le weekend

So we've reached terminal velocity on this cold. I'm breaking down and making a doctor's appointment. I took my grandfather's advice and had Mr. G buy me some Mucinex, which actually works! Thanks for the tip.

I'm sure you're all sick to death of reading about how sick I am. So I'm trying to segway into something more palatable. OK I could talk about yarn, but really I dont have much to say on the subject except that I hung out at the LYS again with Warren. We saw the funniest Bizarro cartoon I have ever seen. I would include a link to it, but that's not possible because they don't put comics on the internet anymore because people are reading the comics online and not in newspapers and people can't make money if we view stuff online. I'll just say this, the cartoon, included a sheep in jail with a druggie guy. It's perhaps the funniest sheep joke I've ever seen. It was from Saturday's March 11th paper. Check it out for a laugh.

Well with all of this time on my hands I've been able to get caught up on some movie watching. This afternoon I watched North Country starring Charlize Theron. It was a good movie, very engaging. Interesting topic, well shot, well acted. BUT the denouement at the very end was so flat that I really didn't care about what happened to the characters in the end. I don't wonder where are they today? What would they do next? Basically you see this woman played by Charlize Theron suffer at the hands of many men, and she finally gets justice in the courtroom, but you don't get the feeling that the win was truly that important. The film does not try to leave you with that feeling in a dramatic way.

The last couple of scenes include Charlize picking up her son from hockey, and seeing her lawyer, he says something about her being rich, with an ironic twinge. She gives her son the opportunity to learn how to drive. Then there is a shot of the North Country from above, with some subtitles stating how this case changed how the workplace treats women and sexual harrassment. I didn't get the feeling that anything really changed. We did not see any of the consequences of this justice, no punishment really was made. The subtitles mention something about a small financial settlement with a sexual harrassment policy, but for me that wasn't enough to satisfy me cinematically.

While story-wise I'm happy that the Josie character is getting along with her son at the end of the movie, this compared with what she endured throughout the movie isn't enough for a happy ending. Perhaps this was the filmmakers intent. Perhaps the filmmaker wanted to leave the audience with the feeling that all women want is the right to work free of harrassment so that they can care for their children, but the feeling I was left with was that the suffering of women at the hands of men in society, be it teachers, husbands or coworkers doesn't deserve retribution. You don't see any of the men in question punished, which diminishes the message. Not that anyone needs to enact revenge, but one wants to see those perpetrators face the consequences of their actions. Leaving this out suggests that the behavior is tolerable. This undoes everything the film was trying to say. North Country, a good film that shoots itself in the foot.

Wow what a way to use that film degree!

GG