Pan's Labyrinth had better subtitles, although my significant other questioned the English language title as there is no Pan. "Labyrinth of the Faun" is certainly more accurate. With a narrative tied to the Spanish Civil War, del Toro has created a film that works as a companion piece to his The Devil's Backbone. With a young girl as the main character, Pan's Labyrinth can also be viewed as taking the themes of Victor Erice's Spirit of the Beehive, with a concrete presentation of the fantasy elements. Erice was inspired by James Whale's Frankestein, particularly the scene where the Frankenstein monster encounters the young girl by the lake. For all three filmmakers, the worst monsters come in human form. Del Toro and Erice's films are linked by characters who believe in the power of story telling. In Erice's film of two very young girls, the older one convinces her younger sister that the Frankenstein monster that they glimpsed on the movie screen now lives just outside their small village. Del Toro's film begins with Ofelia more interested in her books than the outside world, reading to herself, and telling the stories to her unborn brother.

Pan's Labyrinth also, perhaps unintentionally, reflects the changes in fantasy film in the past thirty years which brings up some questions: Are films that rely on computer generated special effects the result simply on the availability of the technology or customer demand or both? Conversely, would a film that suggests a fantasy world such as Curse of the Cat People been made had there been different technology available? Would a person who grew up with CGI even ask these kinds of questions? I sometimes wonder about the loss of the sense of magic when special effects are no longer special, and there is so much seen, denying the audience the ability to imagine.

The ability to exactly reproduce a filmmaker's vision is what hobbles Apocalypto. I liked the film's opening zoom lens shot, closing in on some bushes in a jungle, followed by the hunt for a wild boar by a group of Mayans. After that were a couple of scenes that were lifted from Mel Gibson's book of practical and humiliating jokes. Following these light-hearted moments are scenes of people getting spears through their stomachs, an arrow through the mouth, beheadings, burnings, a swarm of angry bees, a jaguar who bites off someone's face, and a woman giving birth while stuck at the bottom of a pit filling with water while her young son looks on helplessly. As a filmmaker, Mel Gibson has a great eye for detail and dramatic camera angles. When it comes to scenes of torture, both with the films he stars in, and those he has directed, the concept of restraint is lacking. Where I will also give Gibson credit is that I could not imagine anyone else as having made Apocalypto. I could easily see Gibson playing every part in the film with every grin, gimace, laugh and scream. It may also be a backhanded compliment to say that based on what I saw in Apocalypto, Mel Gibson would be the perfect director to make a dramatic film about Abu Ghraib.

Until I saw The Queen, I did not realize how enormous the public display of grief was in response to the death of Princess Diana. The most most impressive image in the film was an overhead shot of the thousands of flowers in front of Buckingham Palace. Helen Mirren was good, but is a gap between what's been nominated, and what I have actually seen of films that would have qualified. Two memorable performances not nominated belong to Gretchen Mol as Bettie Page in The Notorious Bettie Page and Diane Lane as Toni Mannix in Hollywoodland, again women dealing with public scandal.

What I thought interesting about The Queen was the examination of power. The film could have been easily retitled "The Seduction of Tony Blair". The evolution of Blair from a would-be revolutionary to virtually an apologist for the Royal family had greater intrigue, and timely interest considering the current state of British politics. I also liked the sympathetic portrayal of Prince Charles, caught between his sense of the changing times and his obligations to tradition, and conflicting family loyalties.

I did my shoppping today, with fresh expresso and breakfast pastries. If all goes well, I will live blog while discovering what it is like to watch the Academy Awards from a far different time zone in another country.