Quill & Claw/Pen & Paw

Did you honestly think that I could write a bad review for a DisneyPixar release of any kind? I didn't think you could. But the fact is, I'm more than willing to admit that this is not one of their stronger releases. There I said it! Ratatouille is not a strong Disney/Pixar release. Garsh that is cathartic. Now I don't want you to think that I went in specifically looking for a problem with this movie, for there is little wrong. It wasn’t as if I needed something wrong to point out the fallibility of this wunderkind studio. It is a pretty cute little tale of a rodent named Remy with dreams of cooking at a great Parisian restaurant like Maxim's named Gasteau’s. He reads the books by the author and when the opportunity is afforded to him, he takes the chance to cook. Pretty simple—and what could be predicted by the trailers. The young rat finds a decent enough patsy, a quasi-nerd that just wants to succeed at something. The rodent uses the young man as a front to make...

My journal ideas said that a sunset is virtually impossible to describe. Guess what this story is about? Hortie had always thought she would fall for a Deaf man. She knew it. She figured they would never tease her fro her weird sounding name; she knew they never would tell her that her singing was bad, even in the shower. She never thought she would have fallen for a man who was blind. Robert Banks was everyone a single woman at her age would have hoped for. He had finished high school early, he played on the only sports team offered to him, goalball. He ran daily and read and spoke three different languages. He played the guiltar to calm himself on rainy days when the thunder confused him and made his dog anxious. They worked together for a strong five years at the Deaf and Blind school in varying capacities. Working together was a bad description--they were separate buildings but their concerns and comrades were the same. They saw each other almost daily. She admired him and his dri...

More random fiction---unfinished and unedited. Whilst in spinning class--I heard the song, "I'm Your BoogeyMan" by KC and the Sunshine Band. This is the result. Rob had finished driving a good two hours from Grand Forks into Devil’s Lake. He checked out bright and early from the Best Western, in hopes of beating any traffic out of that city. He realized as he greeted the roads that he was still stuck on several big city ways—there never was any traffic any where near Grand Forks. But the early rising of unfamiliar surroundings of Eastern North Dakota did not fulfill his need for breakfast. He could have stopped in several of the truckers’ stops along the way, but he knew that many the roadsters were piloted by the husbands of the women in Devil’s Lake. He could not risk discovery from someone. He arrived in the Lake shortly before ten am and felt it would be safe enough to hit only coffeehouse in area. He was normally there, however m...

Have you ever heard of a melodrama? In the olden days of the Wild West, they were theatre for masses. Storylines bordered complex, but the presentation was kept juvenile enough that a man, drunk off his butt could come in and get the story midstream. They were the purest form of entertainment--really hard work for sophisticated actors to take a great idea and whittle it down into something a general audience could digest. I think I just saw a melodrama. Transformers is what Pirates of Caribean should have been; it is what all summer movies really should become. I felt like I was in a drive-in. Micheal Bay, for some reason, is continulally given this big budget pictures for really crappy movies. Armaggedon ? Crap. Pearl Harbor ? Historical crap. Sure, both movies had their moments. They seamlessly combined top-of-the-line special effects with actors and kept your jaw on the floor and your head spinning. Depth? That was down the hall at the art theatre. Mr. Bay wants explosions, lotsa,...

Suppose they told a joke and no one laughed? That's what happened to me, I mean, was I the only one in on the joke? I knew that my fellow Coloradoans, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are notoroius for terrific satire, labblasting everything from themselves to the world-at-large. You grow to expect it from the creators of South Park . In fact, it is one of the few comedies I'm willing to watch. I know, I suppose I could have seen Team America: World Police in the movies--but it was released in that nadir of cinema, springtime. .The place where movies in search of a Very Specific Audience are wont to go. This is actually a decent movie. Now I didn't say good. For it is really a one note joke. And if you get it, it all kinda goes down from there. And if you don't get it, you'll think it is very, very weird. The entire movie is told in puppets. Big marionettes like they used to have on the early seventies television kids' programs, you know, ...

He observed, unconsciously, the face of his colleague before him. It smirked some, then became furrowed in a deeper thought. At first, I thought the youth was just copying my face in jest, but then I realized. He was imaging my thoughts. Reading them, if youwill. My heart returned it a heavy rhythm fueled by anger and intrigue. The monster in front of me was readying my mind. I mimmediately tried to remember the feelings I had when I was in yoga class, or in meditation. Empty, empty, empty. But my heart, retched into a position upon my aunt's passing, was taking power over the rational mind. I held an image in my head of a jet black playing card--hoping that this would be a ticket to freedom. "It won't work, Gary, it won't work. It's okay. Look, I know you have a schedule to keep, as do I. But I need to speak to you, I really do. Do you mind stepping downstairs?" The young man stretched as if his yard work had taken it's toll on his spine. I made a pop ...

I gave up watching videos because I worked at a video store and had seen everything. I started working at a movie theatre, for I wanted to see more movies. I got rid of my NetFlix, for I got to see everything I wanted. Then there was Ghost Rider. I wasn't renting movies, but for any readers of my blog know, this is a genre of film that my partner and I adore and love to abhor--super hero movies. Growing up the geeks we are, this style of film became popular just as our life started together. Then there was the evitable fallout. Too much of a good thing, they say, brings about sequels and bad movies. Bowing to the almighty dollar the studios knew they had something in those Spiderman and X-Men titles. People were lining up to buy tickets. Worse, actors, especially male actors, have always wanted to done a cape and fly. Heck, it is the motivation to why my better half and I can donate 15 hours a week to City of Heroes. For an hour every night, we can put on (digital) costumes and f...