A pretty surreal story of a camp for juvenile delinquents, a stage coach robber, and an old family curse. Not to mention the sneakers...and the poisonous lizards...

Being a Children's Librarian, I was pretty excited when this movie came out, especially when word of mouth said it was good. And I kept trying to see it, but for one reason or another (and Mr. Otter has a scathingly funny story about the time we tried to take my mother to see it) just never made it.

Last week I was home sick with the flu, and as is his wont, Mr. Otter found nothing admirable in the thirty or forty dvds we had waiting for us to find time to watch them, and came home with a copy of Holes. Sounded good to me, I was sick, ready to watch almost anything amusing.

And this was. Part way into it, I expressed my dissatisfaction that the movie did not have the same whimsical feeling as the book...but Mr. Otter, who had actual functioning brain cells that day, said, no, they couldn't. If they tried to make it whimsical, they'd be doing the kids who are caught in this horrible situation a disservice, they'd be making fun of them.

And he was right. And it was indeed the right thing to do. Now, that's not to say that the plot isn't odd, and that there isn't a whole lot of humor and strange things going on, because there are...but whimsical, it ain't.

The kids in this movie are great, although I was a bit disconcerted to find out that two years later, the kid who played Stanley went on to play the cabdriver Chas in Constantine...probably not the most intelligent career move of his life, but then again, at least he managed to graduate to adult roles...and it's not like his resume is loaded with Oscar winners anyway.

But I digress. He was very good in this, and in fact EVERYONE was very good in this...and 'everyone' includes some pretty impressive names, after all, like Tim Blake Nelson and Sigourney Weaver. And Jon Voight. And Eartha Kitt, amazingly enough. And even Henry Winkler...

Anyway. A wonderful, charming, well-written (by the author of the book, thank goodness), fun to watch and very satisfying movie. Catch it now, you'll be glad you did.