My Experience With... Finding Nemo

(I wrote this a long time ago, and was too lazy to edit it.)

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I am planning on watching Finding Dory, which I hear is pretty amazing (I guess Pixar’s regained its magic touch with making movies and movie sequels), so I figure why not tell you about the original film?

You may have guessed by now that I enjoy movies. I do! Retro, animated, family, Christian, and independent / low-budget are my favorite genres. I used to go to the movies practically every weekend by the time I was a teenager, usually with my Dad. Mom would occasionally watch one in the theatre with me or with me and my Dad, but sitting in a dark room looking up for two hours at a gigantic screen that could for all intents and purposes be messing up your vision bit by bit was not her idea of fun.

You may stop singing the song from

The Swan Princess, thank you.

The first movie I saw in theatres was actually a Disney/Pixar film, but it wasn’t this one. Anyway, my Dad took me to see Finding Nemo, and I remember getting a little bit upset with him because he fell asleep several times during the film, including the beginning.

Like, SERIOUSLY.

Finding Nemo starts with a fish named Marlin and his wife Coral, who are the proud owners of a nice sea anemone with an oceanfront view. They are also proud soon-to-be parents. Coral likes the name Nemo for her kids, and Marlin agrees to name one of them that, even though he prefers that most be named Marlin, Jr.

Men...

Their bright future is thrown into oblivion, however, when a barracudda attacks, knocking Marlin unconscious as it eats his wife and all the eggs but one.

1) This is about as heavy as the beginning 

of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

2) See? Up wasn’t the first Pixar

film with a depressing beginning.

3) Wait, this was rated “G”???

A distraught Marlin wakes up to find his wife nowhere to be found, and finds one surviving egg out of over 400. He names him Nemo, in his wife’s memory.

These events, unsurprisingly, cause Marlin to be a very paranoid, overprotective father, much to the chagrin of his adventurous son, who has an underdeveloped fin due to the accident. Time passes, and Nemo heads off for school with his nervous wreck of a father. Marlin gingerly drops him off at school, but when he finds out that the teacher is taking the class somewhere dangerous, he flips out and goes to find Nemo. Marlin does find him, but in a series of rebellious events, Nemo ends up captured by a fisherman. This starts the adventure we know and love today, plus how we’ll end up with Finding Dory.

This movie was awesome. Classic lines, nice characters, and Dory cracked me up. Oh, and how many times have I sung that song of hers with friends or tried to “speak whale”?

Then, of course, this joke:

So funny.

I even remember being in a shoe store, and these three cute guys (probably significantly older than myself) who worked there quoted the Sharks once. I perked up, and my Dad mentioned that I had seen the movie several times (ugh, so embarrassing!!! Lol).

Overall, five thumbs up, plus one “lucky fin.” I’m looking forward to watching Finding Dory with my galpal / movie buddy Sarah (you may remember reading about her from the Annie post).

Okay, Pixar, you’ve won my trust back with original films, and I’ve heard that this was the best sequel you’ve done in a while, but still...

Please don’t mess it up.

Please don’t mess it up.

Please don’t mess it up.

Ciao!

What’s you’re favorite 2D animted feature? What’s your favorite 3D animated feature?

My Experience With... Luann

Hey, guys, another early one, but I promise there's a pretty legit explanation.

Anyway, I read a lot of comic strips growing up, which I can probably thank my Dad for. :) One of my favorite things to do on Sundays was read the (then) myriads of Sunday comics (and even that wasn't as many as the Sunday comics in my Dad's time!)

Being a child, I didn't always get the humor from the comic strips, but I did love looking at the characters, plus the humor I did get.

Anyway this was the first Luann trip I remember reading:

For a few years, I was a pretty casual reader, and then a few years ago, I came across the comic strip again, and decided to read it from the beginning (because I figured I'd missed a few key plots over time). By the way, it took WEEKS to read from its mid-80s origins. It's a pretty good storyline, and I'm glad they didn't make Luann anywhere close to a perfect protagonist, it makes her character multi-dimensional and her "life story" more realistic.

Recently, the story has been focused more on Brad (Luann's Brother) and Toni (Brad's fiancée), and Toni has just picked out a wedding gown. Of course, they won't show us what it is, because it will be based on a fan contest... which I've entered!!!

This is my entry:

You can access this at http://luannfan.com/contest-photo/507/.

There are some technical difficulties with the links, but my design is #507, if you go to luannfan.com

I posted this early because voting has come up today, and you can vote once per day until the 17, so I obviously want to gather as many votes as possible.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your vote!

What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

My Experience With… The Last Appeal.

Yeah......... didn't post anything last week. It was... kinda crazy for me (I don't even know how to eloquently explain half of it), and I meant to post this last week, but I forgot. Anyway....

Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned to appreciate Christian films. Sure, they’re not as flashy or as elegant as mainstream movies, and I don’t have anything against them, either. It’s just that, well, some of them can actually be really good, in spite of their obvious Christian tones and B-list-ness.

Yes, that’s a word I made up.

Anyway, one such movie was The Last Appeal.

Ever watch a movie and think, “Um… am I watching a movie or a theatrical production?” or, “Am I at the theater or the theatre?

Yes, I brought back that gif.

I spent way too much time

timing it just to use it once.

Well, I get the feeling a playwright wrote it, and a theatre director staged it. Oh, and I’m almost certain the actors are part of a theatrical traveling troupe, but that’s being waaaaay too nit-picky to consider it as a real flaw.

This movie starts out in a back alleyway where a drug deal is taking place between a drug lord and a crooked cop. Right in the middle of it, a man with a gun shows up out of nowhere demanding the money just handed to the drug lord. It turns out that drug lord owed random man the money or something. In any case, a cop shows up out of nowhere (seriously, doesn’t this sound like an intro to Law and Order or something?) demanding everyone put their weapons down. Crooked cop actually made the setup without anticipating the other guy arriving.

After a verbal battle that goes on way longer than it would’ve gone in real life, random man shoots the second cop (named Ivan) on the spot and escapes. The drug lord disappears, too, not to be seen again in the film. The one shot kills the second cop, and the man (named Titus) ends up on death row.

The film cuts ahead one year and shows Ivan’s widow, Trisha, on the computer. Her friend Katherine tries to get her hopes up to no avail. She even points out the fact that Trisha has stopped playing the piano, which is very odd behavior for a professional concert pianist. Still, nothing.

In the death row cells, there are five inmates. The first is Curtis, a tattooed White Supremacist. The second is Randy, a man trying to prove his innocence, in spite of his dwindling hope. Titus is in the middle, and he tries and tries daily to get the governor to lower his sentence to life in prison. The fourth is Clayton, a war veteran and former drug dealer who got saved in prison (and is trying his hardest to get the other inmates saved). The last one is Doc, another veteran, but has PTSD and does not talk.

The Last Appeal takes a small but powerful journey for each of these six individuals, based on faith and knowing when to give your life to God. Oh, and it has a HEAVY Gospel message in there. FOUR TIMES and FOUR WAYS (at least) the Gospel is presented. Oh, no, this isn’t playing around with Christianity, this is dealing with life and death.

I DARE NOT SAY WHAT HAPPENED TO TITUS, but I will say that I could not hold it together. Man, I wasn’t ready for the ending. I hadn’t cried that much due to a movie since Rigoletto! It does have a very dark, heavy tone, but what would you expect from a movie about death row? I don’t care who you are, where you are, or who you worship, just watch it at least once. 5/5 Stars.

What’s your favorite sad movie?