My Real Favorite Movies #7

Follow That Bird is an amazing, amazing movie!!  You might think that it is just a kids movie, but you would be very, very wrong.  I remember watching it when I was a little kid, but I kind of forgot about it as I got older.  Then one of my high school friends reintroduced me to it because she loved it and watched it all the time.  After that, I totally bought my own copy and watch it at least a couple times a year.

The basic plot of the movie is pretty simple.  A woman named Miss Finch from the Feathered Friends decides that Big Bird belongs in a family with real birds and needs to leave Sesame Street.  Big Bird goes to live with the Dodo family in Oceanview, Illinois (haahahaha).  Very quickly, Big Bird realizes that he doesn’t belong with the Dodos and decides to head back to Sesame Street on foot.  Miss Finch goes after him to bring him back, and many of the familiar Sesame Street people (and Muppets) head out to bring Big Bird home.

One of the reasons I love this movie is because it is so funny!!  Sesame Street has always done a great job of being entertaining for kids and adults and this movie continues that tradition.  You know the movie has to be funny because it was directed by Ken Kwapis who did many early episodes of The Office.  I love that there are jokes thrown in specifically for adults (Chevy Chase as the news reporter comes to mind) and yet the movie is still completely appropriate for kids.  My favorite funny parts were the lawn mower, anything with Super Grover,  and Cookie Monster eating the car.

The best thing about this movie is the music.  There are lots of songs in the movie, and they are all catchy and well done.  Waylon Jennings even makes an appearance as a truck driver and sings one of my favorites “Ain’t No Road Too Long.”  I love all the songs, but my favorite has to be the lullabye-esque “One Little Star.”

Ugh, now i am totally crying from watching that video.  Anything in this movie with Big Bird and Snuffy makes me a little teary.  I know what it’s like to say goodbye to friends when they move and it sucks.  It doesn’t help that Alaina Reed (Olivia) passed away over a year ago when she was still way too young.

Ahem, anyway…..the movie is awesome and is filled with LOTS of people you will recognize.  Not only will you (hopefully) recognize all your favorite Sesame Street cast members, but there are lots of other celebrities that pop up as well.

I just watched the movie again the other day and it was just as good as I remembered.  Here are some things that I noticed that I hadn’t realized before.

*Why does the Count travel all by himself?  All the other searchers (except Super Grover at first) have traveling companions, but the Count rides in his car alone.  Is it because no one can handle him counting every single thing on the trip?

*Elmo shows up at the very end in one of the windows on Sesame Street.  He wasn’t even a character yet, but he somehow managed to work his way onto the newest DVD cover.  Hmmmmmm……

*Snuffy has some killer eyelashes.

*During the “Bluebird of Happiness” song, the whole front row of the audience is filled with sets of twins…….what is that all about??

*Gordon is totally sexy.  I don’t care how wrong that is, it’s true.

*The movie’s message, that families are made up of all different sorts and you don’t need to be with “your own kind” to be happy is even more relevant today.

*The Count kind of looks like Steve Carell from season one of The Office.

 

 

 

 

 

So, even if you are a grownup with no excuse for renting/buying/Netflixing a kids movie, don’t be embarrassed to get this one because it is totally worth it!

Jen

P.S.  One of my least favorite patrons in the library really looks like Miss Finch.  Every time she comes in I hear Big Bird in my head saying “It’s Miss Finch!!!!”

Can You Tell Me How To Get, How To Get To Sesame Street (Cuz I Want To Live There)

I have a little series of posts on this blog called Fictional Characters I Would Date.  And yes, I know I haven’t updated in forever, but I think I will have at least one or two of them this month.  I was thinking about the idea of dating fictional characters and my mind began to wander and I started to think about fictional places I would want to live (don’t ask how I got there, because I can’t even tell you).  So the following is a list of places from movies, tv, or books that I would love to live.

Now I am following pretty strict rules for this.  It has to be a community that you would like to belong to.  I am not going to say “I want to live next door to Joey and Chandler,” because even though that would be awesome, there isn’t really a sense of community there.  I mean a collection of people and places that would make me feel at home.

1.  Everwood, Colorado:  Of course, most people probably already guessed this would be my first choice.  While watching Everwood on DVD you not only fall in love with the characters, you fall in love with the town.  The main street lined with shops that would never be able to stay open in a normal small town, the doctor’s office that used to be a train station, the school with the lunch tables outside (in COLORADO!!!), the snow capped mountains within walking distance.  This is a place I could live and truly call my home.  I would be best friends with Amy and Hannah and live right across the street from Nina and Dr. Brown.

Aaaaah, from this view you can almost see my house

2.  The Beast’s Castle:  I consider the Beast’s castle an entire community because it is huge and there are so many freakin’ people that live there (people, inanimate objects….whatever).  I would love to be Belle’s best friend, and I think it would be really fun to watch Lumiere and Cogsworth argue all the time.  I also wouldn’t mind the occasional opportunity to burst into song whenever I am all emotional.  I wouldn’t care if I was the royal toilet scrubber, as long as Belle let me use the library, I would live there forever.  Also, with all those servants around, I could totally find a cute French guy to date.  Maybe I would fall in love with a fork.

Gratuitous Library Picture

3.  Hobbiton:  It was a close call between Hobbiton and Rivendell, but I thought I would be a little intimidated if I had to be around really tall people who looked like Liv Tyler all the time.  Also, I think they would be surrounded by bugs all the time living in trees.  I would live in a little Hobbit house with a round door and little round rooms and it would be totally amazing!!!  We all know from reading the books/watching the movies that Hobbits know how to have fun.  They throw awesome parties, spend most of the time outdoors gardening and spend the rest of their time in the pub.  Not to mention the fact that some of the hobbits (ahem, Merry, ahem) are incredibly cute.  I could even get past the hairy feet (maybe…….).

Ummm, who wouldn't want to live here?

4.  Sesame Street:  Oh man, what person my age wouldn’t love to live on Sesame Street!!!  I haven’t watched it in ages, but I would love to live in 1980s era Sesame Street with Maria, Olivia, Gordon (and before Elmo made it big).  I could visit Oscar every day and then go hang with Big Bird in his nest.  I could REALLY learn to speak Spanish which is something College professors couldn’t help me with.  I would also get a big kick out of seeing the Count every day!  The only unfortunate thing is that there would be kids EVERYWHERE, but I think I could handle it.  I would probably just spend more and more time hanging out with Oscar.

See, it's all of my friends welcoming me home.

5.  Cabot Cove, Maine:  One of the things that I love most about Murder, She Wrote is that Jessica Fletcher is always outside riding her bicycle in the gorgeous Maine air.  I would love to be her junior detective sidekick and help her solve all of her mysteries.  I would enjoy rolling my eyes at the totally clueless sheriff and trying to lure Jessica away from her typewriter to work on a computer.  My mom pointed out that this might be a dangerous place to live, but I said that as long as I was a recurring character, I wouldn’t be in much danger.  I might be accused of murder, but Jessica would be able to prove my innocence.

Just picture me riding right behind her on my scooter

6.  Avonlea, Prince Edward Island:  This one probably would have been higher on the list, but they don’t seem to have the modern conveniences that I would normally require, so that’s why it is at the bottom.  (I mean, Rose Cottage has an outhouse!!!)  I would work at the general store with Miss Stacey and dine at the White Sands on the weekends.  I would be best friends with Olivia Dale and totally try to steal Gus away from Felicity…..or maybe I would just wait until Felix is old enough and steal him from Izzie.  I would adore the small town feel, all of the beautiful fields of wild grass, and the seashore, OH THE SEASHORE!!!  Yes, I could definitely live here, even if I didn’t have a real toilet.

Aaaah, Avonlea...my own personal haven.

So, that is all I can think of off the top of my head.  I considered putting in Sunnydale, California, but I’m pretty sure I would be eaten right away by one of the monsters-of-the-week (I wouldn’t even be special enough to be offed by the big bad).  My mom also put in her two cents and said she would live in Brigadoon.  Very good choice, very nice.

What do you think?  Which fictional community would you want to live in?

Jen

Sunny Days, Sweeping the Clouds Away….

I just smacked my laptop screen because it was taking too long to load something…….sigh………that is the kind of day I am having today, no wait, the kind of week I am having.

So when I need to cheer myself up, I crawl back into my childhood and remember the carefree, relaxing, nonstressful joys of being young. One of my favorite things as a girl was Sesame Street. I watched it religiously back then, and still think that “Follow That Bird” is one of the greatest movies ever.

So here is a tiny clip from Sesame Street done by one of my favorite children’s authors, Mr. Mo Willems. He does the Pigeon books and also the Elephant and Piggie books. He is pretty much fantastic in every way. We shall call him the “Meg Cabot” of the male persuasion.

And to continue with the Sesame Street theme, this is what I feel like on most days at the library (I am the librarian and not Cookie Monster).

Jen