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!!!!”

An Open Letter to “The Office”

Dear “The Office”

I’m sorry if this comes across as rude, but it has already been proven that I am a little punchy today having mouthed off to a patron at the library (don’t even ask), but you have really let me down lately.

I remember all the happiness of season 2 with nary a bad episode and so many standouts like “Office Olympics,” “The Dundies,” and of course, “The Injury.”  Then came season three and you took Jim away.  I was a little perturbed, and there were some lackluster lulls in your greatness, but all in all everything was made up for by the last two shows of the season.

Season four was something of a confused mess where Michael became even more unbelievable (driving into a lake???) Jan went crazy, and Ryan was a douche.  But I let that slide because the strike disrupted the creative process.

Well, now that the fifth season is in full swing, how do I say this…..I am about one episode away from bailing on you and moving on to better things with the far superior 30 Rock.  The Dwight/Angela/Andy thing is becoming nothing but annoying (and is totally out of character for Angela), the stellar supporting cast seems to be relegated even more to the shadows, and don’t even get me started on how much the writers are irking me with what they are doing with Jim and Pam.  The first time they are together in so many episodes and they do that stupid scene with his brothers????  What were they thinking????

Now I will say that I have loved Holly.  But, I knew that she was not around to stay, so all the adorableness between her and Michael actually just made it worse because now she is gone and Michael is miserable and what do you bet Jan comes back in the picture.

I am writing this as a warning to tell you to pull yourself together.  I am not asking for season 2 caliber, I will settle for season 1 or 3.  But this is not an empty threat…..I have abandoned many a favorite tv show in my day because they made me mad.  I gave up on “Lost” in the middle of season 3 when it was meandering around all over the place and Sawyer and Kate did it in a cage….what what????  Apparently it got awesome after that, but I have moved on and won’t revisit it.  Also, Grey’s Anatomy was one of my must watch shows until Izzie slept with George.  That was just about the stupidest thing that could have happened and it made me hate two of my favorite characters, and I haven’t watched the show since.

So please, my Office friends.  Please get better.  I don’t want to stop watching you, but my time is precious and I already have a lot of stuff happening on Thursday nights.  But just know that if I do give up on your new episodes, we will always have season 2.

Sincerely,

Jen

The Office: Holly

Hey readers,

So I hope you have all been keeping up with this season’s episodes of The Office.  As you all should know, Toby has left for Costa Rica and there is a new HR rep in town and her name is Holly!

Last week, Michael and Holly went out to lunch.  The hubby and I were watching last Thursday night, but sadly, as Mr. F was so upset that Meredith might be fired, I didn’t get to hear a lot of their conversation.  So the other night Mr. F was watching the episode again on nbc.com, and all of a sudden he came running to me and said, you have to see this!  So I get up and go over to the computer, and he starts up the scene.  Michael and Holly are at lunch. 

Michael: What do you think? What do you think of this place?
Holly: Oh, it’s very nice.
Michael: Istn’t it? Yeah, it’s kind of… business/romantic. So you’re from Des Moines?
Holly: Mmm.
Michael: Wow, that sounds so… warm.
Holly: In Summer.
Michael: Here too.

What!?  Holly’s from Iowa!  Get out of town.  Just thought you should know.

Oh, and another one of my favorite scenes from last week’s episode:

<3, lindsayF

Sometimes We Just Have A Little Trouble With The Monkey

OK, so most of you should have read Amber’s post about Camp Rock.  How many of you actually watched it?  If you say no, what’s your excuse?  It was not only shown on Disney, but ABC Family, and ABC, and then on disney.com.  So if you don’t have cable, you could have watched it on ABC.  If you don’t have a TV, you could have watched it on disney.com, if you don’t have a TV or the internet, well, this doesn’t apply because all of our readers at least have the internet.  So no excuses!  

Well, what can I say.  I have to agree with a post made by namedropper, and also Amber whom I talked with on the phone after watching the movie.  I think maybe we wouldn’t have been so disappointed if Disney hadn’t hyped the damn movie so much.  If they hadn’t raised our expectations then the movie would have been great.  But it was supposed to rock the summer, and quite frankly I’m more excited about tomorrow night when the American Gladiators go head to head with the cast of The Office on the Celebrity Family Feud (watch in on NBC at 7:00 PM central time!).

I’d be scared if I were a gladiator!

Anyhow, back to Camp Rock.  If you haven’t watched it by now, and still want to, stop reading right now and go watch it.  If you haven’t watched it by now, and probably will never watch it, go ahead and keep reading if you want.  I don’t want to spoil anything.

Sure, the movie was adorable.  However, as Amber pointed out, and which I have to agree, there are certain things that just don’t really groove with the plot.  For example, why did they show the mean girl looking at Mitchie’s song book if she wasn’t going to do anything with it?  There are certain things where it just seemed like the middle was a little twisted and didn’t fully connect with the end.  

Much like this kid and how he completely and utterly failed at putting together the silver monkey.

Seriously, is it that hard to put together the shrine of the silver monkey?  Honest to goodness, I swear I could put that thing together in my sleep in like 5 seconds.  I’m still waiting for them to put me one that show.  I don’t care that they stopped making it like 10 years ago, I will get on it somehow.

Anyways, I was super ticked off with ABC for showing so many commercials during their airing.  I feel like I got to watch 5 minutes of the movie and then we were back to the ads!  I’m all for ad integration into shows.  When someone finds out how to do it subtly and so that it doesn’t ruin the show, please let me know so I can start plaguing the networks with requests to do it.  Also, I was really annoyed with how they continually said that they were going to show clips from ABC’s new show, HSM Get in the Picture, during the movie, but then didn’t.  Also I was annoyed with the fact that I had to wait like 20 minutes to see the Jonas Brothers new music video, which was way cute.  Is it wrong if I imagine my 15 year old self was attracted to Nick?  And I love that they put Selena Gomez (aka Mikayla from HM, thank you Jill, and Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place, thank you Amber) as Nick’s love interest.  I think she is way adorable, but I agree with Amber, I’m not sure where our friend status would fall if ever that were to occur.  Plus I love Wizards of Waverly Place, and I can’t wait to see what happens with Mikalya and Miley since the last time she was on Mikayla was all like Let’s Be FRIENDS! with Miley, but she wanted to talk about how much she hates Hannah!  I smell a friendship?  Maybe?  

Well, that’s all I have for you right now.  I’m trying to be oh so diligent with my mathematical essays (I had to write an essay about which mathematical philosophy I believed in, logicism, intuitionism, or formalism, and I totally had to figure out what I did believe in.  It’s logicism, but only partly, because I don’t believe that logic precedes mathematics ALL the time), and today is the first day that I’m actually slightly succeeding.  I’ll leave you with a nice video of a former Backstreet Boy, A.J. McLean (hint, he’s the only boy and the one in blue…in this video, it’s only part 1 of 3, so you may think he’s going to dominate, but SPOILER, he loses to a girl). **Taken from margflower’s youtube account**

<3, lindsayF

 

 

Just Another Way to Waste My Time….

So I was casually reading Entertainment Weekly today (the actual magazine, not the website) and there was an article about hulu.com. It sounded so amazing that I almost couldn’t believe what I was reading……..it is a website where you can watch tv shows and movies for FREE!!!!

Now, I know there are like 10,000 other websites where you can do the same thing, but on this one, you just have to sign up with a username (nothing scary like a credit card number or anything) and then you are free to watch clips or entire episodes. There are some commercials sprinkled in here and there, but the quality is so much better than YouTube will ever be. This is actually supported by the studios and networks so it isn’t like some of those shady operations (RIP tvlinks, sniffle)

Most of the shows on there now are from Fox and NBC so that means there are full episodes of “The Simpsons,” “The Office,” “30 Rock,” and “Arrested Development.” Anyone who has not seen “Arrested Development” needs to go to that website right now and watch every single one, no excuses accepted.

I am pretty pumped about “Buffy” and “Major Dad.” Yes, that is right, “Major Dad”!!!!!!!! I used to watch that show all the time when it was on. I can’t wait to watch it again and realize, What was I thinking?

I am pretty much going to be wasting my time on this for the next few weeks, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, I am catching up on my Buffy watching.

Jen

The Office UK: Mr. Ricky Gervais dances

I think this is something that needs to be shared with the public.  Jen, Jill, you have probably already seen this since you 2 seem to be our Official NGT ambassadors to the UK version of The Office.  I love Ricky Gervais.

<3, lindsayd.

Fictional Characters I Would Date: Part One

So I was perusing the internet today and found this feature on Entertainment Weekly where people talked about the fictional characters they would like to date……….and seeing as I have no actual prospects here on the outskirts of the Windy City I thought I might post my own thoughts on the matter. I was going to do a top five list, then it expanded to a top ten, but then I decided the best idea would be to make it a series of posts so that when I have nothing exciting to talk about (in other words most of the time) I can ramble on about how fictional guys are much more wonderful than actual ones (no offense meant to any real guys).

My first choice is pretty obvious to anyone that knows me………………..Drumroll please……….

Mr. Jim Halpert/Mr. Tim Canterbury from the U.S. and British versions of “The Office”

There really isn’t much explanation needed here for anyone who has ever seen either version of “The Office.” Jim Halpert just seems like the kind of guy who would make the perfect boyfriend. He’s laidback, charming, funny, sweet, knows his Harry Potter, has great hair, and the best facial expressions in the world………..and we found out in the deleted scenes from season two that he’s man enough to play with dolls while babysitting Toby’s daughter. The only bad thing about Mr. Halpert is that he can be downright cruel to women who aren’t named Pam Beesley. Oh well, if he wasn’t such a sucker for Pam he just wouldn’t be the same.

Now I watched the British Office after I was a huge fan of the Scranton gang, but I must say that I think I prefer Mr. Tim Canterbury to good ol’ Jim………..Tim does have quite a few things going for him………he’s got that amazing accent, he’s more of a teddy bear, and he’s a little bit more pathetic………now I don’t mean that in a bad way…………it’s just that with Jim, you can tell that he was the cool kid in school and he doesn’t really have trouble getting girls to like him (hello Katy the purse girl!), he just can’t get the girl he wants. Tim on the other hand always kind of looks like he needs a hug and he has to put up with a boss that is way worse than Michael Scott, but he manages to make it through each day by torturing Gareth and laughing with Dawn. But in the end, I think it is really the accent that pushes him over the edge. And also the fact that the last ten minutes of the UK Office Christmas Special are the most romantically heart-wrenching moments I have ever seen on film. Yes, I may be exagerating a wee bit, but every time I watch it, or even hear the song for that matter, I become like a leaky faucet. I would post that scene here, but it just doesn’t seem right to see it out of context, so I will leave you with this very adorable Tim nugget………..(did I mention that he’s cutely pathetic?)

Jen