Annie

Bug has been a obsessed with Annie for a few months. We took her to see a live performance in the fall and H plays the songs in the car all the time. When the new Annie movie opened, we knew Bug would see it.Last Saturday we decided to give Bug the choice of activities for the afternoon. She had been doing our choice for days and days. She choose to see Annie.It was playing at a bunch of theaters and it was out for a few weeks. We decided not to preorder tickets. The chances of a show being sold out was crazy low....
We got to the theater 30 minutes early and discovered that there were only two seat, that were not together, left for the showing we wanted.....
The Internet saved the day. I opened the Movies app on my phone found a nearby theater that had three, just three, tickets left that happened to be together. Not sure when theaters started using assigned seating... Crying averted.
The seats were spectacular. The theater was equipped with powered recliners. Our assigned seats were in the front row and the reclining made watching the movie doable. Bug was particularly thrilled. The seat wrapped her in cushy comfort.
The movie itself was a fine update. The music updates the original while maintaining a clear heritage. The new Annie was well acted. The star walked the fine line between upbeat and saccharin. The adult cast was passable. Cameron Diaz almost pulls off Ms. Hanagin as a basically good person. Jamie Fox is wooden. The poor adult acting doesn't really detract from the movie. Annie manages to carry the weight on her own.
The writing is bad. Jamie Fox's character, aside from his acting, is hard to believe. The new Ms. Hanigan character is also pretty poorly drawn. I never really bought her sudden change of heart. The only character who is well drawn is the villain. He is appropriately over the top.
On a personal note I did appreciate that the new Annie is African-American. It is nice to have a young, strong, positive role model for Bug.
Bug sat through the whole movie without much fidgeting and only one potty break. There was occasional quiet singing. After the movie she danced it out to the end credit songs. Since she has repeated some of the lines in the movie and talked about the story. When asked thumbs up or thumbs down, she responded thumbs up.

Annie is a nice movie for the kiddie crowd and not a terrible one for the adult crowd.

The Machine

The Machine is rated at four out of five stars on Netflix. It explores the endlessly interesting idea of computer sentience. It is from an independent studio. It has no big name stars. It must be good.

The Machine is not bad. It hits all of the right tropes. Noble tough scientist with a secret working for the good of humanity by, begrudgingly, selling out to the military. Idealistic, brilliant, and beautiful apprentice. I startling breakthrough that is both the answer and far beyond what was expected. Sniveling, evil, self-interested officials messing with things beyond their knowledge or control. Noble, but misunderstood, minions that eventually rise up. An ambiguos ending that points to points to hope for humanity or its ultimate doom.

The through line story is standard and unsurprising. Sadly, the director decided to use a lot of jump cutting to tell the story. I found it jarring and without merrit. In the beginign of the movie, it feels like a device to cram in as much set-up as possible in as little time as possible.

It does keep the running time down to a reasonable 90 minutes, but at the expense of the story. You never see the key relationship in the movie develop. You never get a sense of how the central character matures. Instead, you get sudden, sometimes discordant, shifts. Maybe this techniue is supposed to build suspense or be post modern, but I found it annoying.

The acting in the movie is wooden. Toby Stephens, as the sensitive, dark scientist, could easily be mistaken for a robot. His sole expression is pained, like he is constipated. His character does have a lot to be sad about, but some range would be nice. Caity Lotz, as the titular Machine, whose character should be the most wooden, is actually the better of the two leads. She manages to give the robotic machine some humanity while never breaking the illusion that she is a machine.

I gave The Machine three out of five stars. It was not a bad movie for a rainy day on the couch. It does raise some interesting ideas. It is not anything more than average TV fare.

Asscension

Ascension shows SyFy getting back to its roots: intelligent, hard core science fiction.

It was a good effort. The premiss, or premises, are interesting. They consider big things in interesting ways. For the most part, the acting was solid.

It could have been a great effort. Instead the event felt like it crammed a twelve episode season into three nights. Many of the character threads were rushed. At least one of the plots lines ended unsatifactorally. When the big reveal does come, the show hasn’t earned it.

A longer run would have provided more time for the audience to get to know the players better. Things could have rolled out smoother and with more depth. The big thoughts could be plummed to deeper depths. Instead it felt like either something that was supposed to be a series being turned into an event for financial reasons or an event designed to set up a series.

There was enough in the event to hook me into a series. However, I feel a little cheeted out of the first season….

Lego Movie

Verizon is giving us a free three months of HBO and we took advantage of HBO on-demand to watch The Lego Movie.
I had high expectations for The Lego Movie. The good doctors of Wittertainment gave it stellar reviews. In fact the flappy handed one sang the song for weeks. The glowing reviews, and my undying love for legos, either made me predisposed to love the movie or set me up for crushing disappointment.
As the song says “everything is awesome”. I loved the movie. Visually it was incredible. The story was sweet and had its tounge far enough in its cheek to become schmaltzy. It is a rare gem that can be sweet and ironic at the same time. The Lego Movie pulled it off.
The ending was also perfectly balanced. It was sweet and poked fun at the franchise nature of big movies.
I am going to watch it again if a get a chance. I think I’m going to see if Bug will watch it with me. I think she’ll get a hoot out of it too.

My Week with an iPhone 6 Plus

For my bithday I decided to get a shiny new iPhone 6. I could not decide between the big 6 and the bigger 6 plus. The 6 plus looks like a clown shoe. On the other hand, the 6 plus had a better battery, a better camera, and the screen is glorious.
I stode in the store for an hour touching them both; I compared how they felt in my hand; I tried reading things on both; I played Clumsy Ninja on both. I had already polled the people I knew, and some I didn’t, about their new phones. Everyone I asked liked the phone they purchased regardless of size. The 6ers thought the 6 plus was too big; the plusers thought the extra size was the best. I obsessively read all the reviews I could find. The 6 is perfect; the 6 plus is perfect; the 6 plus is too big….
After all the hemming and hawing, I pulled the plug on a 6 plus. I could manage it one handed. It fit in my pocket. As in all things screened, bigger is better. The landscape mode tricks were impressive too. If the phone made use of the extra real estate would be killer.
It didn’t take long for me to adjust to the size of the phone. I immediately adjusted my grip so that I could use it one handed. The weight was a bit of an issue and my hands did tire faster.
The landscape keyboard was a blessing and a curse. The extra keys were nice. Bunching the most useful keys in the middle not so nice. Instead of having a little more romm for my fat fingers, I still had to tap on tiny keys. Now I had to stretch to tap on them. My typing actually got slower. Because of the increased size, the portrait keyboard, which I found easier for typing, was not great either. I found the 6 plus too top heavy for extended use.
For reading the big screen was better. There was more text on the screen and I could adjust the text size up if I was tired. Pictures were better too. This is where the 6 plus really shined.
Like many others, I did have bluetooth issues. I had to manually reconnect the phone to my  everytime I wanted to use it. While not a deal breaker, this was annoying.
Touch ID was great. I wasn’t flawless, but most of the times it didn’t work properly were user error. I didn’t get my thimb on the sensor properly.
Apple Pay was brilliant in it boringness. Every time I used it I marveled at how easy and utterly unremarkable it was. Paying for things should always be as fast and easy.
The camera was nice. I took some good pictures. The big screen made reviewing the pictures much easier.
Carrying the iPhone 6 Plus around was not much of an issue. It fit in my pants pocket without much trouble. It was a little awkward in some of my pants. Fitting it into other spots was more troublesome. It was too long for the any of the spots in my car. It didn’t fit in the waterproof pouch I use for kayaking and biking. It didn’t fit in the large touring saddle bag I have on my bike.
The biggest problem with the 6 plus was that it made my hand tired. While I could manage it one handed and carry it around withut trouble, my hands always hurt. I never felt like I had a solid grip on the phone. I never dropped it or really felt like I was bobbling it.
In the end, there was nothing wrong with the 6 plus. There was just a bunch of little things all related to its size. If the size was worth the accumilation of troubles, I would have kept the phone. However, it wasn’t. The extra size was nice, but not game changing. The landscape tricks on some of the apps hinted at how the size could be useful. At this point, there are not enough of them to make it worth the issue.
I found that if I really wanted the extra size, the iPad was better.

Boxtrolls

Bug and I needed something to do on a rainy Saturday. The movies, while still staring at a screen, at least require getting out of the house.
Bug saw an advert for Boxtrolls weeks ago. Using our generic iDevice, we also watched the trailers. Bug and I thought it looked fun. H wasn't so sure. The BBC's flagship movie program gave Boxtrolls a positive nod. The only issue was that it was PG and a little scrungy.
H was gone for the weekend; it was rainy; Bug handles scrunge with aplomb. The plan was set. Off to one of the local independent theaters for an afternoon of scrungy, stop motion movie fun.
We got to the theater with plenty of time. I checked if Bug needed to use the potty. "No." Then we rushed past the vending area to get some choice seating.
Bug wanted to sit in the front row. In a newer theater I would have weathered the storm of saying no, but this theater is set up to make front row viewing pleasantish. The screen is big, but not crazy big. It is also close to eye-level. You don't need to sit in astronaut position for the whole show or worry about only seeing part of the screen.
We got settled in and starting watching the few previews when a family sits next to us and they all have treats. "Daddy, I really wish I had popcorn." "We'll miss some of the movie." "I want popcorn more than missing some of the movie." So, we go get popcorn. Again I ask about the potty. "No."
Once we settle in with our popcorn, "Daddy, I need to go potty. I cannot hold it." The bathroom is right outside the door to the theater and is not occupied.
We settle in for the final time having missed about ten minutes of the movie. The bits we missed didn't hinder us from enjoying the movie or following the story. I'm sure it was fun stuff, but not terribly important.
The movie was great. The animation was beautifully scrungy. The story was cute. The characters were very well done. It is pretty amazing how much character a box can have. The humor worked for both Bug and I.
Kenzie had a good time and reported that she like it. She sat for the whole time without much fidgeting. The few scary bits didn't bother her much. She was appropriately tense. Bug doesn't like loud noises and nothing bothered her.
I'd give it a definite thumbs up as a family movie. It works on several levels. Fans of Beckett will enjoy the end credits.

Tiny

Being a person who doesn't like having too much stuff, I have been interested in the tiny house thing for a while. H put Tiny on her Netflix queue and we watched it this past week. The film was interesting, but flawed.
The central story, the film makers building a tiny house, felt more like a distraction than anything else. It was the interviews with people living in tiny houses that was the meat of the piece. I wanted more of the interviews and the issues about living in a tiny house.
The central story could have been more interesting if it was given more depth. There are mentions about money troubles and issues with not knowing construction, but they lacked details. It could also be that, in the end, I didn't find the film maker's compelling characters. They came off a bit like privileged lost ones.
The interview subjects presented a more diverse and compelling slice of humanity. They all had experience living in houses and made their decisions based on real world concerns. None of them did it simply to see what it was like. The interview subjects also lived their convictions. They lived in tiny houses.
The film makers never actually lived in a tiny house during the movie. From what we see of their lives, they are pretty typical. In the end, I wish they had actually had some experience living in the house.
SPOILER
My review may be tainted by my discovery that since building the house, the film makers have spent very little time in the house. The man did spend some time living in the house, but eventually quit it for LA. The woman lives in New York. While it is generally unrealistic to expect a film maker to "live" the life depicted in a documentary, this case felt disingenuous. They made it seem as if this was a life at least one of them planned on living and not just a stunt for a film project.