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Toy Story 3

cinemajoel — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:56:24 +0000

I remember when I saw the first Toy Story movie having the feeling that this was something entirely new and amazing. It was a cartoon, but it didn’t look like any cartoon I had seen. It was a kids movie but it was surprisingly deep. I was 15 years old at the time and liked to think of myself as surprisingly deep for a kid. Looking back I find it interesting how this particular franchise has followed me through the years. When Toy Story 2 came out, I was in my second year of college. Now with Toy Story 3, I’m a month shy of my 30th birthday and I have a 1 year old son. My own “Andy” so to speak.

The Toy Story saga gives us a lens through which we see ourselves both as we were as children and as we are now as adults. While I think Toy Story 3 is probably the weakest of the three movies, it’s still a great movie and a fitting end to the saga. I’m glad I saw it, and I can say without reservation I’ll want my children to watch all three Toy Stories.

I saw it in 3-D, and I can’t say 3-D does anything for the movie. Given how technologically innovative the first Toy Story was, I wish this one had pushed the envelope more and given us something we’d never seen before… again.

Top Ten Favorite Movies

cinemajoel — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:23:40 +0000

No good movie blog would be complete without this list. Here are my 10 favorite movies of all time, at least at this moment. It’s evolved a lot over the years. Plus, once I hit “publish,” I’m sure I’ll think of at least 5 movies I regret not including.

Note that I don’t pretend these are the “best” movies ever made. Just the movies for which I have the most personal affection. There are better films out there. But if I could only watch 10 movies for the rest of my life, these would be the 10 I’d want to keep.

Cinema Paradiso
The Lord of the Rings
The Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
The Big Lebowski
Field of Dreams
Die Hard
Amelie
Almost Famous
Once

Judge me.

For my wife…

cinemajoel — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 02:11:51 +0000

One of my favorite bands of all time is Eels. I was listening to their latest CD in my car on the drive home today, one that I’m ashamed to say I haven’t given enough time in my CD player.

Like all good Eels CDs, all the songs are at least good and at least one is truly great. The great song on the latest CD reminds me of my lovely wife. I hereby dedicate these lyrics to her. =]

“Beginner’s Luck” – Eels

All my life I had this funny little feeling
It came and went time and again with all my daily demons
Call it a deficit, an emptiness inside
Why is true love hard to find? Why does true love hide?

But now I found you and I know that we will be
So very happy, if you could only see
That I was made for you and you were made for me

The road in front of us is long and it is wide
We’ve got beginner’s luck, we’ve got it on our side
If you are willing, well, I think I’m qualified
And with beginner’s luck we’ve gotta take the ride

I’ve got a plan, you know, I’ve got it all worked out
And all you gotta do is pack your bags and check your doubts
You come around and you will see just what I am
A true love through the worst of times, a true love to the end

So now you’ve found me and you only gotta see
How complementary we could really be
‘Cause I was made for you and you were made for me

The road in front of us is long and it is wide
We’ve got beginner’s luck, we’ve got it on our side
We will be stronger if our forces are aligned
And with beginner’s luck we’ve gotta take the ride

We’ll take the ride as far as anyone can go
We’ll brave it all, yeah, hand-in-hand and toe-to-toe
I’ve got it all worked out, don’t worry about a thing
Just give your hand to me, and here, put on this ring

The road in front of us is long and it is wide
We’ve got beginner’s luck, we’ve got it on our side
If you are willing, well, I think I’m qualified
And with beginner’s luck we’ve got to take the ride

World Cup “fever” at my office

cinemajoel — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:02:19 +0000

You hear every year about how many millions of dollars of damage March Madness does to the US economy due to lost productivity. I wonder how much this morning’s USA World Cup match cost? We were broadcasting the game at work in our all hands meeting room, and I can genuinely say the walls in my office shook when Team USA scored the winning/only goal. Apparently we care a lot about soccer in this country.

I don’t want to be a prick about it, but I do think it’s interesting how many people are catching the trendy strain of World Cup Fever. I myself am trying to decide how much I care. Right now, honestly, not much, but I may be coming around. Here’s why…

The World Cup is the biggest sporting championship tournament in the world, so even if it’s not a big deal in America, I’m always glad to see us represent well on the world stage. More importantly, I’m thinking about donating the part of my sports brain that cares about the Olympics to the World Cup. Every four years I get less and less interested in the Olympics, and they’re becoming insanely overrun with commercial interests. To me it’s like the Olympics are turning into pro sports, which are far less interesting to me than college sports.

I’ll take March Madness with its integrity and diversity and the “cinderella story” factor over Kobe and the Lakers any day. I’m thinking maybe the World Cup is analogous to college sports. Lots of regional loyalties and delusions of grandeur. Lots of teams I’ve never heard of. And best of all, this time we’re the cinderella story. So while I doubt most American sports fans will remember Landon Donovan a year from now, right now, that dude is a legend. And I find myself hoping that I remember.

USA!! USA!! USA!!

Awesome parenting

cinemajoel — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:05:28 +0000

I totally just half-closed Boy’s hand in the door as I was holding his other hand walking out. He reached behind me and slipped his fingers into the space between the door and the wall near the hinges, and thankfully Wife saw this and told me to stop. I normally slam that door shut because it doesn’t latch well. So that would have been disaster.

Wife and I were talking about how you childproof something like that, and I don’t know. At some point, it seems like the kid has to just learn by experience that it hurts to stick your hand in a door jam. But that doesn’t exactly make me feel like a finalist for Father of the Year. The joys of parenthood…

Poor North Korea

cinemajoel — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:28:03 +0000

I can’t help but feel bad for the North Korean team that just lost 7-0 against Portugal in the World Cup. Only because you know this can’t be good for them back home.

I saw something about this being the first live televised football match for their national team back home in North Korea. Talk about a meltdown. I’m sure “Dear Leader” was throwing things at the tv.

What’s sad is that apparently they played their last match very well, and it was only 4-0 until the last ten minutes of play. Still they will be remembered for losing 7-0. That’s right, they lost by a touchdown.

Remember how Kim Jong Il had the state media make up all these tall tales about his golfing prowess? Something like how he hit 4 holes-in-one on his very first round of golf. I wonder how he would have spun his football skills in light of the North Korean team’s loss today? Maybe he should have been keeping goal.

Frequency

cinemajoel — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:47:29 +0000

Frequency is so much better than you would expect given the basic plotline:

A man in 1999 communicates with his dead father in 1969 via an old ham radio, explained with a winking nod to string theory and the aurora borealis. Through their conversations, they alter the course of events surrounding a serial killer in both mens’ time, simultaneously healing and endangering their family at every turn.

It’s still amazing to me how good this movie is despite how easily it could have gone mega-cheesy.

What I love about the movie is the balance it strikes among its many themes: altering time-space continuum, murder mystery, father-son bonding, baseball as a metaphor for lost innocence. It plays well on all these levels but bounces around enough not to feel too bogged down in any one at a time.

The performances are good, not great, save for Andre Baugher and Elizabeth Mitchell, who steal every scene they’re in. The leads are less interesting, Dennis Quaid does a good generic Dennis Quaid character, and Jim Caviezal is believable if not terribly interesting as the son. One fun surprise in the cast, a young Michael Cera in a bit part early in the movie.

Sometimes you have to willingly suspend your disbelief at the movies. This is one of those movies. Frequency is suspenseful and moving, and it deserves to be watched with loved ones. I’ll never forget calling my dad as I left the theater the first time I saw it. I watched it again tonight in honor of Father’s Day.