Spiderwick in Labyrinth, Frankenstein Puppets

Yesterday I took my nephew and his friend to see the movie "The Spiderwick Chronicles." Here's a brief synopsis: Freddie Highmore (Charlie from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") plays twins. One of the twins finds a field guide to the magical creatures that live in their back yard, written by their great grandpa. One of the twins reads it, and in doing so unleashes a whole bunch of nasty goblins, and a malevolent ogre, that they must defeat.

I will say up front that I loved it. My nephew said he liked "The Golden Compass" more, but why compare the two? "Spiderwick" reminded me of those classic Jim Henson movies "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal." There are creatures both good and evil, all on various levels of grotesqueness (I'm glad that my spell checker informed me that grotesqueness is a real word). Of course in "Spiderwick" the creatures are CGI, not puppets like Jim Henson used to make. But I thought their design and their personalities were similar enough that a character named Hogsqueal from "Spiderwick" could wander into Labyrinth and not look or act out of place. Or that David Bowie could show up during a scene with the Freddie Highmore twins in "Spiderwick" and say: "You remind me of the babe."

CGI can be cool, and the creatures in "Spiderwick Chronicles" were cool. But I do love puppets. Sometimes I think that puppetry is a dieing art, the puppeteers forced to work at Wal-Mart because they can't get a job using their puppeteering skills. I hope I'm wrong.

A couple of years ago I tried to make a puppet. It was going to be a Viking, but I gave up before I could bring it to life. It was like when Frankenstein (and here I am referring to Mary Shelley's book, not any of the movie versions) made his creature. He wanted his creation to look beautiful. He made it tall, gave it black hair and red lips. Only he did not know what he was doing. When he brought the creature to life his efforts to make it look beautiful ended up making it look hideous beyond imagining. Have you ever tried to draw a picture of a beautiful person and have it turn out looking awful? (If you haven't, just remember the scene from "Napoleon Dynamite" when Napoleon gives summer the picture he drew of her -- "I spent four hours shading your lip" -- and I think you will get a good image of what I'm trying to say here.) Well, that is what happened to Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein did not realize his lack of artistic talent until it was too late, and the monster was off on a murderous rampage because he was too ugly for anyone to love him.

I'm pretty sure the same thing would have happened with my puppet. Lucky thing I realized that I didn't know what I was doing before I could complete my hideous creation. Maybe someday I will try again.