There's no way to sing that song without some ability. It's too hard.

OK - then she did not have enough. She was unable to get any feeling in that song. The efforts on the high notes showed - a lot.

I just noticed that Roger Ebert ranked Juno as his favorite film of 2007. [Link]

Just got back from Enchanted, which I fairly well enjoyed despite the watch-from-the-hall factor. I think it was the little cynical touches like Giselle's song attracting all the urban vermin to help her clean, and the pigeon eating the roach next to it after the song was done.

I am in awe of the animators for conveying the essence of Timothy Spall into his animated analog so that I was disgusted by him at first sight without any foreknowledge that he was in the movie. It was exactly the same visceral reaction I have to the man in all his live action roles—apparently I object to his very existence on some fundamental level.

Yes, Matt - that sequence was definitely one of the brighter spots in the film. Well, in a made me flinch and squirm because of my own squicks kind of way - but I enjoyed it.

Damn. I think The Conversation is a film that you really need to see more than once to fully appreciate it. I liked it a lot when I saw it for the first time years ago, but on watching it again - there's so many little details I missed the first time (what with the not knowing how it ended).

I LOVED LOVED LOVED Sweeney Todd. In spite of being a Sondheim fan and being very offput by some of the choices, overall the movie was so wonderful that all the niggling problems remain little and niggling for me. I did repeatedly ask why Claire Danes had been cast as Anthony (the actor looked A LOT like Danes) but loved that Tobias was actually a child (usually played by young adults on stage) and the "By the Sea" dream sequence made me cackle hysterically. A brilliant bit of cinema, impossible to do on stage. I laughed a lot during the movie, and many of the sequences were breathtaking.

Unlike The Golden Compass, which i found disappointing for many reasons. Still hope the next one gets made, but i sat in the theatre for nearly a half hour after the credits finished, waiting for the rest of the movie which never came.

I withheld reading the books so that I would enjoy them more, but watching TGC. I felt that there was something missing at the end, despite what the score was telling me. I couldn't tell if it was my Daniel Craig lust that was demanding more Lord Asriel screentime, or an actual need for some sort of resolution to the Lord Asriel storyline, but the movie didn't seem ready to end yet.

Finished all three books, which were freaking amazing, and I want to smack every person that comes to me and declares to me that the books and therefore movie is anti-Christian. Smack'm, and smack'm hard. Please, watch the move and read the book(s) before you buy into the propaganda, please? Please form an opinion of your own.

How can the Church have a problem with a story involving persons creating a false god-hood and invading the freewill of mankind? It's not against God, or Christianity, but against those that would corrupt the idea of "God" and use that to invade to personal freedoms of every man, woman, and child of every world and dimension. How The Church doesn't see this strikes me as disgusting ignorance and paranoia.

It'll be interesting to see how the sequel(s) deal with the "Church's" involvement. Hopefully they don't chicken out.

I want to smack every person that comes to me and declares to me that the books and therefore movie is anti-Christian

Since I don't think the movie's necessarily anti-Christian, I may be avoiding a smackdown. But Pullman wants to undermine the idea of god with his books.

He's quoted as saying "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. Mr. Lewis would think I was doing the devil's work."

And:

Pullman, though, expected more. "I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak. I'm a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people - mainly from America's Bible Belt - who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven't got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."

I can totally see the churches being paranoid, but I can hardly see the moviemakers pushing the message.

I have a pair of girls in my class who aren't allowed to read/listen to the HDM books, because "Someone kills Jesus".

My biggest issue is the idea that good Christians should never, ever hear anything that challenges their beliefs. (These are 4th and 5th graders who are plenty old enough to say, "I think that's wrong.")

Hopefully, they would come to their own understandings from what Pullman has written, and take something away from it, like you have, Julie (though, of course, on a less sophisticated level).