Title: The Tale of Despereaux
MPAA: G
Runtime: 100 minutes
Director: Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Despereaux is a classic story about ... about ... actually, I have no idea what this story was about. Despite its "classic" feel, despite the way it presented itself as something familiar, there was not a whole lot of core here.

Not that it was a bad movie. The animation was great. The voice acting was well-placed. The story was ... well, it was there.

Perhaps a simple plot summary would help: the kingdom of Dor loves soup, rain, and light (I think). But when a rat-based accident ruins the annual soup festival - and ruins it in a way that isn't entirely appropriate for a small children's movie - soup is outlawed, and rats are outlawed, and somehow this leads to the cessation of both light and rain. Throw in a superfluous dose of Slave Girl Who Wants to be Princess and Who Also Has a Father She Never Knew But Will Know by the End of the Movie, and you have something of the plot.

I think the point of Despereaux was that people make mistakes, people get hurt, and people act in hurtful ways because of their own hurt, but forgiveness is more powerful than any of that. Also, if you don't eat soup, then it will never rain again, and you will never see the sun for as long as you live.

Now, looking back on those last two paragraphs, you must be asking yourself: what the hell does this have to do with all those previews I saw, the ones with the extra-large-eared mouse who has no fear of anything? Exactly. Somehow or other, Despereaux, the big-eared mouse with loads of courage, is the spaghetti noodle that holds the whole plot together. And that's just great, until you realize that you don't really need Despereaux to hold the plot together at all, because the storyline is convoluted enough and already too top-heavy with characters (the king, the princess, the chef, the chef's completely unexplainable Vegetable Demon who helps him with the cooking, the servant girl, the servant girl's father, the rat who doesn't act like a rat, the Rat King).

But why not? Throw in a mouse, who is not a rat, but who is also not a mouse in his heart, and yet still is not a man either. He'll hold the whole story together.

The geography is similarly confused, I might add. With names like "Despereaux", "Antoinette", and "Andre" being tossed around like, I don't know, something that gets tossed around a lot, you'd think we were basically in France. But you would be wrong, and that's why I'm writing this review, and you are not. No, we are not in France, or anyplace else that might be considered predominately French, because we also have a "Roscuro", a "Boldo", a "Pietro", and the aforementioned Veggie Demon, who insists on using unmistakably Italian phrases. Aha! But that's not all! We also have the servant girl and her father, the jailer, who call themselves "Miggery" and "Gregory", and who speak in what is immediately identifiable as honest-to-god Bowe-bell Cockney.

What gives, Movie? Where are we? What story is this? Why do we have a mouse with a French name who invites (loose) comparison to Don Quixote, a princess who calls herself Princess Pea, a chef called Andre whose obsession with the perfect soup would have in itself been enough for a good plot-line, but whose connection with rats and mice nearly cries out for negative comparison with Ratatouille?

At least the animation was good. And while the plots and subplots and sub-subplots seem to be more numerous than the rats and mice that support them, and while the whole thing holds together like a Jenga tower at the end of the game, your kids probably won't notice this. They'll watch the action, they'll cheer for the big-eared Despereaux, they'll hate the Rat King (or whatever the hell his official title is - probably something equally incongruous, like Grand Dragon Rat), they'll love the princess, and so on and so on.

I have also heard that the book was, as is so often the case, better than the film, and much more coherent. I plan on picking up a copy immediately. We'll see if the written version has any extra substance that might have helped the movie make more sense.

So it was an "ok" movie. My kids liked it (especially when Despereaux used his big ears to fly, not that you should in any way think of Dumbo when this happens). It was generally familiar, and for that reason, comfortable. Hey, it beats The Day the Earth Never Was in Any Actual Danger of Standing Still.

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

It's been a long couple of days. I was just on my way back from purchasing a half-gallon of eggnog and some shredded beef jerky, when I was abducted by masked men and taken to a secret location. Upon threat of being forced to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I was made to referee a staring contest between actress Zooey Deschanel and actor John Turturro.




The contest ended in a draw, with both celebrities being immediately contracted to star in Steven Spielberg's upcoming epic film, Looking.

With some therapy, I hope to recover.

Also now available from CafePress and The Michaelodian:



The Lincoln shirt is slightly higher quality material, and runs for $19.99, while the Churchill shirt is a "value t-shirt" and runs for $14.99).

I've got mine.

Because sometimes you just need to say "Look, enough is enough already," The Michaelodian proudly hesitatingly unapologetically indifferently presents:



Whether with the coffee mug ($14.99) or with the bumper sticker ($5.50), make a statement of your own - not all platitudes are universally true.

Items are available now through CafePress.

If you are at all like me, you often find yourself sitting at home on a weekend night, staring at a 20-foot tall stack of slightly worn Tom Clancy novels and thinking, "Nah, I've read all four of those books already." So you say to yourself (out loud, and in broken French, for some reason), "I think I'd like to see a movie."

You then, of course, fire up any number of BitTorrent clients you have loaded onto your computer, and download whatever pirated movies you want to watch at that given moment.

Ha ha! Of course, I am kidding! You would never dream of doing anything illegal, and since downloading pirated movies is illegal, you are far more likely to sign in to your NetFlix account, select a handful of movies you would like to watch, and move them to the top of your queue. It is at this point that you realize that NetFlix, as good a service as it is (go to hell, Blockbuster Total Access), still has an average movie delivery turnaround time of 2-3 days, and by the time those movies arrive the weekend will be over.

Still wishing to watch a movie or two right now, you would probably (again, if you are like me) jump in the car and drive on over to your local video rental store (not Blockbuster) and just shell out the $8.73 for a couple of new releases off the shelf.

However, this is all predicated on the presupposition that you are like me, which I can almost guarantee you are not. For starters, you do not have a 20-foot tall stack of Tom Clancy novels that comprises precisely four books; you have a 48-foot tall stack consisting of only three books, and they are by Clive Cussler. Also, you don't even know what a BitTorrent client is.

Which is why you are precisely the kind of person who would purchase the DVDs directly, well in advance of the weekend upon which you wished to view them. And, knowing this about you as I do, I came prepared with three recommendations:

Wanted

There is no man on this planet (and barely any women, for that matter) who doesn't sometimes (read: "every 17 minutes") fantasize about Angelina Jolie's snarling smile and deep dark eyes, and in Wanted, she adds to this fantasy by carrying firearms.

If you haven't seen it, the movie is about a secret fraternity of assassins whose targets are carefully and methodically selected by ... giggle ... by ... snicker ... HAHAHA! Ok, seriously, I can't tell you how the assassination targets are selected, because it would be a major plot-spoiler, which, in this case, would be less like spoiling a plot and more like telling the punch-line before the joke is finished. I'll give you a hint, though: it would have been more believable if the fraternity had been choosing their targets by spinning a large, multi-colored Wheel 'O' Death, complete with blinking lights and annoying beeping noises.

This weakness aside, the movie still clips along at good speed, keeps the adrenaline pumping, and lets the viewer step vicariously into the Everyman role so ably played by James McAvoy, wherein a virtual Nobody suddenly becomes a very powerful and important Somebody. If that's not enough to entice you, Angelina also gives the viewer a long look at her dripping wet, tattooed backside about halfway into the film. Granted, her derriere is difficult to differentiate from her lips, and the role of her rumpus may very well have been stunt-doubled by her copious kisser, but I digress (and so does she).

Prince Caspian

The second volume in C.S. Lewis's marvelous Narnia series comes to life on screen with Prince Caspian. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy return to the magical land of Narnia because they have been summoned by the young prince. With the help of the dwarves, centaurs, mice, et al, the children and the prince have to defeat Caspian's evil uncle Miraz, who has usurped the Narnian throne. It's good entertainment, just don't over-analyze it.

And finally ...

The Dark Knight

The summer blockbuster comes to DVD. Taking its cue from Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", Heath Ledger plays a young squire with a talent for jousting, who disguises himself as his dead master and -- no, I'm sorry, that's wrong. I'm thinking of the 2001 film, A Knight's Tale.

Christian Bale plays a wounded hero given a second shot at life by a mysterious millionaire, a chance to fight crime and corruption with the help of a technologically-advanced vehicle named "KITT", and together with -- uh, nope, that's wrong too. I have this confused with the 1982 television series Knight Rider.

At any rate, this here Dark Knight masterpiece thingy, surely the Holy Grail of all movies ever made or ever to be made, runs for a solid two-and-a-half hours - so if nothing else, it's got a good bang-to-buck ratio. Plus, once you've finished watching it and - 152 minutes later - suddenly need a nicotine fix, you can go to the convenience store for a pack of Kool lights, and when the clerk can't find them on the shelf, you can grab him by the collar and repeatedly smash his head into the front window while yelling "WHERE ARE THEY? WHERE ARE THEY?" (I often do this to Google Maps, in fact, when trying to find all of the McDonald's locations closest to my residence).



If you do end up buying The Dark Knight Rider Tale, or even if you already own it, you should also consider purchasing this hilarious audio commentary on the film, produced by the crew at RiffTrax. The jokes come fast and furious, making fun of Batman's costume (part of which seems to include the inexplicable and affected Deep Gravel Voice), The Joker's insanity, the scenery, the sound effects, Nick Nolte and Gary Busey (who seem to get burned in every RiffTrax commentary), and pretty much everything else in the film. It's very well done, and my sides hurt from laughing for nearly 152 minutes straight.

Ok? So points to take away: read a little more Tom Clancy, never ever give Blockbuster your business, purchase these DVDs and the Dark Knight audio commentary, and above all else, find out what a BitTorrent client is/does/smells like (hint: they might be responsible for choosing assassination targets).

A brief follow-up to the previous review of Nothing Like the Holidays, just long enough to highlight what I believe will inevitably become the movie catch-phrase of the holiday season. Johnny (Luis Guzman) has just rudely meddled in Jesse's (Freddy "Rodriguez" Rodriguez) love life, pelting him with a flurry of unsolicited advice of the kind that only a gay Latino man could possibly give (even more so a gay Latino man of Guzman's size). As Jesse turns and walks away in disgust, Johnny yells out:

"Hey Jesse, man, yo! What?!"

Sheer, sheer poetry.

Title: Nothing Like the Holidays
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 140 minutes
Director: Alfredo De Villa

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Pour yourself a stiff egg-nog and Cuervo, because we're going to spend Christmas with the Rodriguez clan. This Puerto Rican family living in Chicago's west side has enough dysfunction to make sure everyone gets a healthy serving, and by the time the last character has vented his or her Hispanic spleen, you and I will be trading out the egg-nog for harder stuff. This movie backs up the truck and unloads crate after crate of Awkward, whole skids of Uncomfortable, and a few 50-gallon drums of High-Strung Agitation. And that's just the first half of the film.

This family has it all: a shell-shocked younger brother just back from the war, mainlining high-octane Survivor's Remorse; a drifting and rootless sister struggling to break into a film career; an "ethnically intense" meddling mother whose mission appears to be racial stereotype preservation; and a Bodega-owning father who just wants to see his family together, and to pass on his family business to one of his sons.

Unfortunately, the free-for-all engagement of the various family disputes, and the outing of numerous historical skeletons hitherto safely hidden in their proper closets, is so terrifyingly realistic and palpable that the average viewer will probably feel like he is intruding on what should be private conversations. To put it succinctly: you will want to work up a few fake coughs, check your watch, make some kind of polite excuse, and gracefully take your leave of the movie. Unless, of course, you are the kind of morbid and sadistic viewer whose idea of a good time is watching people work through their dysfunctions in a holiday setting; in which case, grab another bag of lightly salted Self-Abuse and strap yourself in. You'll be here a while.

A few things that I learned from this movie:

- It is, in fact, quite possible to make Luiz Guzman (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love) even more irritating than he normally is. Simply cast him as a gay character, add a lisp to his already barely-comprehensible line delivery, and augment his super-charged Latino flamboyance with an even more gaudy homosexual style

- John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge, The Take, The Happening) still has an incredibly abundant face, and he isn't afraid to point it at you without remorse

- Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2, The Da Vinci Code) should never, ever be allowed to appear on screen in his underwear

- The same goes for Mr. Leguizamo

In the end, the Rodriguez family manages to work everything out, but they do in a fashion about as predictable and stale as ... (note to self: think up a clever analogy with which to end this review).

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

Title: The Day the Earth Stood Still
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 110 minutes
Director: Scott Derrickson

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

As I write this review, I am amply surrounded by several hundred recently-purchased leafy green plants, numerous containers of fresh dirt, a variety of small and furry animals, and a handful of large aquarii aquarae aquariumses fish tanks containing various forms of sea creatures.

In short, this movie has changed my life.

Gone are the days when I would routinely host medium-to-large sized dinner parties, with seven-course meals featuring (only in part, mind you) Spotted Owl breast sauteed in Humpback Whale fat and presented in lightly-baked dolphin skin wrap, Polar Bear tenderloin garnished with Aleutian Shield Fern leaves, and Ozark Bat pancreas seasoned with crushed Gowen Cypress Root, all served on genuine Desert Tortoise shell plateware, and tiny forks carved of genuine Asian Elephant tusk ivory (Bengal White Tiger claw toothpicks are available, should you need to remove any of the fern leaves from between your teeth).

Yes, my former behaviors must change, because, according to The Day the Earth Stood Still, we (by which I mean "you", since I've changed my habits) are killing the earth, and the aliens are fed up with us (I still mean "you") over the whole thing. In fact, we (again, "you") have to die, so bad has the situation degenerated. It's the only way to save the planet.

Actually, I take it all back. The Day the Earth Stood Still (TDtESS) is a horribly mistitled movie, because at no point during the film is the earth ever in danger of standing still. The earth's people are threatened with destruction, yes, but there is not so much as a whisper of a threat that the planet will cease its motion.

TDtESS confirms what most of us suspected: Keanu Reeves is not of this planet. Mr. Reeves turns in his usual lethargic performance, emptying entire clips of expressionless dialog and stone-faced stars right into the audience's chest. Appropriately, the lion's share of his scripted lines contain no more than three-to-four words at a time ("I have to go", "Drive there", "I can't tell you", "It won't", and so forth), which makes for a perfect marriage of actor and script.



The incredibly-talented Jaden Smith plays the role of Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment, filling every conceivable gap in which the plot might have lacked a whiny, bratty, disrespectful pre-teen character to hurl defiant expressions. His performance is so stunningly realistic that you will undoubtedly fantasize about grabbing the scruff of his cocky little neck and slapping him without ceasing.

The real action of the film takes place in a few critically-placed on-screen dialogs that brim with philosophical utterances, one of which finally presents itself as the movie's unforgettable tag-line: "at the precipice, we change." This is made all the more hilarious by the fact that the key conversation in which this axiom appears takes place between Keanu Reeves and (wait for it) John Cleese. I dare you to find two characters less likely to engage in scholastic debate. A more realistic dialog between these two cast members might go something like this:

Reeves: "I don't understand."

Cleese: "Oh, come off it, you stupid git! I wish to complain about this parrot, what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique."

Reeves: "I'm sorry."

Cleese: "Yes, sorry! Sorry, everyone! I do get carried away sometimes! Now, listen closely and please try to understand before one of us dies, it's really quite simple: my hovercraft is full of eels."

Reeves: "Whoa."

Cleese: "Right. Stop this, it's gotten completely silly. And now for something completely different ..."

In summary: Hollywood once again wishes us to know that we are all a bunch of self-absorbed and reckless cretins, whose most readily-identifiable characteristic is our lack of any sort of self-preservation instinct (your ticket stub to TDtESS will suffice as proof). We are a threat to this planet, although no one is exactly sure how or what to do about it. What is certain, however, is that if we do not clean up our collective act, some alien race out there in the cosmos is bound to send Keanu Reeves our way, and then ... well, God help us all.

This scenario, of course, assumes that David Scarpa (screenplay) is correct, and M. Night Shyteyerself is wrong; otherwise, don't bother worrying about an impending invasion of the alien police to protect the planet from its inhabitants, because the plants themselves will rise up and kill us all before it ever gets that bad.


+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

In the Iraqi culture, it is the equivalent of flipping the bird (source: a particularly intense, NyQuil-induced hallucination). And for one angry reporter, it was the perfect gesture for the moment at hand:

The President later spoke of his "shockification" and "disappointary" over having foot-wear chucked at him in public.

Conspiracy Theorists are working overtime at this very moment to prove that there were, in fact, two Tossers involved in the execution of the attack. Evidence to support this theory includes the anomaly that the two shoes were later found to be dissimilar in style, color, and measurement. "There's just no way this was the work of a lone shoe-chucker", explains un-notable author and conspiracy buff Clyde Longstretch. "The shoes were thrown at too close of an interval for any one person to have thrown them both, and the flight trajectory of the airborne foot-wear indicates that each missile originated at two different places in the room", he continued.

The Iraqi reporter who perpetrated the attack blamed nerves and lack of sleep for his less-than accurate aim, and swore that, if given the chance again in the future, he would be sure to throw a series of keffiyehs first in order to create a diversion, before moving to the heavier artillery.

Title: The Happening
MPAA: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

M. Night Shyamalan (first name: "Mid") has offered the viewing public a sled-load of steaming crap-cakes, and I would like to offer him a heartfelt "bite me." His latest offering, The Happening, is misleadingly titled; it probably should have been called The Not Happening, Ever. Better yet, it should have been called The Waiting, because that's what the viewer spends most of this film doing: waiting for something to (please, please, dear God) happen.

Let me see if I can summarize the plot, as I understood it by the end of the film:

- In Central Park, people are acting weird - in fact, they're killing themselves (probably in a desperate attempt to get out of being in this movie)
- Obviously, then, something seems to be happening, but no one is sure what it is
- Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher, who has a math teacher with a very large face for a friend, and together they intend to find out what is happening
- Incidents of Escape-the-Movie-by-Suicide begin to spread to the surrounding areas: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, etc.
- Mark Wahlberg does a lot of traveling with his wife, trying to escape from the movie. He also whines a lot while doing it.
- More suicides - really graphic, outlandish, sensational suicides, the details of which are not spared the audience in the slightest by the increasingly-weird M. Night Shyamalan
- Mark Wahlberg continues whining, running, and looking confused and helpless
- Vast amounts of film are wasted on scenes of discussion, in which various theories concerning the happening are explored at length
- More Wahlbergian whining and running, as the suicide rate skyrockets (my theory: the more Marky-Mark sniffles and hyperventilates, the less his traveling companions desire to live, and thus they throw themselves under running lawn mowers, shoot themselves, leap off of buildings, and so forth)
- Wahlberg and his space-eyed wife meet a freaky old farm lady, who must shoulder the very large burden of providing all of the suspense for the film
- The film ends with thinly-disguised commercial probably paid for by Greenpeace

Over the years, we've all come to expect the Shyamalian last-minute plot twists: The Sixth Sense (he's dead?!), Unbreakable (ahhh, he's the villain!), Signs (she wasn't losing her mind, she was predicting the future!), The Village (they're highly-cloistered freaks?! That's the explanation?!). Even Lady in the Water had its redeeming qualities, keeping the audience guessing about which character fit where in the puzzle of the fairy-tale's dramatis personae. The twist came when the script revealed that no one fit in quite where you expected.

But with The Happening, there is none of this. The mystery of the source of the ever-spreading suicides is basically revealed less than halfway into the film, and no plot twist comes along at the end to turn the viewer's world upside down and create that lovely feeling of disorientation. It just ... ends. With a lame save-the-planet lecture, no less.


So here's what you should do: send me the $7.50 you were going to spend on your ticket to see this film, and I'll give you the same content and message in a fraction of the time (so you can get right back to doing more important things, like finding ingenious uses for all that congealed bacon grease you've been saving in a coffee can under the sink). Here it is:

- Recycle
- Respect the Ozone
- Reduce your carbon footprint
- Stop chopping down trees
- Save the planet

There. And you didn't even have to put up with Mark Wahlberg whining and crying at you for 90 minutes. You can thank me later.

UPDATED

This movie was really, really bad. I saw the movie in the theater months ago, and I still have bruises. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to announce the arrival of the one thing that might stand a chance against this steaming pile of ... well, you get my drift. I am referring, of course, to the RiffTrax audio commentary on The Never Did Manage to Actually Happen.



Get your mp3 download today, and be sure to add "Why're you eyeing my lemon drink?" to your arsenal of bad movie catch-phrases.

Title: The Day the Earth Stopped
MPAA: Unrated
Runtime: 90 minutes
Director: C. Thomas Howell

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

The Day the Earth Stopped (The Asylum Home Entertainment, 2008) should not be confused with the similarly named The Day the Earth Stood Still. The latter film describes the day in which the earth ceased to move, whereas the former film describes the day in which the earth just ... stopped. I'm not sure exactly what it stopped doing; that's anyone's guess.

The plot is beautifully simple. Aliens invade the earth with the intention of destroying it, because this little planet of ours poses some generic, unspecified threat to the universe. The aliens, of course, land in the United States of America. Not China, not Germany, not Africa, or any other number of equally logical choices - no, the aliens always ultimately center on the USA.

Ah, but wait! There is a plot twist! One of the aliens, who takes the flaming hot form of Sinead McCafferty (Days of Our Lives, Street Racer), has been sent as a kind of ambassador, to discover if there is indeed value in human life. If the Vaguely Employed as an Officer of Some Government Agency hero-type guy can convince the sensitive alien ambassador that humanity has value, then the attack will be called off. Apparently, this highly-advanced alien race (which can read minds, restore life, and harness the power of Life Force in general) sucks at reconnaissance, and determined to destroy the planet without doing the necessary initial leg-work.

In other words, the aliens want to destroy earth (by making it "stop") because earth has become a cosmic threat; however, if the earthlings can show that there's something warm and gooey in the center of this thing called Human Existence, then the aliens will continue allowing the earth to drain its sweaty, sebaceous, epidermal secretions into the Universal Hot-tub.

I thought it made great sense.

The only thing that stops in this movie is the script. There are incredibly long spans of time in which nothing is said, no dialog is spoken, and Spielbergian levels of looking are achieved. I treated these moments as wonderfully welcome periods of relief, and learned to look forward to them.

Let me just cut to the moral message of the movie and spare you the time you would otherwise waste watching this movie: stop being a threat to the other planets, ok, Earth? We need to live in harmony with each other, yes, but also with the entire cosmos. What it is we might possibly be doing wrong on this front isn't exactly clear, since we've never actually made contact with alien life, but rest assured: when whatever we're doing wrong gets to be too much for the rest of the universe to put up with, The Alien Police will certainly let us know, and will probably kill us all. Don't say you weren't warned.

(PS - Sinead McCafferty grants the audience an extended and completely gratuitous view of her pillowy, large, be-nippled breasts, and she is courteous enough to do so before the viewer gets even three minutes into the film. Depending on your POV, this either semi-redeems the movie, or only tarnishes it further. Again, you've been warned.)

I have to admit, I'm an old-film junkie. Especially the black-n-white comedies. I love Hal Roach's The Little Rascals, Abbot and Costello routines still make me laugh, and the slapstick of Laurel and Hardy will never grow old.

Except when it's aimed at kids. In that context, for some reason, people in the early part of the 20th century thought it would be entertaining to show children things that could make Satan himself a little bit uncomfortable.

I would give an example, but it would be too horrifying. Suffice it to say that I recently watched Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland, and now I will probably not sleep for four more days. I can't. The terrifying images are burned into my (now) gun-shy memory, which, like an abused child, now flinches whenever someone reaches out to give it a hug.

What's that you say? You absolutely must have an example? Very well, but don't come shivering back here for emotional comfort when your inner child whizzes your sense of security and wholeness down his pant-leg after viewing this clip.

Watch below, if you must. The things that start happening at about 5:50 into the film clip are enough to sustain several weeks of soak-your-bed-with-sweat nightmares.