32: Like Water for Chocolate

Fall, 1993

with my mom and Martha Anne

and then again in Sevilla, Spain with Paco who was very impressed I understood it!

It is always so impressive when America loves a foreign film, isn't it?  That means it was so good people took the time to read during a movie.  Like Water for Chocolate was the first subtitled film I actually saw in a movie theater.  Before that I had to find them in the back corners of the Blockbusters.

This movie introduced me to a lot of things I care about: Latina writers, Magical Realism, sisterhoods, mother/daughter relationships, ridiculous male logic, The Mexican Revolution, strong emotions, Gringos that can speak Spanish, and cooking--well, maybe not the cooking.

I wanted more. 

I read books by Isabel Allende. I went to a specialty book store in Durham North Carolina just to find a copy of The House of the Spirits in Spanish.  The owner saw me two years later and said he never forgot that hair.  I hope he isn't the only one.

I memorized poems by Alfonsina Storni.  Tu me quieres blanca...whatever buddy-go ahead and find your pure princess.

I loved it-I loved all of it.

I have a lot of Latinas in my life.  I love them, I learn from them, and I work on my accent with them. 

There is no one way to be Latina.

Lucy from Puerto Rico is passionate and loyal to her friends and family.  Don't break her trust and she will go the distance when you need her.

Juana colombiana is reserved and professional and honest. She will be blunt and will help you in the long run-because who wants to be showered with compliments 24/7-when constructive criticism will help you grow?

Iluminada la cubana with a family larger than my town of Guilford.  Ready for a latte or a pedicure or a complete hyper-active melt down.  Tranquila Page, I'm taking your mother for an hour or two so she doesn't lose it on the grand babies, vale?

Cynthia from Mexico waits on me at the cleaners and became my friend as I was in there twice a week. She has coffee with me when we are at the coffee shop at the same time. She started running when she realized my clothes went down four sizes-so much for confidentiality.  She rolls her eyes- ay guapa, all men are the same.  Maybe, but that didn't stop her from high-fiving me when I opened my own account at the cleaners!

 And Vickie-half from Nicaragua/half from Mississippi.-So much fun to hang with-eating in my mom's condo waiting for the telenovelas to start!

And that to me is like water for chocolate-water for chocolate gets very, very hot.  So whatever it is-love, loyalty, hatred, friendship, it is strong.

My Latinas love and forgive this gringa her American ways..

I am very grateful to them...

31: Catch Me if You Can

December 25, 2002

Crossroads, Cary, North Carolina

The early years of the new millennium were a really good time in my life.  I was teaching middle school, which was the age I preferred. I had  a wonderful boss, wonderful colleagues, and wonderful students. I was back at Meredith for a second degree-this time finishing up the French degree I didn't get the first go round, much to the chagrin of my favorite professor.  I had started running and was getting good at it.  I had even done a 5K!

Then I felt IT.  IT is that feeling women start to get.  They want a baby.  In the south, this is between 28-35.  In the north, 33-41.  Don't yell at me for being stereotypical, I have lived in both places and have observed a lot.  I was not immune to the baby lust.  I was ready to bring another person in to my family.  That might be what made me a little different, because something always makes me different-I knew I was bringing someone into the universe.  I never saw her or her brothers as "Babies."  They were people joining our family.  I still see them like that-and it is so true.

But, that Christmas, I had a feeling, this would be my last Christmas as a free adult for a very, very, long time. I needed to do something I wouldn't be able to do as a mom. I needed to see a movie on Christmas day!  What mother gets to drop what she is doing and go see a movie without planning?  

Exactly!

This movie appealed to me.

 Three main reasons:

1.  I adore Leonardo Dicaprio-from What's Eating Gilbert Grape to Romeo and Juliet and Gangs of New York and everything in between.
2. Tom Hanks took a step back.  A true professional will do that.  He was a two time academy award winner in a minor role. That reflects on him as a person. I like the role, I want the role, so what if it isn't the main role? That's all there is to it. 
3. The actual man is a good person. He had a rough time, he made horrible mistakes, he went to prison, he is doing the right thing now.  People can grow and change.  Don't forget that!

We left my grandparents house in Winston-Salem, went to the movies, and were pregnant a month later.

A new chapter in my life was about to begin.


That was Christmas of 2002. I didn't go see another movie on Christmas day until 2011-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  That just proves we do what we have to do and we do what we want to do, and life is give and receive.  Everything in its time!

Even Tom Hanks knows when it's time to hang back...

30: The Blair Witch Project

Summer of 1999

Rialto Theater

Raleigh, North Carolina

with: My BFF Meredith

This movie had so much buzz and gossip about it I couldn't not go see it.  I would freak, and then get curious. I couldn't go to the website.  This was when I still had dial up so the anticipation was even worse than it would be otherwise.  The page would start to download, and then funky creepy music would start, and then I had to click on the little X at the top of the screen to get away from the film.   What kind of a chicken was I?

To see it or not to see it....three kids disappeared in the woods and a year later their film was found???  A script that was completely improvised?  They filmed it in eight days?  My brother's best friend told me it was horrible.  The camera work was stupid-who films something while they are scared and screaming?  Again, this was pre-Youtube.  Again, Page has no patience and has to see things for herself.  No matter how many kids in second grade said, "Don't watch Poltergeist, the man peels his face off and the tree sucks the kid until he bleeds"-I had to go. Ditto with a witch in haunted woods and dizzy camera angles.

Who to go with?  That is always the question. Now I would have just gone alone, well, not to horror movie.  Never watch a horror movie alone. That's asking for trouble.  Not even in the middle of the day edited for television. There was that one time in 8th grade when I went with a boy to see Child's Play, but I think he just wanted an excuse to get his hands around me every time the doll swung a knife.

I had to save this one for my best friend in the world-Meredith. 

She and I would watch anything other people wouldn't.  This could be a boring British film, such as A Month by the Lake.  This could also be a wonderful German work, such as Run Lola Run.  Our best selection ever was a Canadian film called Kissed.   Please forgive me if I ruin it for you, but it's about a necrophiliac whose boyfriend loves her so much he makes the ultimate sacrifice.  No kidding.

She agreed to this-I didn't think she would say no.  The lights went down and I freaked.

"OK, I've changed my mind, we don't have to watch this."  She told me to calm down and remember it was all just a movie.  

Nothing happened. 

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened again.

The camera work was horrible and the twenty somethings kept whining....

Then they got to the basement and the camera went out.

The lights went on.

Meredith, where was the witch?

Page, you weren't supposed to see the actual witch, it was all implied.

Oh, like, finding money under your pillow? You know it was the tooth fairy?

Sure, just like the tooth fairy...

No more scary movies for me after that.  

Of course to be scared, you have to realize what you are watching in the first place.

Witches and ticks with Lyme disease.  I'll pass on the woods...

29: Blazing Saddles

1974
I think Cary, North Carolina
with my mom and dad-technically, I was in utero...

This used to come on once a year-I'm guessing on CBS because it was a Friday night and it meant no Dallas or Falcon Crest that week. Bummer, one week without Lance...

Every year without fail, my mom would remind me of the campfire scene. Apparently, when my mom and dad went to see it in the movie theater the summer of 1974, I kicked her bladder until she had to leave the theater.   She missed the most famous scene in comedy history. Motherhood is all about sacrifice isn't it?   She didn't get to see cowboys passing gas around a campfire on the big screen because of me.  Sorry mom-you should have known that was only the beginning.  But thirty years later, I made it through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...so there!

Blazing Saddles is just the standard slapstick comedy. I'm sure it is on every Cinema 101 syllabus for a comedy piece.  I only remember Willy Wonka was in the cast and I didn't like the ending when they were running through the other sets.  I don't do slapstick.  I like wit. If you want me to laugh, you better make the joke fairly intelligent.  Having just said that, before cable exploded, you better believe I watched it once a year with my brother and sister.  It was sure to come on a month or two after the Wizard of Oz.

Years went by...we watched it in Texas, we watched it in Illinois, and then we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. That was second grade.   For the record, it was extremely edited for television.

That was my last move until college. I remember my first day of school.  My dad took me-my mom was in graduate school.

My Dad handed an index card to the very large teacher in the doorway of my new classroom. She looked at it and said, "Ray lives in your neighborhood, sit next to him. He'll help you on the bus too."

Without writing another book altogether, he helped me on the bus all right.

Ray and I had a love/hate relationship from that very first day in 1983.  Very few people could just walk into my house, go up to my room, and spray perfume all over the place while putting on lip gloss and saying, "No, this isn't me."

On my 13th birthday, he wanted to give me diamond earrings. His mother told him to buy dusting powder instead.  He told her I was not the type to clean house.  I am saving those studs for Frances!

He had a younger brother that used to tease me for lack of driving skills. I was so horrible my parents paid for extra lessons.  Michael would see me pull up with the private teacher and yell, "Pagie can't drive! Pagie can't drive!"  I still can't..who am I kidding?

On and on this went. Until we were thirty and life does what it does and we lost Michael, Ray's younger brother.

I paced back and forth in my house in Fuquay-Varina, NC. What to do?  What to say?  I had a two year old and was pregnant with my first son.  How do I reach out to someone who was such a part of my rich history?

I did what only Page would do....

I wrote him a ten page letter, and sent him a copy of Blazing Saddles on DVD.

He still has the letter, and it is for him and his parents only, but I will say I wrote this:

Laughter heals all...Raymond Alan, on really bad days, promise me you will wrap up in a blanket and watch this DVD.

My mother, eight months pregnant with me when she saw the original film, hit the roof:

YOU DID WHAT???? YOU SENT HIM WHAT????

She obviously didn't know about all the times he threw rocks at my window for late night swims at Ryan's house.

I did the right thing for an old friend. And you will do the right thing, when life presents the sadder side to you.  You will recall all those little moments from your childhood and bring them to the surface. You will evolve and move on, but never forget the people you grew up with and be there for them in times of need.

And for the record, I still don't clean house or drive....

28: The Hunger Games

 Branford, CT

March 24th and 25th

with: Michele and Bonnie

Well, we love a good fandom, don't we? If it isn't Star Wars it's Star Trek. If it isn't Lord of the Rings it's Harry Potter.  Then we had to love vampires.  Now it's The Hunger Games.

The synopsis:

North America is now a country called Panem divided into 12 districts and a capitol. The distribution of wealth is so disgusting my most liberal friends would put the book down before they got off the first page.  From the twelve districts, once a year one boy and one girl (12-18) are picked to participate in a game show.  They are trained, interviewed, and styled.  They are coached by mentors.  They can get sponsors to send them gifts in the arena and capitol citizens sit around bars placing bets on their favorites.  The main character is a 16 year old girl named Katniss who volunteers to replace her sister as the tribute from District 12.

How do you win? Oh-you kill all the other kids you are playing against.

Reflections on going to see the movie:

1) I couldn't wait for my friends, I had to go Saturday night alone. I was once told I needed to work on my patience.  I guess that is a character defect I have always clung to.  Saturday the movie had my undivided attention and I sat dead center in the upper aisle.  Once I had seen it, I could watch it again Sunday and enjoy it.

2) Please, if you are not a die hard fan or have not read the books, don't go opening weekend.  During one very important scene, a lot of people freaked out unnecessarily. They weren't sad, they were acting like they couldn't believe what they were seeing.  Like a magical rainbow was going to pop out of nowhere and make everything better. NO!!!! My friends and I were passing out the popcorn napkins and crying, that was understandable.  These people were screaming that the scene shouldn't have happened.  You can't re-write a book because you don't want a twelve year old to die. Wait a month and go see it if you want to play the Pollyanna glad game.

3)No matter how many adults are trying to escape their dirty dishes and other responsibilities, it's a young adult novel and young adults are going to go to the movies. Yes, we have to shush them while they giggle and run in groups to use the bathroom. But alas, when you go to the movies there will be kids there. You can avoid that by going at nine, but I'm usually on my way to bed by then.

Reflections on the actual movie:

1) Wonderful sets and character development.  I felt I was in Panem and could see the inequality of the place.  As for the violence, yes, kids are killing each other.  There is no magical rainbow making it all better, but thanks to quick camera work and good angles, it's at the minimum on screen.

2) Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickman, the host and commentator of the Games, was brilliant. I have never seen him look so happy to play a role.

How convenient to need a commentator for a game show:


Hello, I'm Stanley Tucci, I'm here to summarize for those of you who came to the movies without reading the book first.  First, every time the cannon blasts, another tribute is dead.  The Tracker Jackers are lethal wasps.   The kid from district 3 re-wired the mines, making him valuable to the careers tributes and enabling Katniss to blow them up.  Let us know if you have any other questions.

3) It was important for the "Careers" to lose their supplies. It leveled the playing field.  The career children are trained to go to this game, but they come from wealthier districts and don't know what to do to really survive.  People who have never had anything bad happen to them don't know how to handle it when something goes wrong.  Katniss has already had to hold it together, making the game easier for her.

4) The only mentor we see or hear from is obviously the one for Katniss and Peeta-Haymitch Abernathy. The mentors are previous winners from other games. When you win, you are pampered for the rest of your life and your district is honored with extra food until the next games.  How incredibly horrible to survive that.  You are alive because twenty three other people are not. You have to witness the re-enactments and the vacation spots and here people talk of exciting moments in a game like they were tokens on a board instead of real people. I don't think I'd want to win. 

5) I love a good female heroine that finds a way to stick it to Donald Sutherland. :0)


Everyone plays a Hunger Game every now and then.

I just want Stanley Tucci there explaining to everyone else what is going on...

27: The Devil's Advocate

Mission Valley

Raleigh, North Carolina

October,1997

I love Al Pacino.  I love Keanu Reaves. I love Charlize Theron. I even love Heather Matarazzo-a popular indie actress.  But in no way, shape or form did I enjoy this movie about the Devil being an attorney in New York City.

I didn't know the expression It is what it is when I was young and sweet and southern.  The movie was well written and well acted-but I didn't like it. It was evil. Al Pacino was evil and Keanu kept falling for his temptations.  In the mean time, his wife is seeing everything for what it really is and no one is listening to her. Ugh.

What a perfect little memory for Lent and temptations by the Devil.  I wanted to leave the theater. I had never left a theater ever, but I wanted to leave this one. I didn't because on general principle, if I go to a movie I want to watch the entire movie to give it the benefit of the doubt. Like I said, it was good for what it was, but it wasn't for me. I didn't like it from beginning, middle, or end.

As we were leaving, a woman and I were standing outside the men's room.  We stared at each other for about a minute-that's a long time in movie theater lobby time.  Finally, she cocked her head and said, "I hated that."

I looked right back at her and said, "I hated that too."  Female bonding outside the men's room rocks.

It happens, you are going to hate a movie-but watch it from beginning to end so you can honestly say it.

The only thing that made it awesome was Monday morning at school I was talking to a conservative teacher who had gone to see the Devil's Own and I got confused. I started asking her about different scenes from the Devil movie and her face just got paler and paler.....oops.  Only Page gets into conversations like that.

I had to go rent Scent of a Woman and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure to scrub the Devil out of my head.  And to this day, I have never left a movie theater early. Fallen asleep yes, left no.

 that would be a sin...

26: The Devil Wears Prada

With: DonnaLis

Summer, 2006

Cary, North Carolina

In 2003, by the time I added up all the weeks I had accrued, I had a four month maternity leave with little miss Frances.  My girlfriend and running partner Katie brought me a book called The Devil Wears Prada to read while I was out on leave.  How was I going to have time to read a book?  Is she kidding me?

I wasn't even sure what Prada was-then I found out it was a fashion label, and the book was about a girl working for a fashion magazine.  That is just what any 29 year old woman that just had a c-section and can't fit into her jeans or run for a month needs to read.

Trust me, said this sweet 23 year old science teacher.

She was right-as I got stronger and fed and held my baby, I was totally able to read bits and pieces here and there about working in the fashion industry for a full blown crazy woman.  I have had two psycho bosses in my life-and the one I have currently is NOT this woman!  Now, if I had not had children, I would have read it in a weekend.  But it was a great read for four months here and there-especially when learning to nurse.

I can believe some of the scenes-like someone always having to be in the office to answer the phone and having her coffee waiting for her when she got there, even if that meant dumping it out and ordering more.  I can imagine only speaking when being spoken to and no one remembering my name or details about my life. There are worse bosses-and this was definitely written before the economy tanked-I don't think anyone would quit a job now.

Three years and another baby later-they made it into a movie.  With guess who?  Meryl Streep as Miranda, the fashion editor boss and Anne Hathaway as Andy, the assistant with an opportunity other girls would kill for.

My dear Katie was in Iceland for the summer-so I had to go with another teacher friend. Who to go with? What teacher friend did I have with style?  Who did I know with fashion sense?  I needed a friend who never ever left the house in sweat pants. I wanted my friend that could walk the streets of Italy and find the best leather jackets for styles and prices. I knew who to call, and I prayed she was not on a bus in Colombia looking for a Botero exhibit.

"Alo?"

Oh Gracias a Santa Maria of the fashion police....she has not left on any travels yet.

"Donnina?  Que tal guapa soy Page-te interesa una pelicula?"

At first I was afraid she would remember the time I suggested we take her very refined mother to see a play about monologues and female body parts, but she must have forgotten that-because she said yes!

I grew up with Donnina in Greensboro.  Her father and my mother were professors together.  She lived in Spain and then in Italy, and came home and ended up teaching with me in Cary, North Carolina.

One thing she taught me was to always wear and use your pretty things.  Little things can make you feel better.  Even just taking the time to put on lipstick can make you smile and then you remember something funny, and then you are laughing again.  So a movie about fashion was right up our alley.

As for the movie, Meryl toned Miranda down considerably. To me, sometimes what works in a book is not going to work on a screen.  Reading a total bitch is not as harsh as seeing a total bitch on camera, so in my opinion, the changes were necessary.

As for the fashion, I do feel better when I make an effort to look nice.  My current wonderful, anti-Miranda boss warned me when I took the job: "even though you are home, it is still work, and there will be blocks of time you don't leave the house. You have to make yourself get out of your pajamas."  She said that before we had webcams.   Now I have to get dressed up to teach because I don't want to be recorded in a sweatshirt. ach.

As for Donnina, I will always be grateful she told me to "Feel good about myself, and wear my pretty things." Sometimes a little lip gloss goes a very long way.

As for maternity leave with your first baby-pick a fun, fluffy read for learning to latch on!