Made me laugh...

Denied!

Musical Sunday #5 - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

This is one of Min's favorites. She will sing along to the entire show if you let her.

The Christiansens came over for lunch after church and then we watched "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" together.

I really like this musical, and so did everyone else... well, except for one thing, but we'll talk about that later.

This was the second collaboration between Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and is unique from all other musicals (that I've seen) where it is completely sung (no spoken dialog).

I love how each song is a new style. My favorite is the take on French Ballads "Those Canaan Days" and then next is the western "One More Angel In Heaven".

Min's favorite is Joseph's (Donny's) "Close Every Door":



Okay... it was Aaron who had a problem with something (and Min and I could have picked it from the start).

Some of the costumes are... how can I say it... rather inappropriate for young viewers. Several of the female dancers have on skin colored body suits with well placed stars and shells, fish netting, etc., especially Joan Collin's Mrs. Potifer.


Donny's expression in the pic above matched the kids' reaction to the costumes.

Anyways, it was a wonderful time (and is wonderfully short at around 78 minutes).

We recommend it... but you might want to screen it first if you have doubts.

"The Brothers Clayton" Icon Redux...

Took the icons through a revision this weekend...






I even animated the little versions!

My job is so much fun!

Announcing...

Pratt Wood Whitesides
February 19, 2009
2:42 pm
6 lbs. 8 oz.
18 1/2"

This is my new nephew. Jill's first little one, and the first on my side of the family that isn't mine. We are all pretty excited and it will be really fun once our little one is born next month! Now if only we didn't live so far away.

Pride and Predators (Jane Austen meets Alien Bounty Hunters)

Variety.com is reporting that this is in works from Elton John's Rocket Pictures:

Rocket launches 'Predator'
Clark to direct aliens vs. Jane Austen pic
By MICHAEL FLEMING

Elton John's Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends.

Will Clark is set to direct "Pride and Predator," which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

Shooting will begin in London later this year. John exec produces, and his Rocket partners Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish are producing.

Clark, who directed award-winning short "The Amazing Trousers," wrote the script with Andrew Kemble and John Pape.

"It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect," Furnish said.

John will supervise the music, as he does in each Rocket-produced film.

This could be great!

Working on some icons...

For my Web III class, the students are developing a series of icons for a blog that they are scripting from the ground up. Every year, I design one along with them.

This year's theme... the Clayton Boys (sorry Michelle).

Preface: These are not meant to offend or make fun of anyone. They are just based on my observations.

So here they are. Give me a critique if you feel like it.

Mike
So, as a standard: goatee (or beard), glasses, and the full face (full square) is what I went for with this design. I'm fine with it.

Sean

Sean's bald (or buzzed in this one), has a full face, and the little soul patch thingy going on. Took off the glasses and added the shadow shapes to the sides of his face to show some shape. I'm thinking I change the hair color to something more dirty blonde. And he has a little bit bigger nose to help distinguish him from the rest of us.

Jared

One of the only true brunettes in the family, Jared got the brown eyebrows, the more round glasses (I think I may increase the number of squares in the bottom rim to achieve a better roundness), and the full face and cheek shadows. I might make the mouth more a smile by adding some squares on the side.

Bryan

Bryan has the thinner face, the more slender nose (with nostrils) and the cheesy grin. I'm happy with the direction, but not the details. I might add ears, but no one else has them, except...

Spencer

Basically a cooler version of me with the slimmer face (to which I might add ears, like Bryan's), the slim nose, the less full face, and the hipper glasses. I might add some cheek shadows, but I'm not sure.


Anyways, comments are welcomed.

Musical Sunday #4 - Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's "Carousel"

We continued the series with Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's Carousel.

The story of carousel barker Billy Bigelow and his trials as a man, a husband, and a soon-to-be father. Gordon MacRae (barker Billy Bigelow) and Shirley Jones (mill worker Julie Jordan) star in wonderful tale -- that I liked, but the kids were indifferent.

I guess as a father I can relate the struggles that Billy has, and that might be the point where the kids lost interest... well that and the songs and dances are looooong and that might have bored them.

Anyways, next week it's Donny Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Appropriate for Valentine's Day (... and the Current Economy)

P.S. Min... I love you!

Musical Sunday #3 - Newsies

Continuing on with our new Sunday Family Activity, we watched the 1992 musical sensation Newsies.

Director Kenny Ortega (director of High School Musical, HSM2, and HSM3) took a shot with Disney on reviving the musical back in 1992. It didn't really garner that much attention, but it did gain a cult following... one of them being my wife.

A grown-up Christian Bale (last seen as a boy in Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun) stars as Jack "Cowboy" Kelly, a newsie in the Big Apple that helps ignite a strike against newspaper mogul Joseph Pulitzer (Robert Duvall). A small time newspaper reporter (a pre-ID4 Bill Pullman) helps them win their rights... but not after alot of singing, dancing, spit-shaking, and a little bit of smoking and carousing (care of Ann-Margaret, who in this films a still-hot-at-50-dancing-girl).

It's an enjoyable film and the kids loved it (except for Alex who wondered off to play with the toys on the other side of the game room).

We we're going to watch Gigi... but Min didn't get it from library yet. So that's next week.

After that we might help the kids learn that "the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" and how to really pronounce the term "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera."