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Took the kids (4 and 2) to see Happy Feet this weekend.  IMAX style, which I explained to Katherine simply as, "A zillion times bigger than the movie screen you're thinking of – the biggest movie screen in the world."  It was a pretty easy call from the minute I saw the commercials — just a big ol' mess of animated, dancing and singing penguins.  Perfect kids movie.

Ummm…. not so much.

Yes, it's an animated dancing and singing penguin movie.  But it's also lots and lots of other things.  It's long.  It's scary.  And it's so crazy over the top political in its environmental message that I'm pretty sure I saw an animated Al Gore in there somewhere near the end.  We get it.  Humans screw up the food chain.  And it will take a miracle, such as thousands of penguins tap dancing, to make people realize that.  Perhaps that second part of the message wasn't what the producers intended, but it comes with the story.

Although the movie is only a little longer than the typical kids movie (I think it still comes in at under 100 minutes), man did they shove alot of movie in here.  It's as if somebody read the basic 36 plots and tried to shove them all in.  He's different from the crowd, so he is shunned.  Doesn't get to play in any penguin games, so to speak.  Check.  His dad wants him to be what society wants him to be, rather than to be himself, so there's got to be the falling out and the reconciliation.  Check.  (This part was the weakest of all the stories, by the way).  He's got to get the girl.  This was so obvious that they didn't even make much of a conflict out of it, it was obvious from the beginning.  And he's got to go on a journey to save everyone.  This was the part where it got scary and, quite frankly, depressing.  Again I say, "We get it. Humans bad.  Animals innocent victims."  It's hard to say "hero's journey" while talking about animated penguins, but really, if you see it, you'll see what I mean. 

Here's a comparison.  Did you see the Spielberg A.I. movie?  Remember how it just never really ended?  How it just kept getting darker and darker and you were never really sure if it was just going to stop on a downer note, or if it was going to circle back around?  This movie's got a bunch of that toward the end.  I'm not saying whether it circles back around or not, lest I be accused of spoiling it.

Is it for kids?  Maybe a little older than mine. Mine recognize the penguins, they did the plastic toys you can get at Burger King, they watch the commercials and so on.  Did they understand the movie?  Eh. The 2yr old certainly didn't.  The 4yr old found it mostly scary.  But then again she finds all movies scary, including Strawberry Shortcake.  She does not like bad guys.  And this movie does have a bunch of them.  There's a boatload of scenes where the penguins are chased by scary predators (during such scenes I'm turning to my wife and saying, "Oh come on, do they really have to do this again??")

Overall, was it enjoyable?  Cute.  Not as good as I'd hoped.  The direction is pretty lousy, if you can say that about an animated movie.  Lots of music, though you get the feeling that you never really hear a song from beginning to end.  Lots of dancing, but never really any focus on anything other than feet moving so fast you pretty much can't tell that they're moving, before cutting away to a scene of thousands of them doing the same thing.  The "final battle", if you can call it that, between the young penguins and the old guard was actually pretty entertaining – the old penguins do this sort of baritone chant to the "Great Guin", trying to drown out the music that the young ones are making, and it blends nicely.

This is getting too long.  It was a nice, typical Thanksgiving movie.  Glad we saw it.  Wish it was better.

In what turned out to be not so big a surprise at all, Emmitt Smith wins Dancing with the Stars.  From the very beginning of the show, Mario Lopez was the clear favorite, Emmitt one of the long shots.  They cast some sort of athlete every year — Evander Hollyfield, Jerry Rice, and now Emmitt — only Emmitt was clearly the best of them.  By judging both final dance competitions identically (both Mario and Emmitt received a 59 combined on three dances) the judges basically turned it into a popularity contest.  Mario was probably the better dancer.  But the audience liked Emmitt more.  He smiled more.  He had more fun. 

I think most importantly, though, is that the audience liked Cheryl better than they liked Karina.  Cheryl's the champ from last year.  People know her.  She also looked…well, nicer.  Every week Kerry would commented that she just didn't liked Karina's face.  She looked mean, like she was too competitive and wasn't having a very good time. 

So, there you go.  One of the token athletes finally won it.  It turned out better than I expected, really, from what I originally saw the list.  Jerry Springer was actually great to watch.  Sure he was the comedy act, but in a good way.  The whole "waltz and my daughter's wedding" thing was nice, and when he got all choked up when it was finally time for him to leave, he showed some real class.

So why oh why do the producers have to keep fixing the final show?  During the first season everybody screamed fix when Kelly Monaco, nearly eliminated in the first week, came all the way back to get a perfect 30 score in the final week, even though she tripped a few times. They did it again this season.  It's like they gathered in a room and said, "Ok, how can we make the last show end up a high note?"  You could have called that 59 for both dancers in your sleep.  I mean, really — Emmitt gets a 9 from Bruno for a shaky lift in the last dance, but Mario's "Ok, now I put Karina across here, pause, now I lift her up, pause, now she puts her hands down, pause…" lift was supposedly perfect, and the best dance of the season?  Nope, not buying it.  The excuses the judges found to take away points were too forced for me. Somebody told them "Ok, Len, you find some reason to take a point from Emmitt, and Bruno, you find some reason to take a point from Mario."  I suppose it makes for a better finale, but it's just so obvious it's a little insulting.

Sysadmin: "Your code is throwing a null pointer exception."

Me: "Scheisse!"

QA Guy: "I didn't know you spoke German."

Me: "And I forgot that you did."

I'll take the Almond Joys, and ditto on combining the candy of the 2 year olds with that of her 8 eight year old sister. Afterall, two year olds still love peas…

Or the one that asks you if you can please just fix this one tool….

Nah, he's not funny.

🙂

You forgot to write about your third ex-coworker that keeps spamming your blog.

Elizabeth, 2, in church:  "Where's God?  When's God getting here?"

Katherine, 4, is more keenly observant.  Spotting the stained glass windows showing the stations of the cross she asks, "How come those people tied Jesus up?"

Some friends came up for a visit and brought gifts for the kids. Katherine got a book and movie, Elizabeth got an Angelina Ballerina doll. This caused Katherine to find new love for her own Angelina doll, which she has been carrying everywhere since.

Today we were out and about for the day and while cleaning up I wanted to make sure no toys were lost. I saw Katherine's pink Angelina doll. "Elizabeth," I asked, "Where's your other Angelina doll?"

Katherine's head whipped around. "That pink one's mine, Daddy."

"I know, sweetheart."

"Which one are you looking for?"

"The blue one."

"That one is Elizabeth's."

"Yes, I know."

"But why did you say Elizabeth's *other* one?"

In other words, don't make the mistake for a second that both dolls are Elizabeth's. One is Katherine's and don't you forget it. Nice.

thats right, when i say fag, i actually do know gay guys way more masculine than him. he gives them a bad name and they are calling HIM a fag.