The Old College Try: Disney-Pixar's “Monsters University”

Disney-Pixar’s Fourteenth Animated Feature – 2013
Movie Review by Jack Silbert. Let me get a little continuity issue out of the way. Back in 2001’s Monsters, Inc., green one-eyed Mike Wazowski tells blue, furry James P. Sullivan, “You’ve been jealous of my good looks since the fourth grade, pal.” Now, in the all-new Monsters University, we’re told that Mike and Sulley met in college. It’s revisionist history!

Books (and Authors) We Love: “Clementine and the Spring Trip” by Sara Pennypacker

Guest Post by Sara Pennypacker
One of the problems with/great things about blogs is that you get drawn into conversations. The past couple of weeks I’ve been visiting lots of them to get ready for my blog tour, and one post I can’t stop thinking about was titled “Can You teach Empathy?” This seems like the right place to have a say about that, and a Clementine post seems the right occasion, since Clementine herself is known for her empathy, so...

Win "Jack the Giant Slayer" Blu-Ray Combo Pack!

Warner Bros. is proud to announce the arrival of Jack the Giant Slayer released on DVD & Blu-ray on June 18! Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants strive to reclaim the land they once lost, forcing Jack (Nicholas Hoult), into the battle of this life to stop them and rescue the princess! To win the Blu-Ray Combo Pack (that includes the Blu-Ray + DVD + Ultraviolet versions), just leave a comment to this story below. Be sure to include a way to reach you (email preferred) by Friday, July 5th, 5pm EST. And good luck!

Books We Love: “My Dad is Big and Strong, But …,” “Inside Outside,” “Flight 1-2-3,” and “Extreme Oceans”

It’s June! School is winding down. My daughter has finished preschool for summer. It’s time for fresh air, sunshine, and our annual trip to the beach. And you can bet we’ll pack a selection of books just right for the season. For starters, while you’re helping your child pick out a father’s day gift, how about choosing a special book that would make a wonderful “backwards” gift, from dad to child?

Web Series We Love: Isabella Rossellini’s “The Mammas”

Isabella Rossellini’s latest installment of her nature web series Green Porno is the opposite of puritanical. She wouldn’t have used the word “porno” in the title if she planned to be coy. Instead, The Mammas video series on The Sundance Channel tells the truth about the animal world’s various and bizarre maternal rituals. Her inspiration for The Mammas came from (according to NPR) “the work of evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk. Zuk wrote that self-sacrifice was not the basis of maternal instinct but rather good management of resources.” And it’s not for the faint of heart.

Better Than Good: “The Great Gatsby”

Film Review by Maggie Hames
Books and movies are different in just about every way media CAN be different. But mainly, in books, unfixed images are created in the reader’s mind and are up to infinite interpretation. In a movie, ideas become fixed as particular actors, art direction choices, editing choices, or cinematographic choices. These images are open to endless analysis, but not endless interpretation. The best literary adaptations (for my money) translate a story to the screen; they don’t just transfer it. Just about the nicest compliment I can give to Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is that it is an interesting translation of a book to film, with innovative, even thought-provoking choices that convey more emotional depth than any screen version of this book has ever achieved. This is, simply put, the BEST screen Gatsby. And overall, it’s pretty great indeed.

Too Many Irons In This Fire: “Iron Man 3”

Movie Review by Jack Silbert
On the off-chance that your family hasn’t seen Iron Man 3 yet, I have a controversial suggestion for you: Don’t go. Oh, I know, the kids have been begging. They’ll kind of hate you for a little while if you don’t take them. But maybe years from now—at a wedding, or your retirement party—they’ll come up and say, “Hey, thanks for looking out for me. I finally caught Iron Man 3 and wow, was it kind of lousy.”