Movie opposites: Winnie the Pooh and The Others

Last week I watched two movies that were from opposite ends of the general movie-interest spectrum.

1. Winnie the Pooh, 2011, dir. Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall

Super cute. I mean, what else do you expect from Winnie the Pooh? The plot this time around was that Eeyore lost his tail and everyone was trying to find a new one for him, along with a subplot about a monster called the Backson and our friends' efforts to capture him. You might be slightly thrown off by the fact that all the voices aren't exactly the same as they were when you were a kid, but I thought all the performances were winning. It's also full of my favorite Pooh element, which is the interaction with the text of the book (e.g. letters sliding across the screen as the characters bump into them.) There isn't anything particularly new about this movie or compelling to adults, even, other than that it's a pure, sweet kids' movie, which I suspect was great for parents, and huge doses of nostalgia all around.  Watch it when you want a smile.

2. The Others, 2001, dir. Alejandro Amenabar
I actually remember seeing this in the theater in high school with my friends.  I remember thinking it was both good creepy fun and also just plain strange--my friends and I often quoted the out-of-nowhere ridiculous line from the husband, "Sometimes I bleed."  My teenage assessment still rings true, pretty much.

In this movie, Nicole Kidman plays a mother who lives in a giant spooky house with her two kids who are "photosensitive," meaning that the movie is very dark all the time, which is a great concept.  Her husband is off at war, and she's looking for some domestic help.  A trio of helpers (including the old woman from Lost!) show up on the door and say they used to work at this house in the past.  Thus the scary scene is set, and we start to see the evidence of ghoslty presences around the house and how the two kids are dealing with it all.

Kidman gives a great performance, endowing her character with good doses of hardass, heartbroken, and terrified all at once, and the director does a nice job with the setting and mood.  There are some good startle-scares and other thriller tropes (creepy kids, drop cloths on old furniture, lots of fog), but it's not gory or cheap-feeling like many scary movies.  It does have some bizarre moments (like the aforementioned interaction with the husband) and unravels a little slowly, but overall, it works.  Watch it in the dark and try not to jump.