Movies: Iron Man 3

If you like nonstop action and lots of thing blowing up, you’ll probably enjoy Iron Man 3. If you’re looking for originality, character development, and a chance to give your adrenaline glands a rest – well, you probably wouldn’t be in the theater watching it. Unless, like me, you wanted to do something together with your comic-book-action-hero-loving husband and sons.

One viewer at imdb.com calls it an average movie and says that he (I’m guessing, but could be she) was hoping for a darker story. It was plenty dark enough for me, thank you, and so filled with violence that after a while I started letting my eyes glaze over a bit. I just don’t get what’s entertaining about explosions.

Special effects are impressive, I suppose, if you like special effects. Personally I don’t like watching people’s bodies look like they’re turning into molten metal.

Movies: The Pirates! Band of Misfits

I wouldn’t want to have spent money in order to see this movie, but as a free checkout from the library, The Pirates! Band of Misfits not a bad family movie. The story is kind of wacky (actually the whole movie is kind of wacky), but there is a lot of humor, and a message about being true to your friends and to who you are (though even this last bit is saved from undue moralizing by its humorous context).

Pirates aren’t usually role models for the values of friendship and personal integrity, but these aren’t exactly your typical bloodthirsty pirates. The Pirate Captain (that is his name, not just his title) claims to enjoy running people through, but his motivation for attacking other ships is to collect enough loot to win the Pirate of the Year award.

Movies: The League of Incredible Vegetables

Our family watches a lot of superhero movies. We recently reorganized the DVDs, setting aside a rack just for superhero movies. And we like Veggie Tales. So when a new Veggie Tales movie came out with the title The League of Incredible Vegetables, well, of course we had to buy it.

Since my boys are far past the age of the target audience, it’s hard to say just how effective the video is in getting its message across. But it’s fun to watch, even for teens and adults, and of course no one is too old to need the lessons taught by Big Idea’s colorful vegetables.

The subject of dealing with fear is one Veggie Tales has addressed before. Their very first video, Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?, is still one of their best, even if the animation isn’t as good as those produced using today’s computers and software.

Both videos teach that God is bigger than the things that make us afraid. The earlier video addressed Junior Asparagus’s fear of monsters in the closet, a fear that is very real for young children even if the monsters are not. The fears cited in this new video seem a bit odd, in comparison.

Movies: Brave

The best review I’ve seen of Brave is by Frederica Mathewes-Green, so I won’t attempt to add much to her excellent comments. I read her review months before buying the DVD (as usual, we skipped seeing it in the theater), and I had by then forgotten what she had said about it except that it has more depth than she had expected based on the trailer. I wondered how I could have forgotten the surprising twist that is central to the story – and then I reread her review and saw that she had complied with a request not to give away the plot.

So, for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t yet seen Brave or heard much about it, I will likewise limit myself to generalities. What is disappointing about the movie is that it could have been much better. We expect a lot out of a Pixar movie because most of their movies have been so good. From what I have read in other reviews, Brave‘s shortcomings have a lot to do with a change in directors during production, and with Disney involvement. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what the movie would have been like if it had been completed by the director whose vision formed its core.

There are a lot of movies that deal with conflicts between parents and teenagers. I’m not sure how many focus on the mother-daughter relationship – perhaps there is a fear that they will be seen as “girls” stories if they do. Though, as Mathewes-Green points out, there’s not a whole lot that is distinctively “girl” about Merida – the whole point is that she is such a tomboy and doesn’t want to act like a girl. What is perhaps distinctive is the character of her mother, Elinor. As some reviews I read point out, Elinor is the true heroine of the movie, not Merida.

The movie ends with Merida saying, “Some say fate is beyond our command, but I know better. Our destiny is within us. You just have to be brave enough to see it.” But it’s unclear just what Merida has done that is brave, other than apologize for making such a mess of trying to change her destiny. While Elinor tells Merida that they have both changed, the changes in Elinor are more evident than those in Merida. Merida does learn to see and follow wisdom in her mother’s words, which is certainly good – but I’m not sure how brave it is.

I am disappointed also by the fact that all the men seem to be such buffoons. (The three younger brothers, meanwhile, seem to play the role often taken by cute animal characters in Disney movies.) I suppose it may be effective for Elinor’s strength and wisdom to be seen against a backdrop of men acting like overgrown children, but I thought that was carried a bit too far.

The biggest problem, I think, as Mathewes-Green and other reviews point out, is that neither Elinor nor Merida is really developed well as a character. Elinor emphasizes the values of duty and responsibility, while Merida displays unrestrained desire to “do her own thing.” Those are ways to sum up their characters – yet that is all they are, a summing up with nothing much else underneath.

Still, as Mathewes-Green concludes, “If Brave has flaws, it’s still better than almost any non-Pixar kids’ movie you can name.” While Brave may fall far short of what it could have accomplished, if it gets people thinking about the importance of responsibility, the meaning of destiny, or even what a really good tomboy character would be like, it has accomplished something worthwhile.

Games: CLUE Secrets and Spies

There are actually two games called CLUE Secrets and Spies, as I discovered when I tried to find a link to include here. One is an online game, which I haven’t played. The other is a board game, which I recently purchased at Goodwill.

I bought CLUE Secrets and Spies because it can be played with only two people, unlike the original Clue board game. This is important because usually it’s just Al and me, when it comes to playing board games, especially now that Zach is at college most of the year.

As it turns out, there isn’t much this game has in common with the original game besides the brand name and the colors (scarlet, mustard, green, white, peacock, and plum) used to identify characters. And there is a certain amount of mystery involved – though you could say that about just about any game that isn’t based just on luck.

Movies: Puss in Boots

I noticed the DVD of Puss in Boots as I was about to check out books from the library last weekend, and grabbed it. I remembered having heard very positive things about it when it came out last year, and figured it would be a fun way to spend some family time together today.

It’s an enjoyable movie, but not a great one. I am somewhat surprised at the number of user reviews at imdb.com that give it really high marks, especially for humor. Some reviews mention that it was originally intended to be direct-to-video, and the finished product does seem more the sort you expect from direct-to-video than a true feature film.

As with the Shrek movies (to which this is apparently supposed to be a prequel), there are characters from a variety of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, though they bear little resemblance to the originals. Puss in Boots has not only the title character, but also Humpty Dumpty, Jack (of beanstalk fame), Jack and Jill (here appearing as husband and wife), the magic beans and the beanstalk, a goose that lays golden eggs (actually it’s a gosling, and I don’t think goslings lay eggs, but this film is hardly going for realism), Mother Goose, and even a brief, strange appearance of Little Boy Blue. I’m not sure quite how the giant could have been killed previously by Jack, since Jack doesn’t seem to have ever managed to plant his beans, but again, who’s expecting accuracy here?

Themes touched on include friendship, betrayal, and reconciliation, as well as loyalty and honor. But there’s little depth to its treatment of these themes, and no great emotional involvement for the viewer. Shrek was memorable not just for its humor but for its deft handling of issues related to outer vs true beauty and what it means for dreams to come true. Sure, there are lots of enjoyable animated films that have little depth, but others like Toy Story and Finding Nemo prove that it can be done.

Movies: John Carter

My husband had heard a very positive review of this movie from a friend. He also had enjoyed reading the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs when he was a boy. He thought it was the kind of movie we might want to end up getting on DVD – but we wanted to see it first, so we rented it yesterday.

I had read none of the books by Burroughs – and hadn’t even heard of his books about John Carter on Mars. So I had no particular opinion about it ahead of time – other than that the title sounded pretty lackluster.

For the first half of the movie, I found it more confusing than anything else. I couldn’t keep track of who the different groups of Martians were, and which ones were fighting over what.

It got better once I managed to figure out more of the plot and the different characters’ motivations. I’m not sure I would care about seeing it again, but it was reasonably enjoyable.

What was interesting was reading various reviews of it at imdb.com afterward. Some reviews are so over-the-top in praise of the movie’s greatness that one comment suggested that they were planted there by the studio to make the movie look good. Others complained it was boring, with one-dimensional characters and stilted dialogue.

As usual, I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. There may be details that I missed that I would catch on a subsequent viewing, that would make some aspects of it clearer or give greater depth to its story and characters. But not enough, I think, that I have any great interest in watching it again, at least not anytime soon.

I don’t feel particularly motivated, either, to read the books, though I would be more inclined to do that than watch the movie over. The action is apparently not nearly as compressed as in the movie, giving far more time for Carter to adapt to the strange new world he finds himself on. I have always been interested in stories examining different cultures, so that aspect I would find interesting.

There are movies that have successfully put more focus on that aspect of travel between worlds, but I imagine it is harder to pull off than a film where the viewer’s attention is riveted on the action. John Carter isn’t bad at all. It just isn’t great.

Books: Same Time, Same Station

I ended up reading this book about the early history of television because I had been reading a book about teaching Sunday School. I know that seems like an unlikely jump, but there was a logical connection. Honest!

(The book I was reading about teaching Sunday School recommended, more or less in passing, that if you use puppets, not to have them talk about God. I emailed the author to ask why. Her response – that puppets are not real so they can’t have a relationship with God – did not entirely satisfy me, so I found an internet forum about puppets and found someone who seemed to use puppets in Christian ministry. I joined the forum so I could contact him by email, and asked him about this. He not only saw nothing wrong with having puppets talk about God, he told me that the word marionette comes from the name Mary because early Christians used puppets to teach. Wanting to learn more about that history, I looked for books in the library catalog about marionettes. One was about Howdy Doody, a show I’ve heard about but never seen. I wondered if I could find a DVD I could borrow with episodes from Howdy Doody. My search didn’t turn up much in the way of DVDs, but it did list Same Time, Same Station, a book about the early decades of television.)

The topic  of the book was interesting, but just barely enough to motivate me to finish reading the book. Despite what the flyleaf says about “Baughman’s engagingly written account,” I found it far from engaging. The flyleaf also reveals that Baughman is a historian and a professor; perhaps he wrote this with students of Journalism and Mass Communication in mind.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with so many endnotes. They take up over 25% of the book! That means, of course, the that text is chock-full of quotes, historical details, and other data that may be of interest to the historian but probably not to the average reader. Often I thought Baughman could easily make his point with a single quote. But he piled one on top of another. I wondered if he was trying to use every possible historical citation, and if so why.

I did learn some interesting facts about the early history of TV, however. Having grown up in the 60′s and 70′s, I took the division of stations into VHF and UHF for granted. I had no idea why I watched NBC on UHF and CBS on VHF. (The third network, ABC, had no local station, and only came in very fuzzily on one VHF station and one UHF station – and then only on a good day.)

Games: Puzzle Baron’s Acrostics

I don’t remember exactly how I found the website for Puzzle Baron’s Acrostics. (I think I had been looking at the crossword puzzle feature of the Wall Street Journal; maybe it was linked from there.) But once I found it, I immediately bookmarked it. And I have lost count of how many times I have been back in the past few days, or how many puzzles I have solved.

I’ve liked acrostics since I first learned how to do them in books of variety puzzles as a child. But the one time I found a book of just acrostics, they were so hard that I’m not sure I ever managed to finish a single one. (I think they were reprinted from the New York Times, which has very difficult acrostic puzzles.) Recently I have discovered that the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday puzzle is sometimes an acrostic, and I can solve those, even if it does take me at least an hour, usually two or three (over the course of the weekend).

Puzzle Baron’s acrostic puzzles are considerably easier. I have only twice asked for a hint (three random letters are revealed), and those were in the first four puzzles I solved there. But they are still challenging enough to be enjoyable. I never manage to get all the clues on the first time through the list (unlike easy crossword puzzles where I rarely get stuck even for a brief time). Some of them even have me stumped for a few minutes.

One way they are easier is that the quotations are shorter and there are fewer clues. Sometimes fewer clues does not mean easier – if you can only solve two clues out of a dozen, it’s really no easier than if you solve four out of two dozen. But in general these are also easier clues – sometimes I do get at least half of them on the first time through. (Sometimes I think I have gotten more than half, but there is usually at least one that turns out not to work.)

Having the puzzle automatically transfer letters from the clues to the grid, or from the grid to the clues, is a bigger help than I thought it would be. It seems that almost every time I work an acrostic on paper, I manage to misplace at least one letter, a mistake that makes it hard to solve the puzzle and which I do not discover until I am just about finished.

It’s also great to be able to guess letters that I’m not sure of, knowing that I can change them several times without having to worry about making holes in the paper from erasing too many times. Though it’s annoying to have to go back and re-type letters because the program apparently cannot keep up with me if I type too fast, and it overwrites one letter with the next one I type.

And these acrostics fill in punctuation, which is not ordinarily done – at least not in the acrostics I have worked on before. That makes it easier to start to make sense of the quotation – though I can still be thrown off by a quotation that does not follow all the rules of grammar I learned in school.

These acrostics do still follow the convention of having the first letters of clues (the answers to them, that is) spell out the name of the author of the quote and/or the work in which it is found. That made me start wondering – just how does one go about creating this kind of puzzle? I recently read a book about crossword puzzle construction, and that seems difficult enough, but creating an acrostic must be even more difficult.

The writer of this blog post certainly seems to think so. As a matter of fact, he compares the difficulty of constructing an acrostic with the difficulty of constructing an electric car, and concludes that the car is the easier project. I don’t know how tongue-in-cheek that might be, but his post details all the reasons I think the puzzles must be difficult to create. (He states that they can have no more than 26 clues, since the clues are traditionally listed as A, B, C, etc. rather than 1, 2, 3, etc. But I am sure I have done acrostics with clues that went past Z into AA, AB, etc.)

This article doesn’t tell much about the process of constructing an acrostic, but it does include some interesting history, not just of acrostic puzzles, but of acrostics in general.

Games: Word Zen

I had one game credit left at Big Fish Games (the result of forgetting to cancel my membership after buying a game for my son for Christmas), and only a couple of weeks left until it expired. Usually I have trouble finding any games there that appeal to me, but I had purchased two recently for my son (with the other game credits from forgetting to cancel), so I looked for something I could enjoy myself.

And I found Word Zen. Unlike most of the games at Big Fish Games, there is no storyline. That is a drawback in my son’s eyes, but it’s just fine with me. I’d rather the game developers put their time and effort into making the game run well, look good, and provide a good range of difficulty levels, rather than spend it on creating a storyline that neither makes the gameplay more interesting nor stands on its own as a compelling story.

The basic idea of the game is very simple. You form words using letter tiles, which are arranged in various Mahjong layouts. As with Mahjong, you can only use tiles that are open on at least one side. But instead of matching symbols, you use as many letters as you can to form words. At the level I’m currently at (Apprentice, which is the easiest), there is a limit of eleven letters; I don’t know if higher levels allow longer words.

As with other word games such as Bookworm Adventures, some tiles give you more points, and there is also a suggested “bonus” word, though I haven’t noticed that making those words seems to add many points. (Plus it often happens that one or more tiles needed to make the bonus word are not available.) There is also a timer, which ends the level when you run out of time. At the Apprentice level I sometimes clear the tiles before running out of time, but one of the reviews indicates that at the highest level the time is way too short.

The “reward” for finishing each level is an item in your “Zen Garden,” which provides “soothing visuals and sounds” to help you relax. I have the sound turned off right now, so I don’t know how soothing the sounds are. Somehow I can’t see looking at a picture of a garden on a computer screen to relax – reading a good book or taking a walk is much better for that purpose.

But I like making words. So far, my biggest problem is that my hand and wrist are getting tired from using the mouse to click on letters, as I go through level after level. So now it’s time to take a break and go relax with a good book.