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Shaun the Sheep – The Movie

In recent times, as most of my readers know, the only movies that we have been going to, are cartoon movies. Two reasons behind this are – this way the kid and we can enjoy together (RoI is very important – since we are spending a sh** load of money on movie tickets) and secondly, the wife and me have started becoming impatient with respect to movies (partly due to watching recorded movies on Tata Sky Plus at home – where we can forward all the unwanted junk!).

Anyways, the cartoon movie scene in Bangalore does not help too much. Except big scale movies from big movie houses (read: Disney), all other cartoon movies barely cross a week in theatres. Same was the case with “Shaun the Sheep”. It release the weekend of the Independence Day (Aug 14 weekend) and by Aug 21 weekend, it was running one show in one theatre (and irony – the theatre farthest from where we live). But no, that did not deter us. We hauled it from Koramangala to the Orion Mall Rajaji Nagar for the 4PM show.

The wife and me (and the kid, incidentally) have been big fans of Shaun the Sheep cartoons on tv. If you have not, go to youtube and search. They are fun, clean, and smallish cartoon strips about a bunch of sheep, one of them being Shaun. Ofcourse Shaun, being the pratagonist, is smarter and more quick witted than the rest.

We went to this movie with a single thought – how could you make a cartoon strip which typically runs as a filler in the cartoon channels (most of the strips are 5-7 minutes long) as a whole movie. But the director has done a commendable job. The movie does not leave you fidgetting your thumbs. It is a fast paced movie.

The jokes are clean, which will leave young and old chuckling – very typical of the usual Shaun the sheep strips. None of the jokes leave you cracking up, but keeps you chuckling through the movie. Very nice animation. And hey, get this, there is not a single dialog in the movie – just like in the strip. The only person capable of speaking, the farmer, also just makes unintelligible noises, but that is it.

Very well done movie. One hour and 15 minutes of pure fun.

Movie Review: Big Hero 6

Note: No spoilers.

Beautiful animation and graphics
Coherent story line that children can appreciate
A couple of minor sad scenes but it is not a sob-scene. Subtle.
Awesome car-chases
Lots of stuff for adults to notice too – other than just the comedy.
Scene where Baymax runs out of battery is hilarious – and adults would probably enjoy that more.
Futuristic movie – city is Sanfrancisokyo – a combination of Sanfrancisco and Tokyo. Just imagine SFO with lots of Japanese stereotypes thrown in.
Characters are extremely inclusive and diverse. Asians, African-american, true-blue Californian caucasian, the movie has it all.
Lots of fun 3D scenes.
Nerds movie – so anyone who is/was/wannabe nerd would totally enjoy.
Overall: Excellent movie. Disney does not disappoint.

Movie review: Jobs

The Jobs movie, starring Ashton Kutcher, is a pretty neatly done movie. I have read the Isaccson official biography and sure, there are a few minor inaccuracies, but then that should be discounted for artistic freedom. Making a movie based on someone as incredible as Steve Jobs is not an easy one.

I personally think, it is a great package. It covers the overall personality of Jobs (atleast the personality that I could decipher from the official biography). Ashton does a fine job of portraying Jobs. I am a big fan of Steve Job and his presentation skills (as some of my blog readers would have observed by now) and have seen several of his keynote speeches, and some multiple times. And the personality, the little body language quirks, Ashton plays them beautifully. The slouch, the walk, the finger on the nose. I think he did his homework well.

I wish the movie could have been a wee bit longer, and covered some more of his NeXT years and his Pixar days (which are woefully not even in the story line). The movie was as fast paced as it needed to be and 15 mins more would not have gotten it bad rep.

Also, I think, the relationship of Jobs and Gates was a much more complex one, and was a bit trivialised by the one f-word-laden phone conversation that Jobs has with Gates. But, I guess, that is defenitely way out of scope out of the movie story line.

On the whole, a nice movie. Super acting by Ashton Kutcher.

Movie Review: October Sky

:Spoilers alert:

This is a very inspirational story (based on true life events) about four young boys from a mining community, who stumble onto building “hobby rockets”. They get into this by first watching the news about the first Russian rocket – Sputnik. Despite all odds of getting raw materials and equipment, these young boys succeed in launching rockets. They are encouraged by their high school teacher who pushes them to apply for a regional science fair. The boys win the trophy (and scholarships to college).

The story also weaves in an element of paths and family bonding with the father not very happy with his son going to this hobby. He wants his son to be a miner too. He thinks that all this rocket business is trickery and not worth it. The last scene is an emotional one where he at last comes to one of the rocket launches and becomes real proud of his son.

As an added bonus for those who are fond of hearing different accents, the movie does not disappoint with the Virginian accent – it has the twang and a drawl to it. You should listen to it to understand what I am talking about. It is a period movie set in the 60s – so it has all the sets painfully created – complete with old vintage cars and a couple of Steam Loco runs.

Blackfish

Saw this documentary about Orca Killer whales today. Pretty emotional movie. The movie goes against Disney Sea World who maintain these killer whales for amusement. The movie talks about how raising these large beasts in captivity can lead to frustrations in them.

The movie specifically talks about the largest Orca among them – Tilikum. The beast has killed at least 6 people so far. The park still maintains Tilikum for one major reason – he is the largest male of the lot. He is virtually a sperm bank for breeding more and more of these orcas.

The documentary runs through interviews with several of the parks ex-trainers. Most of these trainers express their frustration on the coverups after each accident that has happened in the parks. Almost all accidents have been blamed on trainer error, and the park maintains that the killer whales are the ‘cuddly teddy bears’ that they are.

IMDB – Blackfish (2013)

(img src: wikipedia)

Idiocracy

I heard about this movie first in Merlin Mann’s podcast with Dan Benjamin (in the 5×5 network). It is a great fun podcast talking about tech and productivity – two things that I am super passionate about. But I digress. Merlin was talking about this movie and was comparing it to living in Florida, and how sometimes the folks are in their ‘own world’. I noted it down and wanted to watch it some time, and I got the chance today.

It is a pretty nice movie about an average guy (Luke Wilson), who is in the army. He gets chose for an experiment called “human hibernation”. Unfortunately, the Army forgets about this top secret experiment, and when Luke gets out of the chamber, it is the year 2500AD. Things are not too dandy. The world has gotten all topsy turvy, and the average IQ has fallen abysmally, making Luke the smartest man on the planet. The world is then fully of super dumb people. Folks who believe water can be replaced with Gatorade (even for watering crops). Everything is amiss.

In all, a pretty good entertainer, and an eye opener. Comes with a nice message of getting your kids to read, to get educated, and just be overall smart.

[IMDB link]

(img src: link)

Frozen – butchered through Google Translate

Wow. This is what happens when you take the hit Disney soundtrack of “Frozen” and pass it through Google Translate and retranslate that back to English. Hilarious. You can notice how the singer tries very hard to suppress her smiles. But, besides all that, a very gifted singer indeed.

The Real Wolf of Wall Street

Super article on LinkedIn Pulse today. The story of a Chinese born man Lu Xu, who faked passports and identity documents for more than 500 times to write the GMAT exam on behalf of others (illegally). He got great scores obviously. He got paid a handsome amount from most folks for whom he faked, and he did it free for some friends to achieve their dreams. He was ofcourse caught and sentenced to jail for a few years. He comes out of Jail and then becomes a GMAT tutor. Wow.

Read the full article here. [link]

The Ox

Fantastic short about Eric Hollenbeck – a master wood worker in the red woods forests of California. Watch it.

There are some subtle yet deep philosophies in this video.

You cannot fit nowhere. There would be some place where you would fit.
Not all people are created equal. There are thinkers and there are doers.
You can be selfsubsistant if you want to.

Disney Frozen

Watched a movie in the theatres after a very very long time. A first for my son. We took my 4 y/o for his first movie experience over the weekend. Watched the new Disney movie ‘Frozen’.

My thoughts on the movie:

Excellent story line and execution – nothing surprising here – since it is Disney.
The snow effects are just awesome.
Since it is a kids movie, the 3D effects are not jarring or frightening. In fact, even without the glasses, it didnt feel bad. (Some 3D movies look super blurred without the glasses). Perhaps this was intentional too. Sometimes it is difficult to get the kids to keep the glasses on for a long time. This happened with my son midway through the movie.
Super comedy with Olaf the snowman. Great recovery at the end, where there is a magical arrangement (watch the movie to see it!) to make sure that Olaf does not melt away. Great touch – since the kids would have hated to lose this character.
Awesome depiction of feelings and human like emotions on animated characters.
Nice twists and turns in the plot.
Overall, a great entertainer.

(picture source: Official Disney Frozen Site)