published by Jonathan on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 22:13
Last night we watched Children of Men (2006,R) (ScreenIt! Review). From the Wikipedia:
Set in the United Kingdom of 2027, the film explores a grim world in which two decades of global human infertility have left humanity with less than a century to survive. Societal collapse, terrorism, and environmental destruction accompany the impending extinction, with the United Kingdom, perhaps the last functioning government, persecuting a seemingly endless wave of illegal immigrant refugees seeking sanctuary.
I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this one before. It was fantastic. I never would have guessed it was a "companion piece to Cuarón's Y tu mamá también." You couldn't help but think of The Road and also 28 Days Later, and it was interesting for many of the same reasons...but also because so much of it felt so familiar...pervasive anti-immigrant sentiment, soldiers with German shepherds, hooded prisoners, etc.
I give it 5 out of 5.
published by Jonathan on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 21:33
Friday night we watched Alpha Dog (2007,R) (ScreenIt! Review). From the ScreenIt! Review:
A group of wannabe suburban gangsters must deal with the repercussions of kidnapping an associate's 15-year-old brother.
This had potential (and it was interesting to learnt that it was based on a true story), but in the end it seemed kind of flat. The most interesting part to me was the way the Jake Mazursky character pretty much left Truelove with no options.
I give it 3 out of 5.
published by Jonathan on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 21:08
published by Jonathan on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 23:42
published by Jonathan on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 22:02
As a reward for good behavior I recently bought the boys a couple Captain Underpants books. I'm not sure their mother completely approved, but I thought they seemed like the kind of books little boys would like as a reward. I was not wrong.
The books are cute and irreverent. I was especially interested to see how each of the books illustrates the boys' creativity with an example of them changing a sign to say something funny. Here is one:
Here is another example:
It wasn't until I was a senior in high school that I was introduced to this mode of creative fun. Late at night you find a sign with movable letters and rearrange it to say something else. Later as a freshman at Lipscomb, I passed such a sign that an apartment complex was using to advertise 1200 square foot apartments. I wrote down the words on the sign and later, while at the bowling alley, some friends and I (Jayson, Trey, and Joel?) brainstormed a funny/irreverent rearrangement. It was probably several weeks later before we got around to executing our plan. One Saturday night, David W. was the driver, and Jayson and I did the rearranging. The following afternoon, we returned to the scene of the crime for a photo shoot with Lori playing photographer. Here are the pictures:
