When Rabbit said, “Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” he was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “But don’t bother about the bread, please.”
-A.A. Milne, of silly Pooh bear
Observations about today’s Easter celebration:
This may be the most exhausted I have ever felt. Yesterday I fell asleep multiple times while having my hair colored— suggesting I already had sleep-deprivation issues— but I still stayed up with the boys to watch The Ten Commandments on TV all the way to the end. And then of course someone had to let the Easter Bunny in after the boys (finally) went to bed.
Therefore, this is the laziest blog post I have ever written. These photos are from last year; I am too tired to go get my camera out of my bag to download today’s pictures. (Mental note: need new Eye-Fi wireless card for camera.)
Maverick somehow never got told the whole Moses story, so The Ten Commandments was fairly interesting but confusing for him. 1) It’s a good story, as bible stories often are, but sounds a little silly when you give the condensed version. 2) The idea of Moses leading all those people into the desert not knowing how he would find food & water for them is overwhelming. 3) Why do they show it Easter weekend? Shouldn’t it have aired for Passover?
It doesn’t matter what time they went to bed or how old they are, kids will be up & ready for easter baskets and egg hunts at 7am.
Perhaps sensing that I might feel left out, Cassidy fashioned an easter basket for me. In it: 3D construction paper renderings of a bunny, a carrot, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Apparently this is what the easter bunny leaves for grown-ups.
We drove through Lancaster County to get to our Easter festivities and as usual it inspired rampant farm envy. I need some baby lambs, horsies, goats, cows, and oxen, STAT! Please and thank you.
Easter, Halloween and Christmas are days that I let the sugar consumption happen without comment. The kids paced themselves but still ate a greedily ridic amount of candy. By 7:30ish pm they had all officially crashed and were in the depths of a sugar hangover: headache, tummyache, overwhelming sleepiness and overall crankiness. When they asked me why I didn’t feel yucky I pointed out that I hadn’t eaten myself into a sugar coma, which really seemed to click this time. They all opted for big glasses of water and bed, but then had a terrible time actually falling asleep.
Really, I don’t know how people can say sugar doesn’t adversely affect their kids’ behavior. Did you notice a difference?
Any interesting Easter observations?
C’mon, I set the bar low. I know you’ve got something.
– Richard & Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Perhaps I’m being overly dramatic. The “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” that is slated to arrive in theaters this summer doesn’t ruin the quietly lovely 1938 classic so much as it barely even resembles it.
In short, from what I’ve seen of the trailer, the only way the movie gets away with calling itself “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” is
Jim Carrey plays a man named Mr. Popper, and
penguins are involved.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins, the Newbery Award Honor Book penned by Richard & Florence Atwater, is a simple story of a simple house painter who dreams of places he has never been. In particular, he is taken with the cold white expanses of the Poles, and follows the stories of the Polar expeditions via National Geographic, the radio, the picture show. He writes a letter to Admiral Drake, far away on an Antarctic expedition, and Admiral Drake sends him a penguin of his very own. As one might guess, the crazy antics start there.
I reread this tonight, I’ve read it aloud to each of my children in their turn from the very copy I read as a child, and I still think it’s funny. Not in-your-face Jim Carrey funny, maybe, but sweetly funny and easily imaginable to a child. How would your household be turned upside down to accommodate such a guest?
The solutions are practical; the concerns realistic. Where will the Poppers find the money to support an exotic animal with specific needs, when money is tight already? Yet there is no squabbling, no question that the family will support Mr. Popper and his passion; and Mr. Popper himself attends with great patience to the needs of the animal entrusted to his care; “nothing was ever too much trouble for him.” Until one day, he is greatly rewarded for his patience, his dreaming, his simple passions, his love and his stewardship.
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I had always thought Mr. Popper’s Penguins was one of those books EVERY kid reads, like Ramona the Pest and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (please tell me all kids read those). Until I was lucky enough to be invited to a sneak peak of a feature at the Camden Adventure Aquarium, and got to actually pet a penguin and talk to his trainer.
“Do they really say ‘Ork‘?” I asked him.
He looked confused, so I helped him out. “Like in Mr. Popper’s Penguins. The book?”
He shook his head. “Never read that one,” he said.
He. Was. A. Penguin. Trainer. and he’d never read the book. I expressed my shock to the friend who had come with me, and she’d never read it either.
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So when I heard they were making a movie of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, I thought GOOD. Maybe now kids will go and discover this sweet book and its gentle humor and love. I thought about who I wanted to play Mr. Popper, the house painter, an untidy man splattered with paint and with bits of wallpaper clinging to his hair and whiskers. Sitting in his armchair with his pipe, his book and his globe.
I thought Hugh Laurie. I thought, maybe Matthew Broderick.
UGH. Jim freaking Carrey, the ruiner of childhood classics.Horton Hears a Who, the Lemony Snicket series, How the Grinch Stole Christmas AND A Christmas Carol weren’t enough for him, oh no. He’s like the Grinch who stole children’s lit.
In the trailer, these words come out of Jim Carrey’s mouth.
“I’m not coming in to work today. Because I have a pest problem.”
“I don’t like you, I don’t need you, I don’t want you in my life!”
Dude. Mr. Popper would NEVER say such things.
It looks like the plotline goes like this: Jim Carrey is a high-powered something or other; penguins are thrust upon him; he doesn’t like, need or want them. He probably deals with them to make his children happy, grows attached to them after teaching them to dance, loses his job due to his seemingly manic behavior, but regains the love and respect of his family.
I’ve seen that movie before, frankly. The details were different but the message the same. Liar Liar anyone? Dr. Doolittle?
Why couldn’t they make a movie that celebrates a family that is close and strong and loving to begin with… and stayed that way? That celebrates penguins for being penguins, instead of being a CGI-enhanced dance troupe?
Kids are going to see this spectacle, and Jim Carrey making an exaggerated ass out of himself as usual. I’m still going to see it, because I LOVE PENGUINS. It will probably be mildly amusing, taken on its own merits.
What kills me is the idea that some of those kids will go to read the book afterwards… and be disappointed by the comparison. “Not as good as the movie.”
The book is quiet. Simple. The real Mr. Popper is practically the anti-Jim Carrey.
I KNOW Hollywood is capable of producing a good children’s movie that stays true to the story (Because of Winn-Dixie springs to mind). Why don’t they? Why do they insist on doing things like introducing a love story into The Lorax?
In any case, I implore you.PLEASE. Buy your kid a copy of the book and read it with them, or to them BEFORE you see the movie. It will all be worth it if kids actually read and love the story… so that they can enjoy it with their own kids. If they grow to love penguins, real penguins, and work to preserve their habitat.
Gah. Stupid Jim Carrey.
Oh, and P.S…
Guess who’s playing Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple in the Disney remake?
“I repeat,” cried the Lorax, “I speak for the trees!”
“I’m busy,” I told him. “Shut up, if you please.”
It seems like for every one children’s movie they get right, five go horribly, horribly wrong.
Quite some time ago I heard they were making a CGI version of the primer for budding environmentalists: Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. This is one of Cass’s favorite books; one that I’ve read so many times to three children over a decade that I can probably recite it from memory.
Which is to say: there is no way I will avoid seeing this movie in theaters.
I moaned and groaned about how Hollywood seems incapable of coming up with anything new, to be sure. I probably said something along the lines of, “The original is a classic.” Because at heart I am a cantankerous old man.
But Jim Carrey wasn’t involved, and I’m sure the visuals will be stunning, so I kept the grousing to a fair minimum.
Then a few months ago I heard that Danny Devito was to be the “sharpish and bossy” voice of the Lorax, with his “sawdusty sneeze.” This I approved of.
I saw Despicable Me, and enjoyed it much more than I expected, so I was not terribly upset to hear that both the co-director and art director of the upcoming Lorax also worked on that film.
And now…
The animated adventure follows the journey of a boy as he searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.
Also bringing their talents to the film are global superstars Zac Efron as Ted, the idealistic young boy who searches for the Lorax, and Taylor Swift as Audrey, the girl of Ted’s dreams. Rob Riggle will play financial king O’Hare, and beloved actress Betty White has signed on to portray Ted’s wise Grammy Norma.
Yes, I get that they had to flesh out the story a bit to fill two hours. But you know what? They got so caught up in “biggering, and biggering, and BIGGERING” the storyline, that they totally missed the point of the story.
I know what you are thinking.
Now listen here, Dad! All you do is yap-yap and say, ‘Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!’
This is an important distinction to make.
Dr. Seuss handed the power to change the world directly into the hands of children.
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
By aging the main character old enough to have a “girl of his dreams,” Universal has taken that power away. They made saving the earth the realm of the older kid. Who, apparently, is doing it to win her affection.
They have completely ruined the essence of the story.
