Winter brings us to the singers

[sovay]

There are honest-to-God carolers on my street. I thought they were a passing car or a radio, but they are five or six people with sheet music in hand standing on the steps at a slight diagonal across the street, appropriately next to a large conifer, singing "Ding Dong Merrily on High." I guess it is that season.

[edit] And now they are gone. I heard nothing after the last round of hosanna in excelsis and when I looked out, I couldn't see them anymore. They do not appear to have moved on to any other house; I can't hear them anywhere else on the street. If they went indoors, they sure didn't turn on the lights.

I guess it's ghost story for Christmas season, too.

Comments

[sovay]

This post reminded me of the caroling scene in The Curse of the Cat People, which in turn reminded me that it is a stealth Christmas movie which I need to watch again this month.

I need to give that movie another chance. I bounced horribly off the ending (it read as lying to the child, not sharing in her fantasies, which I think is how I was meant to interpret it). I love the original Cat People.

[gwynnega]

(it read as lying to the child, not sharing in her fantasies, which I think is how I was meant to interpret it)

Interesting. I guess I never really gave it much thought whether the father was lying or genuinely sharing his child's fantasies at the end. He has his own massive baggage to contend with where Irena is concerned, so his beliefs don't matter as much to me as his setting aside his own Irena-related fears so he can treat his daughter's fantasies with respect (as opposed to punishing her for them).

[sovay]

so his beliefs don't matter as much to me as his setting aside his own Irena-related fears so he can treat his daughter's fantasies with respect (as opposed to punishing her for them).

Like I said, I should try it again.

(The other problem here may be that I went straight from Cat People to The Curse of the Cat People, so my willingness to cut Oliver any slack was kind of zilch.)

[gwynnega]

Yeah, I'm not a big Oliver fan.

[alexxkay]

His only function, in both films, is to psychologically fuck-up the female protagonist. He *thinks* he's the hero, but he's so not...

[gwynnega]

Good point.

[alexxkay]

For Kestrell, part of the greatness of Curse is that it's all *about* how adults are insane and lie all the time :-)

[sovay]

For Kestrell, part of the greatness of Curse is that it's all *about* how adults are insane and lie all the time

I would have an easier time with that as the lesson of a film if we weren't intended to take a climactic instance of an adult lying to a child as something that is supposed to make the child happy, because she doesn't know it's a lie. I don't remember it ironically. As I said, I'll give it another shot.