Senor Parrot’s Perch

For a lot of us,  it’s hard to get too much of Harry Potter. So the great news now is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the Harry Potter-based theme park in Orlando, Florida, is now open. The Wall Street Journal has a nice photo journal of the park. The park seems like a certain destination in my families future.

It’s interesting to think about how much J.K. Rowling created in this fantastic set of books. At the same time, much of the world was also brought to life by the movies. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter seems as much about the movies as the books. Had the books been in existence for many years before put into movies, I wonder how well accepted the movies would have been? Would die-hard fans be griping about the characterizations and adaptions in the storyline to make the films work the in the same way that is characteristic of other film adaptions?

Probably the difference is the well known and intense involvement of Rowling in the drafting of the screenplays of the movies, ensuring that the central core of the films remained true to the books, especially choices of central characters. This isn’t always the case with adaptions. Some films that left my kids and her friends very disappointed were the recent Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief movie, or The Spiderwick Chronicles. Either events that they thought were absolutely central were omitted or the characters were so far removed from their personal conceptions from the books that they just couldn’t enjoy the movies for themselves. It fringed on a violation to them, as though the movies had performed some grossly disrespectful act to the books’ authors and their stories.

 

Here we have historic must-see video footage of NASA rocket scientists planning the exciting LCROSS Moon-crash project, including the launch and return.

If you look closely, you’ll see top NASA scientist, Albus Dumbledore, convening the planning session. Can anyone identify any of the others in this video?

This, of course, is the work of cinematic genius Georges Méliès.

Mary Poppins – the quintessential nanny. Or so you thought! Your kids love the video? Then let them watch this and see if if they ever want to watch it again.

Does anyone ever outgrow Legos? Here’s a great stop motion film made with Legos:

Building the LEGO Millennium Falcon from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

I found this on Geekadelphia. I showed it to my kids and they got excited about how much fun it would be to make stop-action films for themselves. The oldest has her own digital camera and we have a tripod laying around. She’s got her own computer, so why not?

So how do I go about doing this? I did a quick search and it turns out there’s lots of sites on the internet to help us get started. So, more fun.

Say, isn’t this how Phil Vischer, of Veggie Tales fame got started? If I remember right, he and his buddies would make films and animated special effects in their basements.  I’ll have to go back to his autobiography, Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables, to make sure.

The exitement builds!

Nowadays, only social pariahs smoke cigarettes and eat trans fats. Nearly every city with any politically progressive presence is, has, or will make smoking and eating trans fats into a crime. Its laudable that they want to protect our bodies from our choices. They miss the more important thing: protecting our minds and spirits from the dreck we are exposed to day in and day out.

My family has found the online Movie, Music and Game reviews site Plugged In Online a valuable help in helping us select what we want our minds to consume. Bookmark it in your web browser so you can return to it whenever you want.

Plugged-In Online is provided by Focus on the Family, which also publishes Plugged In magazine, as well. So its no surprise that it promotes an evangelical Christian perspective in its reviews. I think that’s a good thing and one of the reasons I find it so reliable.

So, while the thoughtful and thought-provoking movie reviews of Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal remain my clear favorites of all those I read I find that many of my family viewing decisions are finalized by the reviews of Bob Waliszewski at Plugged In. He weighs elements and features of films in terms of my own family’s values. His concern is our spiritual and emotional welfare and he carefully notes why he makes his decisions and recommendations about movies. His reviews are also broadcast over many Christian Radio Stations. Whether they are broadcast on any non-Christian stations, I don’t know. 

George Melies, true-to-life genius and major character in Brian Selznick’s great Kids’ novel, and for adults, too, produced this movie in 1902. It is an important feature of the book.

After quite a bit of mistakes, all of which didn’t rank on the intelligent side, I finally got a video posted. This one is The Black Imp which is posted from YouTube. Its a good example of the video magic Georges Melies created in his movies.

Warning: This movie contains a lot of arm waving!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a sensational book by writer and illustrator Brian Selznick. I have been snatching a few moments of free time to savor reading and looking through it whenever I can. I’m about half way through this book and I’m enjoying it immensely. I highly recommend it. Here are a few interesting  sites, reviews, and posts about the book.

Expanded Books produced an interview with Brian Selznick about his terrific Kids’ Book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Brian Selznick discusses his inspiration for the book, his approach to illustrating it and some of the story of the multifaceted man Georges Melies, the magician, film-maker, and toy-store owner who is at he center of the book.

There is more about this book with a few good links to more sites of interest over at Hypothetically Thinking, a good kids book blog.

Outside of a Cat has more good stuff to say about this book. He’s also posted the the video of the important short film by George Melies’  A Trip to the Moon, the silent film referenced frequently in the book.   This is a must see for you interested folks.

My favorite post  by Esme Raji Codell in her blog , describes her own reaction to this book:

“I think he has managed to create a whole new genre in children’s literature: the cinematic novel. An astonishing hybrid of screenplay, graphic novel and good old fashioned page-turner, this is as perfect a foray into the new as was Georges Melies’ movie, “A Trip to the Moon,” which, fittingly, is featured in this novel.”

It really is something new. Selznick’s storytelling technique that jumps from text to drawing and back again is like a reversion of the silient movie technique of jumping from motion picture to text, except his illustration tell the story, rather than explains it. If you are acquainted with silent movies and their technique, you’ll understand how Selznick uses his drawings to convey the story with every bit as much life as his text does.

Technique alone isn’t why this is such a terrific book. It is excellent storytelling, full of drama and mystery, and very compelling. Now, if I didn’t have that job, the lawn, weekend biking with the kids, the lawn, the job, the lawn, I’d be done with that book. 

If you live where its cold, maybe still snowy, wet, dark at night, anywhere, and your family likes to share a movie, here are a couple we’ve enjoyed that fit into a St. Patrick’s Day/Leprechaun theme.

Darby O’Gill and the Little People is a Disney movie from 1959. I recommend this one highly. Its been a family favorite for several years now.

Darby, played by Albert Sharpe, is the old grounds keeper who lives with his beautiful young daughter Katie, played by Janet Munro. Darby hasn’t been too active for the last few years, so the land owner decides to replace him with a younger man, Michael McBride, played by Sean Connery in his first film role.

It seems that Darby is acquainted with Brian, king of the leprechauns, and the two are constantly in a battle of wits, and old King Brian has never had a more formidable adversary. There is also romance woven in, as Katie and Michael fall in love in fits and starts.

If you get a version with the original Disney trailers and the documentary showing how the movie was made, you’re in for more special treats. Many of these special effects techniques are still used today in films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The White Pony is more recent, and very enjoyable, too. Young Leah has gone to spend summer at her Uncle’s farm so that she can learn to ride. On her trip  she sees a beautiful white horse running across the countryside. There is conflict immediately, when she arrives, with her cousin Shannon, an insufferable, snobbish brat, who does everything she can to ruin Leah’s summer. Her uncle isn’t much better. It doesn’t look like a fun summer for Leah.

Leah is impatient and not willing to wait and in an attempt to ride Shannon’s horse, she injures it. Shannon must now ride another horse at the meet and Leah is not allowed to ride at all. Then, Leah meets Lucky the Leprechaun, who tells her about the mystery of the enchanted white horse, which together they plot to catch so that they can release it from its enchantment.

This isn’t really a movie review because I missed at least half of the movie, but I intended to write something, so here goes. I’ve read a number of movie reviews of the Nativity, but so many of them seemed like they were written before viewing the movie that I really had no expectations for the movie. I was pleased with what I saw.

The movie begins with Herod’s men killing the boys two years and younger in Bethlehem, prophecied in the Old Testament as “Rachel weeping for her children, for they are no more.” It then flashes back a year before to the little town in Galilee where we meet Mary and Joseph before their engagement, where the story develops forward again. (more…)