Marcheline's Movie Review - And A Continued Haunting

Hey, we went to see "9" last night (on 09/09/09) and the movie was FANTASTIC. The graphics were astonishing, the characters were great, and the thing I liked most about it was the thing the critics liked least about it: It doesn't spell everything out for you like you were stupid. You actually have to watch closely, pay attention to the clues and signs, just like the characters, in order to figure out the whole story. It's not a kid's movie, it's not a Disney flick, it's a post-apocalyptic story. In a world where you pay attention and figure it out, or die a gruesome death inflicted by some horrible machine with a dead cat's skull. There now, that got your attention, didn't it?



That being said, I think my old "haunting" is coming back full force.

For some years now - what, fifteen? twenty? I have been haunted by the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It literally follows me around. I have heard it in restaurants, elevators, coming out of windows while I was walking on the street. I've heard it in bathrooms, in department stores, and in other people's houses.

But it's not just that. It's not like I just keep hearing the Judy Garland version. No, it's weirder than that. It follows me in different versions - I've heard it in jazz version, folk version, rock and roll version, orchestrated version, electronica version, steel drums version... any version you can imagine, I've heard this song, following me, following me, following me everywhere I go.

And last night? The movie? 9? You guessed it. The stitchpunk characters crank up an old victrola and slap an LP down, and out comes Judy Garland this time, singing THAT SONG. Bear and I looked at each other and laughed... like, ho ho - there it is again.

I kind of forgot about it, as I always try to do, because it freaks me out a little if I think about how often that song shows up in my life. I laughed it off and forgot about it.

Then, tonight, Bear took out some videos he'd brought home from the library. There was "Valkyrie", starring Tom Cruise; "Australia", starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman; "Elegy", starring Ben Kingsley; some Asian film that I can't remember the name of, and one other I can't recall at the moment. As usual, we spread them out on the table to decide which one to watch tonight.

We picked "Australia".

Not twenty minutes into the movie, Nicole Kidman's character is trying to cheer up a small Aboriginal boy whose mother has just died. She decides to tell him a story, and she picks up a newspaper off the ground and sees an advertisement for "The Wizard of Oz". The child asks her to sing him a song.

I don't really have to say anything more, do I?

And not only does Nicole Kidman butcher the song completely, but later in the movie we get to hear Judy Garland sing it as the boy watches his first motion picture, and even later on in the movie we get to hear THAT SONG played on a harmonica and harmonized by a choir of Aboriginal boys.

That's three new versions of that song IN ONE NIGHT, plus the old Judy standard.

I keep wondering... why??? Why????? Why??????????