Shiny Things

07:57 am - Corner Gas

Some time ago, reubeneaterand  krikketgirlloaned us the first season of Corner Gas, a Canadian sitcom about a small town in the middle of Saskatchewan. It was a nice break from the stress of filing taxes as a new business owner, as well as some frustration with my HCI class. It's a funny show. I'm not big on sitcoms, generally, but this one is pretty erudite (it has grammar humor) and clever. They have a way with flashbacks, especially. My only quibble is the jokes of the "he's so stupid" variety: there are rather a lot of those, with two characters in particular. I know people do stupid things, and that's often funny, but when it gets to the point where you're portraying _people_ as stupid instead of _actions_ as stupid, it just seems mean-spirited to me. Other than that, we're enjoying the show and I look forward to watching the rest of the episodes.

08:01 am - Spiderwick Chronicles

We took the kids to see The Spiderwick Chronicles last night. I didn't have high expections, but the books were kind of fun (okay writing, fun Tony DiTerlizzi illustrations) and I thought the movie would be fun too. It was quite a bit better than I expected. The visual effects were very nice, and I got some good laughs out of it.

I remember at one point wondering how they found twins who looked so much like Jared and Simon in the books. They didn't! That was the bit of special effects I was most impressed with, because I didn't even notice they had two characters played by one actor.

01:55 pm - Blue Moo: 17 Jukebox Hits from Way Back Never

I've been listening to this children's book + CD combo by Sandra Boynton at my good pal Scotto's house this morning. It's awesome, especially "One Shoe Blues", "When a Hippo can Dance", and "Gorilla Song". I laughed until I cried.

08:20 am - Tie Dye Grill

Reuben reviews are in for the Tie Dye Grill. No word yet on when the event will be televised.

05:17 am - The Swords of Night and Day

I just finished listening to The Swords of Night and Day by David Gemmell. It was wonderful. I don't expect to be moved by swords-and-sorcery fantasy, but Gemmell portrayed his characters so plausibly: the heroes have superhuman abilities but human souls, and most (but not all) of the villains could have been heroes themselves if they had chosen their priorities differently. When it's so easy to be cynical about the nature of humanity, it's good to have something that looks at the best and worst of human nature and assert that humanity as a whole is still worthwhile. When it's so easy to feel hopeless about whether your life has any meaning, it's good to be reassured that while the good we may do in our life may not last forever, it's still worthwhile. And in an age where people are called heroes merely for managing to become wealthy or famous, it's good to have another perspective on heroism. That's how I feel about the two Gemmell books I've read so far (this one and Hero in the Shadows): your mileage may vary.

07:33 am - Enchanted

We saw Enchanted last Friday afternoon. It was a mixed bag. The first half of the movie was utterly hilarious, so far over the top that you couldn't even see the top down below you any more. In the second half of the movie they seemed to remember, "Oh yeah, we started this story, we should probably try to wrap that up." It wasn't bad, exactly, it just wasn't particularly good: very standard fairy-tale ending, with a predictable attempt at a twist and a climactic confrontation so preposterous that well, yeah, that part was kind of bad. And the dragon didn't look wicked enough: they did so many things based off their earlier animated classics, a 3-D dragon just like the one in Sleeping Beauty would have been highly appropriate, and awesome. Instead they made one with a face that kept making me think of Bambi. Overall a fun movie, but not great.

Rating: B (though the apartment-cleaning scene rates an A by itself)

08:21 am - Reading (on audio)

I recently finished The Time Traveller's Wife. It was funny and touching and I liked it quite a bit. I found the ending sad, but it's about life, and life doesn't last forever.

Right now I'm reading Hero in the Shadows, an audiobook I picked up on a whim from the library. It looked really pulpy but nothing much looked any better. I'd never heard of the author, David Gemmell. But it's really, really good. It's rare for me to want to recommend something before I've finished it, but this one I do, and I can't believe I've never heard of this author before. Maybe part of what I like is that it's late in an established series, so there's a rich background to draw upon, and I wouldn't swear that I'd like the earlier books if I read them: it could be that this book is so good just because the author had the experience of writing the previous ones. And it is somewhat pulpy, but in a good way, and not in stupid ways. It's heroic and funny and compassionate and wise: I don't ask for much more than that in my entertainment.

07:50 am - Haunted Castle 3D at IMAX

Last night we (myself, the kids, Karen, and her parents) saw Haunted Castle 3D in IMAX at the Indiana State Museum. It won't win any Emmies for the writing, but it was a fun virtual haunted house experience. There's a lot of emphasis on music and sound, and that combined with the 3D effects and the huge IMAX screen did a pretty good job of immersing me in the environment. One thing Brandon and I noticed was that the first-person perspective was off just a bit as if we were strangely short, but Karen didn't notice any such thing, and Morgan thought she was strangely tall: I guess the POV has to be somewhere, and they put it at an average height. Some of the rendering was better than others (the animated characters didn't always walk quite right), but I especially liked the opening flyover sequence, and the rollercoaster ride. As Karen put it, in five years or so someone will come out with something to put this to shame, but it was still fun.

We arrived late, because our delicious dinner at Buca di Beppo took a bit longer than we'd expected, but there was only one other couple in the theater, and since we had bought tickets over the web in advance, they waited a bit for us to start the movie. Very nice of them. 

UPDATE: By the way, the movie is pretty much PG throughout, but there were some grotesque images of people being electrocuted and immersed in acid. Kids maybe shouldn't look in the mirrors once you enter the opera house. They didn't seem to bother 8-year-old Morgan though (I think they bothered me more), and she slept soundly last night.

09:23 am - Symphony on the Prairie: Rockapella

Last night we took the kids to Symphony on the Prairie to see Rockapella. With it being festival seating, and with the previous night's concert having been rained out, I guess we should have known to arrive earlier than we did (and we were almost an hour early). We sat far enough back that we couldn't make out the performers' faces, and we were outside the sloped area so we kind of had to look in between the heads of other people. And we were outside the walkway around the bowl, so there were a lot of people walking by, also blocking the view.

But the view of the stage wasn't really why we were there. We still had a great view of the sunset and the moonrise and the stars coming out, and there were lots of people to watch. It wasn't too loud for the kids (which could easily have been a problem) and we had some pleasant music to listen to on a pleasant evening outside. There were very few bugs, and we weren't too crowded in. Morgan had a good time, and Brandon enjoyed the music, even though he mostly read his book while they sang. Overall, I'd say it was a success, though I think we could have accomplished much the same thing by having an evening picnic in an open public park, or out at my parents' farm, if we brought a boombox with our own music.

I do like a capella music, and Rockapella is very talented, but I've come to the conclusion that I just don't care for their musical arrangements. They put so much personal spin on their cover songs that they don't flow right, and I find the effect rather jarring. They also don't enunciate as well as I'd like, so it's a completely vocal performance in which I often can't make out the words, which irritates me. I much prefer Da Vinci's Notebook or Lager Rhythms. If anyone has recommendations for other a capella music, I'd be interested. Also, if they know of any web sites that recommend new music based on information about music you already like, that would be interesting too.

08:19 pm - Stardust

We just got back from watching Stardust. It was wonderful. Highly recommended. Probably as good as The Princess Bride, and I don't think I can give higher praise than that.

08:36 pm - Straight Outta Lynwood

So this week bushi7 bought me Weird Al's latest album, Straight Outta Lynwood. It's technically very impressive--Al's an amazingly talented artist--but with the exception of "White and Nerdy", well, I just didn't think it was very funny. Maybe it's because I don't much care for parodies of songs I don't much care for. But even much the stuff that wasn't actually irritating was disturbing instead, like "Canadian Idiot" and "Weasel Stomping Day." "Close But No Cigar" was moderately funny, and "My Pancreas" was a little funny. That's about it. And yet, this is his best-selling album ever. *sigh*

07:17 am - Meet the Robinsons

We saw Meet the Robinsons yesterday. I expected it to be sort of cute, but it was actually quite a bit better than that. There are some parts that are just manic for the fun of it, but the plot was surprisingly coherent (important for a time travel movie) and it also had some worthwhile themes. Recommended.

Supposedly it's available in some Indianapolis theaters in 3D, but I'm not sure how to find out where. If I did, I'd be tempted to go see it again.

07:38 am - Miller's Crossing

In a continuing attempt to watch all the Coen brothers films, we recently watched Miller's Crosing. It's perhaps not a great movie, but it's certainly intriguing. The dialogue is outstanding, and it's fascinating to watch Tom Reagan's character and try to figure out what his motivations really are. Anyway, there's some interesting vocabulary usage in the movie and I wanted to look them up:

1. What's a grifter?
2. What's a yegg?

05:57 am - The Green Mile

Karen and I watched  The Green Mile for the first time last night. Wow. That was a good movie. I didn't know a thing about it when we started the movie, and I had no idea what to expect, but I sure didn't expect what I saw.

In wondering what makes it so good, I noticed some key elements:

• There's a mystery
• There's another mystery wrapped in a frame around the main story
  
• There are a bunch of story elements that seem thrown in for no reason
• There's an unfamiliar environment to learn about
• There are heroes to love
  
• There are villains to hate
• There's comedy and tragedy
• There's doubt and surprise
• There are unexpected dichotomies
• There are scenes that are parallel but much, much different
• There's something wonderful
  
• There's a tight resolution that leaves no thread unresolved