Matilda the Musical – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2022 film Matilda the Musical.

Story

The story is very similar to the older movie, but with some interesting changes. I’ll admit I don’t know the book. It’s heartbreaking and tries really hard to lessen the pain with exaggerated characters. The story elements don’t always land well, parts were slow and others overdone.

I do like the message that no matter how small you are, you can still write your own story… although it is undercut by her needing superpowers.

Score: 0.5

Characters

I’m pretty done with the ugly and/or fat character is the villain, while the petite pretty person is the good guy. I know it’s the book, but it’s an overdone and lazy stereotype.

Matilda herself is fantastic. She has a strong sense of right and wrong along with enough strength of character to push back.

The librarian was amazing and the kids were okay.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

Lots of repeated phrases and messages. It had some excellent dialogue from Matilda, especially when she told her stories. Beyond that, it oscillated between saccharin and melodrama.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The camera work and framing were great. The costumes and sets were perfect. The dancing was excellent.

The music and score were fun, but heavily repetitive. This isn’t a soundtrack that I’d want to own.

My biggest problem was that the musical aspects were underused and, other than a few songs, underwhelming.

Score: 0.5

Fun

I wouldn’t call this a feel good movie. It had all the “Hell Yeah!” it needed, but the path there was really sad and painful.

The 6 year old loved it, the 3 year old was entranced but nonplussed. The adults were split between not liking it and finding it pretty good.

I found myself looking forward to the music and disappointed at the same time.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A musical version of Matilda with all the baggage of the original story with a few fun songs. Although I love the message that you can write your own story, the movie doesn’t really back it up very well.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Week 34 – Matilda Results

Virtual school went fairly well, despite what I’m sure was a broken sleep because Pegasus woke up so often screaming (I’m so done with this lack of sleep). She answered what day of the week and month of the year it was, and she sang along with all the songs that were played.

They learned the letter ‘Y’. The class devolved into a discussion about yetis when that was the first word, and they talked about bears (made me think of last week’s Brave), and legends.

Dragon unexpectedly showed off her lit and orieller that she had made in Week 29. She had drawn a picture of them, then she asked the teacher if they wanted to see them, and then she grabbed the actual object. Oh well.

The next word was ‘yak,’ and the teacher told them that yaks were in Alberta, and Dragon raised her hand to say that yaks are in Mongolia, buffalo are in Alberta. I guess she does listen to me sometimes.

After recess they learned the difference between mammals and reptiles. One of the students has a turtle and a bearded lizard and showed them. That was cool. Dragon didn’t understand much of what was going on and got very frustrated and upset.

After lunch, they watched a video about mammals. Dragon was asked if she understood the video, which she didn’t because it was in French and she gets flustered. So I had to explain to the teacher that she understands the concept of mammal, but she doesn’t understand the French.

Then four kids presented things, which took some time.

Then they measured objects with blocks and counted how many blocks high different objects were. Dragon grasped it well.

Homeschool went well. Dragon really enjoyed the movie.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. Lesson: started with finger exercises, very obvious she’s been practicing. She’ll continue with them. Then they did lesson 4 with no problems. Lesson 5, working on the timing. Lesson 6, she insisted she didn’t know what the notes were, but then she read them out no problem. Then she played it, and she needs to work on her timing. She had trouble focussing, so they didn’t try a new lesson. They played chopsticks and Dragon tried to teach her grandfather how to play it. That didn’t go so well.

We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google mini, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

We did not do any crochet this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week, although she says she doesn’t enjoy it.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 100.

Math went well. She’s still resisting thinking of the highest number and counting the lowest when adding. It’s very frustrating.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Raiponce in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Write a book and put it together – she brainstormed several ideas before getting really excited about writing about the characters in Éric’s and my book. She was concerned that the characters were ours, and I said that I give her permission to use them in a unique story. So she rolled with it. She drew inspiration images. (Our first fanfiction and the book hasn’t even been accepted by the publisher yet! I’m so proud. This is an AU, meaning Alternate Universe. This is not how Jason and Kennedy meet in our book.)

One of her pages required having a drawing of a motorcycle. I looked up how to draw a motorcycle for kids, and we were both pretty impressed with the result.

Then, because the motorcycle drawing worked so well, she insisted on doing from reference for the last picture as well. I had to help her occassionally with guide lines, but she did it all herself. Here’s the link that we used: how to draw a chibi kiss for kids.

Completed book

Learn about telekinesis – Dragon was very interested in this. She kept asking if it was real.

Week 34 – Matilda

You might think this an odd choice for a “mother” movie, but I wanted to show an adoptive mother.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieWrite a bookput book togetherlearn about telekinesisFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type – in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials

Storytime

Activity

Write a book
Put book together
Learn about telekinesis – link to reference

Next week – Mulan