Babbling About Little Children

Well, this weekend I saw Little Children Babel. Or should that be little children babble? Nonetheless, I watched a film that had little to do with little children and more to do with Jackie Earle Haley being nominated for an Oscar (he's electrifying, I tell you!) and another film that had something to do with a girl being deaf, a couple of mothers being shot, and a maid being deported (maybe this one should be called The Deported?).

Little Children stars Patrick Wilson's naked backside and Kate Winslet's boobies. Kate has an American accent in this film so that's how you can tell she's acting. Phyllis Somerville played Jackie Earle Haley's mother, and she was as brilliant as he was. So, for my money, the pervert and his ma made for a better movie than the philandering suburbanites. And Jackie is so good at being a pervert everyone jumps out of the pool when he gets in! It's truly an electrifying scene.

On the other hand, Babel had excellent performances by Brad Pitt (so concerned for his wife), Cate Blanchett (so concerned for herself), Adriana Barraza (so concerned for Brad's and Cate's children), and Rinko Kikuchi (not very concerned about her nudity). They were all so good I wanted to give them all an Oscar! But alas, if Brad wins, it lessens the chances for Matt Damon, so to hell with him. This film is what Crash really wanted to be. But when Paul Haggis got in a bind while trying to tie his story lines for Crash together, he just took a tip from the The Talking Heads and stopped making sense. For Babel, Guillermo Arriaga made every moment count in a really big way. And sometimes, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu made those moments count even more. There was a helicopter ride I swear took a half an hour!

This is a film that so badly wants to explore every moment, we get to see how Cate Blanchett's character both gets high and wets the bed (but at separate moments). Maybe I didn't really need to see that, but Cate sure made it all seem real! The real success story of this film for me, though, is Adriana Barraza. She plays a maid who just wants a little time off, but when she finally gets it she's punished so brutally she may never work again! If Adriana doesn't get an Oscar nomination out of this film there just isn't any justice in Hollywood at all! Hold on, wasn't it just last year that Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture? So I already know there's no justice in Hollywood. But I'd really like to see this woman win. That's all I'm saying, you know?

And then, on the subway ride home from this great escapist fare, I was ever so lucky to have a baby buggy pressed up against my thigh as a mother of some international persuasion babbled to her little child in some unintelligible gibberish, who then proceeded to kick me continuously in the other thigh. Don't you just love little children? Well, good, then you can have them! All of them! The only child I ever liked was the one who grew up to be Matt Damon.

But now Matt has little children of his own. I'm sure he's the kind of father who dotes on his little girls, but I'm so grateful he doesn't babble on and on about them incessantly when the press is around. No, Matt is the consummate professional. He leaves that stuff just where it belongs - on the subway. Here's Matt and Luciana in the back seat of a car explaining to the press how they left their little children with their Mexican maid so they could build a tower of Babel out of Lincoln Logs. Mommy and Daddy needed some quiet time alone. Gee, I hope they're not headed for Morocco. Those people are crazy - they give their little children rifles! On the other hand, Matt's been on location with Brad Pitt several times now and nothing untoward has ever happened to him. So maybe Brad is bad luck for Cate Blanchett but not so bad for Matt? Maybe Matt and Brad are the ones who really ought to be together? Now there's a movie I'd take Jackie Earle Haley to see! Everybody out of the pool! Here comes Sam and Jackie and Brad and Matt...