enjoying the heat wave!

hot hot hot!

the east coast heat wave has been in effect here for a couple of days!

being old fashioned, we did what folks did in the old days -- went to the movies!

("Come on in! It's COOL inside!")
not just The Movies, but we went to the brand new Springfield VT (home of Homer Simpson) movie theater, which after 3 years has risen -- just in time to open with the new Harry Potter -- phoenix-like, from the ashes of it's burnt down self.
not long after the town won the distinction of being named the official home of Homer Simpson, some rejected young lover in an apartment above the old downtown movie theater started a fire which burned the whole building down! we've missed having movies just 20 minutes away.
and now it's back!

the other way i've been keeping cool, with plenty of friendly funny companions, is at the ool in Raglan! 

and no UV to worry about either.

mudpie is sunning on the raft in her new bikini.

click to enlarge - dive in!

TROLL! bwahahahahahaha?

watched Trollhunter last night and enjoyed it for what it was.
woke up this morning, slapped my forehead and thought "duh, it was supposed to be FUNNY!"
it's not that i have no sense of humor, just takes me 8 hours to get the joke?
or...maybe all those funny parts were meant to be serious?
guess i'll have to learn norwegian.

Raglan Film Festival

Still raining, raining, raining! fortunately yesterday, as it rained and rained, mudpie was able to attend the tiny machinima festival awards (The Otters).  ten machinima were screened as over 50 tinies cheered, commented, nommed, a few biggies attended too. 

here are links to 2 of the best, one of which has a brief glimpse of mudpie singing wootmas carols, and the other is by my good friend enjah and lucy was playing piano in one scene but i think maybe it ended up on the editing floor :-(  

or is that lucy at the second tavern?
anyway, here you have some of the best of tiny machinima

Silent Film Found in French Village 

and a documentary  Merry Wootmas

to see some more go here Raglan Shire Film Festival 2011

Winter's Bone

a beautiful movie on many levels.

kinship, clan, crystal meth and above all, What Is.

the young heroine stays the path

avoids the pitfalls

goes through the trials

she does not have a scar on her forehead

well actually maybe she does by the end!

all in the stark color-richness of

children's book paintings.

if only Howard Frank Mosher's books

could have been movified so well.

if you thought the beans of egypt maine was

a depressing book, instead of a book about

real people and their lives, skip this movie!

i don't live in the ozarks, 

yet i know these people -

some of them are my neighbors.

The Wrong Alice

so did anyone like T Burton's Alice in Wonderland? 

i just saw it - wonderful characters and animations and scenery - but very sad about the story. 

i am an avid fan of the original tale and don't believe it can be improved upon, especially by stirring together narnia and avatar!

well i've always had mixed feelings about Burton's movies, there's something queasy-making to them similar to barton fink and faulty towers.

an underlying sense of eeeeeeeuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwww

man who shot etc

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance -- not a movie i ever wanted to see, but i got talked into it recently.  halfway through, i didn't want to watch any more, but i stuck with it to the end!

the next day i realized why it's a guy movie. 

(okay so this is gross generalization and stereotyping.  just keep in mind what my dear daddy always told me, "all generalizations are false." (yes including that one!))

inside a guy's mind:

inside a guy's mind is a mean, scary out-of-control guy prone to murderous rages.

inside a guy's mind is a guy who lives by the heart.  he loves deeply, cares hugely about all his friends and animals, he takes care of everyone and is always alert to protect everyone he loves from danger, even at the expense of his own happiness.

inside a guy's mind is a guy who lives by higher principle, who will fight for what he believes in and even lose his own life over it.

so there you go.

roles for women in this movie - uh - right.  plot device anyone?

imagine the fun i could have analyzing it if Annie Oakley showed up and shot Liberty V.

the history part is interesting -- women obviously couldn't vote, pommey couldn't come in the saloon, the railroad ruined the open ranges for the cattlemen -- tho they seem to be making out ok these days due to the gummint giving them huge wads of our money.

"Oklahoma" was way more fun even if the farmers and the cowboys couldn't be friends.

why i not on F-book

suppose lex luthor or j edgar hoover tried setting up a form on the internet and requiring that everyone fill one out with name, picture, some personal information...would that have worked?

i'll bet you said NO WAY!

suppose someone or some corporation a bit more sly and results-oriented used the technology from Inception to infiltrate the dreams of some college student to influence him to create an internet site with information and pictures of everyone in his yearbook?

...in the expectation (evil genius' expectation, not college student's) that this would be irresistable and soon everyone in the world for the most part would want to be on it?

don't worry about me being disappeared, very few people read my blog, and anyway it's a bit like telling people you were abducted by aliens or saw big-foot.

yeah, right.

how does instant runoff work anyway?

three of us wanted to watch a movie together at my house.
i had 4 movies, one of which i had seen already but was willing to see again.
call it movie A.

so we decided to do an instant run-off.
each took paper and pen and listed the movies by preference.
number one was the one we most wanted to see, and number 4 that we least wanted to see.
it ended up like this:

1. A, B, C

2. A, D, D

3. B, B, C

4. A, C, D

we couldn't figure out what to do next, with no clear winner!
we added together the rankings of each movie, for example A had 1 + 2 + 4 = 7.
this gave us a tie between A and B and between C and D.
once again we were stumped.

i had put movie A last, since i'd already seen it, but i said i'd watch it again, so we did.
the movie was UP. it was just as much fun the second time around!
but we're still wondering how we could have made that work!

you are what they feed you

Last night i watched a movie called Food, Inc.

In some ways I think everyone should watch it.
On the other hand, I'm not sure everyone should.

It is very much like a science fiction tale of the 'future', except that in science fiction you are horrified even though it is not real -- although to some extent you realize it is.

Food, Inc is horrifying in much the same way. Oh, and it is real.
So if you like scary movies...this one's for you!

You need this information.
Not to make you feel bad about yourself and the choices you make, you are the victim not the perpetrator in this story.
Information however unpleasant, provides choices. Knowing more, you can recognize times when you have a choice, and make the one you need to make at the time. Only you know what that is.

It's one thing to decide you are going to eat bacon now and then, despite all you know about it. It's another to ignore and even condone the passage of laws that result in millions of people having no choice but to eat total crap that ultimately sickens them.
Children shouldn't watch this.

You can get a copy here http://www.foodincmovie.com/

surviving virtual horror

when i was at the imax watching-- experiencing Avatar-- and the battle part heated up, it was so loud i could feel my bones vibrating.
the little girl next to me put her hands over her ears and stared at me instead of the screen.
what the fuck was a 3 year old girl doing there!
it was so horrible and violent, i put my earmuffs on, plugged up my ears, took off the 3D glasses, and closed my eyes.
i could still hear it and feel it.
the realization came to me that this could be like the bardo, after you die, total terror, confusion and chaos. unable to think or comprehend, that's where you choose, amidst the howling mindless chaos, out of your reflexive habit of thought and desire, the situation that determines your next life.
 wow. serious shit.
so for practice,in the theatre, amid the mind-numbing howling chaos,i chanted to myself may all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. may they be free from suffering and the root of suffering. may they never be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. may they dwell in equanimity free from passion agression and prejudice.
an amazing thing happened. it worked! my mind cleared of confusion. i found i was wishing happiness even to the arch villain! i understood that all the bad peope in the movie were really trying to be happy!
it was like i stepped up a few rungs and looked down on it all and saw there was no right and wrong. it was all wrong and sad and unecessary.

Avatar the movie

did i mention i'd seen Avatar? over a week ago in 3D at the Imax.

i'm glad i saw it in 3D at Imax. the technology is awesome, and the first part is art showing off a new medium. absolutely gorgeous and enchanting.

i'm sorry to say there was nothing new or satisfying about the story. unless it was to point out that technology gets better and better and people...well they still suck.

even the natives of pandora and all their oneness with their planet and its flora and fauna...turned out to be zenophobic from the get-go and quite good at mass slaughter of other beings.

i'm not a fan of movies that try to teach a lesson, and yet i believe every movie does just that on some level. some understanding or confirmation is absorbed by the viewer as if, Pandora-like, they had woven their tendrils together with the filmmakers.

could be it's just me, but i'd have liked a story that modeled for us a better way, especially when it portrays beings so much like humans, but just a little better, capable of amazing feats of union with forces we might almost be ready for.

the story as it is may breed many sequels, but none that i'd go see.

i would go see Avatar again, the first part is worth it! i'd just quietly sneak out when it gets to the part where half the audience has their eyes closed and their hands over their ears.

i'll be curious to hear what HBA says because altho he himself has a gentle heart, he revels joyfully in subjects that i find horrifying!