I love animation. Computer generated, hand-drawn, 3D, 2D, stop-motion—makes no difference to me; as long the movement is dynamic and the story is engaging, I’m all for it. Especially if it’s a short film. They’re just the right length for my tiny attention span.
This short film about an octopus won overwhelming critical acclaim at a horde of foreign film festivals. And it’s easy to see why: the artistry is bright and fun, the pace is brisk and the action is delightfully slapstick.
If you’re interested, there’s also a making-of video about the movie here.
As we slog through the current economic slump, our national dept—one of the nation’s most vexing problems—has been weighing on my mind a lot lately. I can’t understand how our elected leaders can continue to plunge us deeper into the red, as if they had no clue what a balance sheet was (in all honesty, a lot of them probably don’t). And the higher the deficit climbs, the more checks the bureaucrats seem bent on writing. When it comes to the Federal Government handling our money, it often seems there’s little accountability, no logic and even less restraint.
A new documentary film that opened this weekend, I.O.U.S.A, looks like it will expose some of the all-too-ignored realities of this dilemma.
Here’s the I.O.U.S.A. trailer.
How to deal with this crisis is a conversation that desperately needs to be hashed out. I don’t care what your political background is; this much is certain: if our government continues to spend with reckless abandon it will result in national financial suicide. As a democrat friend of mine put it,
“It’s high time we stopped passing the buck, both figuratively and literally. And who pays? In the short term, it’s people like you and me. But, I feel the long term may not be so far away. We need pragmatists in Washington, yesterday.”
I couldn’t agree more. One such “pragmatist” is BJ Lawson, a congressional candidate in North Carolina’s 4th district. Wisely, Lawson sponsored the premier of I.O.U.S.A. in his neck of the woods to help spark a healthy discussion on the topic among his constituents.
One of my favorite athletes is Tiger Woods. He’s arguably more dominant in golf than Michael Jordan ever was in basketball. I don’t follow golf as a sport, but I follow Tiger as an athlete. He has an uncanny ability to perform under extreme pressure that I find entrancing. His play in the US Open last weekend bore all the marks of an ageless classic. Almost our entire office was in the kitchen glued to the TV during the final holes of Monday’s playoff against Rocco Mediate. Even the bosses were watching.
This Nike ad, titled “Never,” aired during the tournament.
I love this one because it doesn’t stoop to clichés or schmaltz, even when it has every opportunity to. Somehow they managed to pick just the right footage and music to turn what could have been a disrespectful commercialization of Tiger and his late father into an inspiring piece of art. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that his father’s bold statement, “Tiger, I promise you that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you…in your entire life. And he hasn’t. And he never will,” turned out to be prophecy—at least on the golf course.
Here are some highlights from the US Open, in case you missed it.
If you’ve ever wanted to watch a water balloon explode in slow-motion (I know I have), now’s your big chance. The most incredible thing about this ad is that they did it all sans CGI; they used a camera that shot 10,000 frames per second instead.
The result? A very elegant and imaginative way of communicating what I love most about soda (or pop, if you’re from Idaho): the tongue tickling bubbliness. And I have to admit, the shots and song are so beautifully mesmerizing, it makes me want to expunge my memory of everything I know about carbonated water’s adverse health effects. Strong bones, joints and muscles? Who needs ‘em! Gimme some of that fizzy drink!
The other day, my wife had WGN Radio on in the car while she was running errands. Though she wasn’t intently listening to the radio, she heard something that made her stop and crank up the volume. It was an ad for a new documentary film called The Business of Being Born. Seeing as how she’s pregnant, the title of the film fascinated her. When she got home, she googled it and we watched the trailer together. I was blown away that a film had been made about this! One of my biggest considerations when choosing a hospital is the percentage of C-sections they perform. If it’s high, I get very uneasy about using their services.
I applaud Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein for grabbing this issue by the horns. You can watch the trailer here (I apologize for the abuse of God’s name at the end). It played in Chicago’s Music Box Theaterthis past weekend. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go, but we plan to rent it when it’s released on DVD.
