Dusting myself off

Just checking in after an awful awful week which included a rare meltdown by younger daughter and culminated in my not speaking to the Resident Fan Boy for three days. Don't ask.

We've swept up the shards and are soldiering on. We took younger daughter to Inkheart yesterday, at Rainbow Cinema, a local "second-run" venue which features cheap ticket prices and a really expensive concession to make up for that. Also no diet Coke, just Pepsi. I loathe Pepsi. The theatres are reasonably roomy, though, and the staff pleasant.

Inkheart the film (I've been trying to get around to reading the book for years) was a bit of a leap of faith; the critics were unimpressed, but the viewers reporting in at the Yahoo! web site, particularly those who hadn't read the book, were mostly pleased.

We rather liked it. At the risk (yet again) of appearing unpatriotic, I've never been crazy about Brendan Fraser, but that's probably because I don't care for most of his films. (He was okay in Gods and Monsters, as I dimly recall.) He's fine here in a story that wisely stays out of time; the clothes and cars are such that it could take place any time during the last 30 to 40 years. We're treated to some dazzling character work from the likes of Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, an unrecognizable Lesley Sharp, a terrifying Andy Serkis, plus a bunch of other wonderful English actors whose theatre and television CVs at IMBD scroll on forever. Paul Bettany's wife Jennifer Connolly has a cameo.

Younger daughter instantly recognised Eliza Bennett from Nanny McPhee as the young heroine (who currently looks like a young Laura Dern). She delighted in picking out the literary references: the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, the Minotaur from Greek mythology, etc. She found the story scary but absorbing, and with this nice visual introduction, we now have an entryway to the book for her. A nice birthday present, I should think.