Movie MuhFriday: Legend of the Guardians - 7-out-of-10 T's

I've been kind of lax in my reviewing of late (because I haven't seen anything that wasn't over a month old)... so here's a link to my reviewing scale just as a refresher. Check that crap out.

Now that that's out of the way, we'll get a few other things out of the way: The Guardians of Ga'hoole is a book series for children. They're like 3rd-grade reading level chapter books, the kind of thing you give a kid who's too young for Harry Potter, but too old for the Berenstain Bears. (I haven't spoken the words "Berenstain Bears" in over 10 years, and now it feels simultaneously strange and familiar on my tongue.) So here's what we're getting out of the way:

1. The books were better.

2. If you enjoy pretty things, this movie will make you poop.

Cue elaboration!

When I first saw the preview for this movie, I was dazzled. The pretty flying scenes coupled with the epic music gave me shivers. They put those trailers together RIGHT. Way to go. After that, I did my research and found out about the book series: there's like 15 of them. The movie is apparently based on the first 3 books, so I got them from the library (venturing for the first time in years into the "Children's Section"), and devoured them in a weekend at work.

It was a slow weekend.

They's good books. If I were in the 3rd grade, I'd be all over that, but I'm not, so I trudged through the poop-jokes and got into the deeper narrative about a war between the good owls (the Allied Powers) and the bad owls (the Nazis). Epic stuff for a 3rd grade book.

Almost as epic as this kid.

Fast forward to last night when I watched the movie: they hit the important bits. All the characters are there, even if they don't get the same amount of "screen" time that they did in the books. They combined two of the Guardian's enemies into the same faction, something that I totally understand for reasons of time. In fact, every change they made, I completely "get" the reasoning behind (except for this weird echidna-oracle thing, he seemed kind of pointless). The two things I wish would have been different were the training montage and the credits.

I hate training montages. I think they're the reason America is so fat: because we've been watching the heroes in movies go from weak-to-fighting-shape in a five-minute musical montage since we were born, but that's another blog post entirely. More time spent on their training would have been awesome. As for the credits, it's like this shadow-puppet paper-owl thing that makes the owls look clumsy and stiff and stupid, which is such a weird feeling after seeing them become excellent fliers and arial acrobats.

This movie could have been better, but examples like The Golden Compass, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Legend of the Seeker (or whatever that movie was called), they show how crappy these adaptations can be. This is not a crappy adaptation. It could have been better, yes. But it could have been a whole lot worse.

AAAAAHHHHHH WWWHHHHHYYYYYYYYY???!!!

And, on the extremely positive side, this film is completely beautiful to behold. I got to watch it for the frees, but the next time I get a few hours I'm going to go someplace nice with 3D glasses and gladly pay to see it.

Oh, one more thing: the band/solo music artist Owl City is part of the soundtrack. I groaned.

This pic is unrelated, but I kind of love it.

It's a good song, but it plays during the movie when there should have been epic orchestral music or something, and this guy with his synthesizers just took me completely out of it.

So, anyway, good movie. Take the kids. Or, if you like watching pretty things (and I know I do!), go yourself. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

America fights pirates!

Have you guys seen this? Make with the clickity click and check that crap out.

Welcome back. Have some hot chocolate.

Not what I meant, but this is what showed up on Google

In case you didn't clicky click and read that link (shame on you, there's even a video), it was about those Somali Pirate guys who have been getting headlines recently. What they did a few weeks ago was take over a German ship, and do their usual thing: take hostages, demand ransoms, and sell the stuff, then go home to their Somali babies and wives and do the whole thing again tomorrow.

It's a living.

EXCEPT that didn't happen at all because a.) The hostages refused to be taken (way to go guys!) and b.) because the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Maritime Raid Force with the USS Dubuque were in the area and itchin' to go!

SEMPER FI, SON!

24 highly trained Marines boarded the ship, something that was made possible by the fact that the "hostages" had locked themselves in a safe room. At the go-ahead on the Secretary of Defense, the Marines boarded and accepted the surrender of the pirates "within minutes" said a Navy spokesman. No shots were fired.

This is the first such action the U.S. has taken in response to these pirates. You know, real pirates, not a 12 year old kid with an Internet connection and a CD burner.

Does this address the greater problem of why these pirates are in existence in the first place? Namely Somalia's poor economic condition which arguably led these men, with no other options, into the piracy trade?

No. No it doesn't.

What it does do is just be really freakin' awesome, because America is again in the pirate-fightin' business.

Awright!

I'm worried about how much this appeals to me

Tiny houses. The number that's being tossed around on the websites is $20,000, which means that's probably lowballing, and others on the page cost around $50,000. What's amazing is that they can fit in my parent's garage.

This guy's name is Jay Schafer, and he's been living in one of the tiny houses he builds for over a decade. His electric and heating bill's are around $20 each, I think, and his home is 89-square feet. Others have as much as 800-sq feet, but that's still pretty tiny in comparison to some of the guys you find in real-estate magazines.



This guy took Thoreau's "simplify, simplify" and drove past its logical extreme about half a state ago. Still, he's happy. And he makes some good points.


Click here to see some more pics of the inside of one.

The houses have everything: kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms... it's just some of them pull double, or triple, duty.

I doubt many of these homes have much resale value, but the idea still has it's appeal: you have what you need. I'm a single guy with a limited income who's only home to sleep anyway: I might as well have a place that's mine, instead of paying $blankhundred a month in rent.


This is an idea I'm going to kick around for a bit.

And now for something healthy and nutritious

So, there's this mental block I've got to get past that insists to me that everything I post needs to be this big production. That is not the case. So here's something silly and cool.

Yeah, those are carrots.

Baby Carrots are not in fact "baby carrots". They're regular, full-grown carrots cut up into bite-sized portions of carroty goodness. The notion of baby carrots has been around since about the 1980's, when America's carrot producers figured they'd cash in on American's desire to eat the young of other species (examples include veal, eggs, bean sprouts, and baby carrot's distant cousin, baby corn).

Adorable AND delicious!

It was an unmitigated success, and now the carrot industry earns around $1 billion a year. Unfortunately for carrot farmers, sales have tapered off in the last few years, and they've decided to try and update their image.

Holy crap, I want some carrots now

This is brilliant. It's a "Got Milk" campaign for carrots. It's literally a "New Look, Same Great Taste" kind of thing, but it's for something that's actually good for you. How awesome is that?

PRETTY FRIKKIN' AWESOME!

They're putting carrots in vending machines at school, working on commercials, they've got a website...

And this chick, whoever the crap she is

This whole idea is the kind of tongue-in-cheek that really makes me smile, and the sincerity behind the idea (yeah, it's a business, but it's for a product that's actually good for you) makes that smile all the broader.

Way to go, carrot guys. Way to go.

HIGH FIVE!