The Writer's Poke

Dumbo has a real name, it's Jumbo, Jr. That's the name Mrs. Jumbo (she doesn't have her own name) gives him, but it's only used once in the movie. Thereon out, he's Dumbo. We only see moms, no dads. When the storks come to deliver babies -- and all are delivered at the same exact time (weird) -- they drop off the bundles to the moms, and the moms are alone. Where are all the dads? It made me wonder if Circuses only wanted female animals, and if so, what do they do with all the male offspring when they start to get a little too old and a little too male? Dumbo's "villains" in this movie are funny, because they aren't the other animals who make fun of him. They are the older female elephants -- the sewing circle. They are the ones that cannot stand Dumbo's ears, as if his ears are somehow a slight on all elephants. What happens to this group of elephants? At the end of the movie, they are totally gone, as if the circus has discarded them. The DVD...

Sometimes you watch a movie and you're pleasantly surprised, and sometimes not. Based on the reviews for this one, I realized I was probably going to be disappointed watching this one. Yes, it has Ethan Hawke, Angelina Jolie, and Kiefer Sutherland, but that doesn't mean that it is guaranteed to be a good movie. But you watch the opening 5 minutes, and you think, "Well, I guess anything can happen in this one," So you're ready for anything to happen. What ends up happening is FBI agent Illeana (Jolie) falls for Costa (Hawke). He's not necessarily a suspect, and the case seems closed when she does let herself drop her guard, but even so. Her lack of judgement is disappointing, and she ends up losing her job because of it. I found it hard to believe that a woman like Jolie would fall for a guy like Hawke, but maybe that's just me. And yet, was Illeana playing to long game? Was this all part of her plan? Did she seduce him in order to capture him? No. I think ...

Lisa Loeb's "Stay" was a very cool song to me when this movie originally came out, and I graduated college in 1994. Even so, I never saw this movie.  I'm sure the fact that this is a "romance" film, and that the romance genre has never been at the top of my favorites, is one main reason... It would take 32 years and an interest in Ethan Hawke films for me to finally see this one.  The movie does play the romance angle hard. In a normal romance, the two characters meant for each other can't just easily find their way to one another, but in this movie, the separation is teased a few times, and you start to wonder, Will they ever get together, or will "reality bite"? It's cute that the "Reality Bites" title is captured in the film, as part of the "In Your Face" program made out of Lelaina's (Wyonda Ryder) home movie camera documentary. In the end, almost everyone in the film actually "gets" something. Maybe it...