Word: polarity
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...industry may have no megahit in 2004, but there are always shortages in the holiday season. This year's: the Polar Express train set by Lionel. The movie hasn't done well, but that doesn't seem to matter to kids who are dreaming of that classic toy. My assignment: to find that train. How difficult could it be, especially in a sea of Nintendo lovers? But two high-end boutiques, five discount behemoths and many blank looks later, anxiety sets...
...snowy Chicago parking lot for Kmart, I have an epiphany: hobby shops. My confidence renewed, I make my way to two odd stores that smell like diesel and boys. Same story at both: no Polar Express trains until February. "Ha! Good luck," says the owner of Grayland Station. He slips me the card of a friend's shop that had one set as of last night. From my car, I dial my cell phone with frozen fingers. The woman who answers tells me I am lucky: I'll be No. 58 on her waiting list. The Toy Station...
Perhaps Hollywood can't be trusted to make Hollywood-style movies anymore. When ancient-history films lumber like the elephantine Alexander, or when technological gewgaws abduct the magic of fantasy in films like The Polar Express, where can a curious cinephile go? China. That's where director Zhang Yimou blended history book with graphic novel in the worldwide hit Hero, and whence he returns with the even zippier, more cunning kung fu caper, House of Flying Daggers...
...Polar Bear Night...
...cold, still night. An arctic expanse of sea and ice. A frosty moon above. In another book those could be elements of a lonely, scary adventure. Here they're the setting for a strangely soothing bedtime story, illustrated by charmingly simple drawings. A polar-bear cub ventures out of the cozy den where her mother sleeps, drawn by "something in the moonlit stillness [that] quietly beckons. What is it?" The air of expectancy and mystery builds as she passes other sleeping animals--walrus, seals, whales--and arrives atop a mountain of snow, where "she waits, wondering." The moon, her companion...