This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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Curmudgeon’s Corner: Show Mommy the Bell

In the latest Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and IvГЎn talk about:
* Stuff Sam Read and Watched
* Charlie Hebdo Attack
* Charlie Hebdo Continued / Memory / Kirby Delauter
* Media Attention / New Congress / CES

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Recorded 2015-01-08

Length this week – 1:08:50

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The King’s Speech

Released: 2010 Sep 6
Watched: 2011 Jan 17

OK, this movie I remember. Brandy and I did one of our not all that often trips to actually see something in the theater.

Bottom line, I loved it.

It of course won a bunch of awards too.

I like this sort of historical “based on a true story” type of movie though. They are never exactly true to the history of course, as things are changed for dramatic effect and all. So what do I do as soon as I get home from the movie?

That’s right, I spend the next several hours reading Wikipedia pages about the characters in the movie, and that moved on to related events and people, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Anyway, great story about a king with a speech impediment and how he overcomes it to make a critical speech at the beginning of World War II.

And now, while writing this post, I find myself once again reading Wikipedia articles, so I should stop and move on.

But hey, if you haven’t seen this yet, and like this sort of historical drama, go rent or buy it or whatnot now. K?

Babies

BabiesDid I mention I was behind in posting about movies we’ve watched? Yes, I believe I did. In any case, a few months back I actually took the morning off from work for a day, and we all went to the “Mommy and Me” showing of Babies. For those not familiar with the concept, the theater sets up in a way geared toward people bringing very small children, meaning newborns up through maybe age three seeming to be the most common age. They leave the lights turned up part way. The volume isn’t as loud as it might normally be. They let you order snacks from your seat and have people bring them to you so you don’t have to gather all of your stuff, etc. Nobody blinks about moms nursing in the theater, or babies crying, or slightly older ones running around a little, etc. The whole point is letting you be able to go see a movie and not worry about that even though you have an infant or toddler. Some of the older kids may start to enjoy the movie itself to, but the main point is for the parents I think. Brandy has been to several of these with Alex, but we decided we’d all go to this one together.

It was a lot of fun. Alex payed attention for a bit, then fell asleep, then payed attention again for a bit.

So, the movie itself. For those who haven’t heard of it, it is basically a no-commentary, almost no-words documentary where they just had camera crews shadow four different babies from four completely different parts of the world for their first year or two and see what they saw. So basically you get 79 minutes of watching four babies be cute, and noticing the differences (and similarities) between the four kids and their families.

And, so, well, it was cute. As long as you went into it with the expectation that all you would be getting was an extended look at babies doing stuff, then you got exactly what you expected and you could enjoy it and go “awww” at all the appropriate moments and cock your head to the side when you saw one of the non-american babies doing something you would never (or at least rarely) see here. (For instance, fighting with a goat and a chicken over who gets a bed or something.)

Anyway, cute movie. Probably more so if there is, is about to be, or recently was an infant in your life.

This is long gone from the theaters by now, but if you are into the “hey, let me spend time looking at something cute that doesn’t even pretend to have a plot or a point” kind of thing, then go ahead and rent this. :-)