), let's say I was trying to encourage cultural exchange. There. That sounds better!
But perhaps the best part of last week and my job in general are moments like these: When I walked into one of my sixth grade classes on Thursday (we don't meet on Wednesday so I had run the Halloween lesson with them on Tuesday), even though Halloween was over, they had all made masks which they quickly threw on while wishing me a "Heppy Heiloveeeeeen!"
They're pretty fantastic.
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