I've been kicking around the idea of adding this feature as a section of the site, but it wouldn't be updated often enough to keep in interesting. So I've decided to periodically do this in the castings section.

The premise is this; take the movies of Pagandom, or associated with Pagandom, and review them, both as a Wiccan and as a movie fan. (Almost three years at a video store turned me into something of a movie critic.) Two separate reviews.

Rather than elaborate, I'll demonstrate. We'll start with Hocus Pocus.

Hocus Pocus (1993)
Director: Kenny Ortega Written by: Neil Cuthbert	Starring: Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thora Birch
Cinematic Rating: Somewhere between festering and putrid.	Wiccan Rating: Huh?

Pagan Review: This was the most offensi-- oh wait, I've got it backwards. This movie didn't offend me as a Pagan. Yes, they were calling themselves witches, and yes, they worshipped Satan and ate children. Yes, this is a bad stereotype that I really wish never existed.

But the fact remains that this stereotype has been around for a very long time and the legends are a part of our culture. As a result, it's pretty unreasonable for us to expect storytellers to pretend it doesn't exist. This was not a statement about us, it was an attempt at a fun movie.

Cinematic Review: Notice I said "attempt." I cannot tastefully express how much I detest this movie. I liked SJP doing the "amok, amok, amok" bit, but that's what previews are for. The four actresses listed above are all incredibly gifted, and they are wasted. The storyline is overly cheesy and incredibly thin. The musical scene was boorish, even with Bette singing, which is usually the sort of thing that makes me want to pull the car over when it comes on the radio. The boy turned into a cat wasn't bad special effects, but it's the sort of dumb thing Disney has been doing since they found it worked in Little Mermaid. The best review I've ever heard was David Spade on Saturday Night Live: "This is a very scary movie. My three-year-old nephew watched it and had nightmares. He woke up screaming 'Mommy! Mommy! How'd they get financing?'"

Practical Magic (1998)
Director: Griffin Dunne Written by: Robin Swicord Based on the novel by Alice Hoffman	Starring: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Aidan Quinn, Stockard Channing, Dianne Wiest
Cinematic Rating: Charming, fun.	Wiccan Rating: Not exactly accurate, but great.

Cinematic Review: This was a fun movie. Very sappy, but pure entertainment. There were flaws in the script; Aidan Quinn's character, the love interest, comes in over halfway through the film. But with Sandra Bullock doing her lovable thing and Aidan Quinn being the cinematic powerhouse that he is, you don't notice. The actresses playing the Owens Family have as much family resemblance as if you were to say, cast Denzel Washington as the brother of Keanu Reeves, but it doesn't matter; they act as family (The children, on the other hand, must have been genetically engineered for their roles, and they deliver much better performances than most actors with twice their age and experience). Stockard Channing can put more performance into a single line than most of hollywood can wring out of a screenplay, and Dianne Wiest takes her campy, flighty character to the exact extreme needed.

This script could have easily been taken too far by any one piece... the characters, the special effects, the soundtrack... but Griffin Dunne keeps it all balanced and delivers a delightful movie. I bought a copy in Widescreen.

Wiccan Review: There are a few things in the movie I don't agree with as a Wiccan. The whole thing with the bird and the love spell gives me kind of an icky feeling. The whole Jimmy thing, of course, is morally wrong and stupid, but that's even pointed out in the movie. But the fact of the matter is that this is Hollywood and distortions happen.

But overall the movie seems to be going out of its way to be respectful of, if not blatantly appealing to, the New Age movement. The characters of Sally and Jillian are ones we can identify. Jillian (Nicole Kidman) is destructive and selfish but not a bad person per se, so we can identify that she's getting what's coming to her but still hope she gets through it. Sally (Sandra Bullock) merely wants to live the normal life she can't have and tries to deny who she is with only moderate success. (She won't practice magic, but she runs an herbalist shop. And the magic comes out anyway when she's not thinking about it.) When she "comes out" at the end, it is both comic and moving.

I saw this movie before reading the book. What's absolutely intriguing is this; all of the things I find emotionally moving about the movie are not part of the book. The book is more generally "Pagan" than specifically "Wiccan." Point of fact, the movie has about as much relation to the book as Blade Runner had to do with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It's almost a let down, making it to my list of movies that are actually more enjoyable than the book. (The others are Die Hard and The Shawshank Redemption.)

© 1999 by Cather "Catalyst" Steincamp