Movies

[NotMiki]

Don't know exactly how young you intend, but this should work through the second grade at least, if memory serves.

Young children have an incredible ability to focus huge amounts of attention on very small things, and they like rereading.  If I were writing (and illustrating) a children's book, I would do two things.  First, repeat the same action over and over again, with different results, changing it up only at the end (The prince visits a planet, etc).  Second, I would include seemingly inconsequential details in the beginning and perhaps through the book that matter for the end of it, like Labyrinth's stuffed animals.  If there's a cooler feeling to an eight year old than being in on the big secret, I don't know what it is.

[Magetastic]

Since we're treading really close to such a topic, I wanted to ask for some opinions about the creation and direction of children's books from the DL. Yeah, whatever Movies topic. Tangents are good.

-Djinn

From what I've seen, the more modern children's books have been attempting to throw either too much propaganda or too many morals at an audience that can't really accept and appreciate the values--or fully comprehend what's being said--and that it's actually making more and more children want to go to the senseless television to watch things they don't need to try and understand.

I say too much propaganda because of the direction the government's gone with their political correctness. They've decided to aim lower and raise children with the ideas and morals they want them to. And while this has pretty much always been the case, it just feels like it's gotten much stronger as time has progressed.

I also say too many morals (and too much for them to handle) because there are a lot of fantastic children's books that teach a great many lessons that me, nor any of my friends, have managed to catch until more recent years. It all went over our heads, and the stories were just that--fun little stories.

Young children have an incredible ability to focus huge amounts of attention on very small things, and they like rereading.  If I were writing (and illustrating) a children's book, I would do two things.  First, repeat the same action over and over again, with different results, changing it up only at the end (The prince visits a planet, etc).  Second, I would include seemingly inconsequential details in the beginning and perhaps through the book that matter for the end of it, like Labyrinth's stuffed animals.  If there's a cooler feeling to an eight year old than being in on the big secret, I don't know what it is.

Children may like re-reading and be able to focus to an incredible degree, but that doesn't change a lack of understanding. They have neither the life experience to compare it to nor the base values to understand it with. They're still trying to figure out what "good" and "bad" is, some times.

[Cotigo]

There's identifying with a character doing extraordinary things; having a young protagonist that the child can identify with in a story where fantastic or unreal things happen to them is a fairly key element to most children's fiction, IIRC.  I don't have much else to add, Children's literature's kind of outside the realms of what I write/think about often.

[Grefter]

The notJim is pretty spot on with dissection of very early age literature.  Case in point see Spot books, Meg and Mog or if you want to completely overkill it with good children's books for learning to read, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  They do also like to identify with the subject in fantastic work.  This is the time something like Where The Wild Things Are come up.

[NotMiki]

I was thinking of Where the Wild Things Are, in fact.  On a much grander scale you also have The Eleventh Hour, which completely captured my imagination, along with pretty much everyone else's in my second grade class.  For those unfamiliar it is a mystery where all the clues you need are hidden in the illustrations, written backwards, jumbled, in code, etc.

Parents take note: the most effective bedtime story I know of is The Tomten, a book about a gnome-like fellow who looks after a snow-covered farm at night, checking in with all the sleeping animals.

Apropos of nothing, books that are still unquestionably worth reading that are for kids?  Anything by Roald Dahl.

[Grefter]

All of Graeme Base' work is also a good example for how to write and illustrate a book for young children as well.  Roald Dahl of course is a quintessential example for how to write for children on topics they understand without talking down to them.  This is all very good stuff which my understanding of Dev Psych backs up.

Edit - Actually having checked out some of the other stuff Base has put out since I was part of his demographic it looks like he has continued to really push the envelope in it.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Band_In_The_Universe  This sounds pretty damned awesome and fairly experimental for a children's book.

[DjinnAndTonic]

All of Graeme Base' work is also a good example for how to write and illustrate a book for young children as well.  Roald Dahl of course is a quintessential example for how to write for children on topics they understand without talking down to them.  This is all very good stuff which my understanding of Dev Psych backs up.

Edit - Actually having checked out some of the other stuff Base has put out since I was part of his demographic it looks like he has continued to really push the envelope in it.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Band_In_The_Universe  This sounds pretty damned awesome and fairly experimental for a children's book.

Wow. The Worst Band In The Universe sounds like an excellent (and very topical) book to read to Japanese youngsters.

Their creativity is going to be squeezed out of them soon enough. It's amazing to see the difference between the free-spirited sixth graders and the up-and-coming downtrodden salarymen of ninth grade. It's like 'You were so genki last year! What happened!?'

I need to find a copy of this book.

[Idun]

Terminator Salvation:
Cinematography - 9/10
Design - 8/10
Costumes - 8/10
Soundtrack - 3/10 (what music?)
Over Cheesy Lines - 9/10 (please stop saying things I already know!)
Story - 7/10. That said, I have to pep up on my Terminator history.
Disappointment Level - 6/10. Sam Worthington's sacrifice was pretty lame, plus uh, it was assumed that his heart *spoiler*

was malfunctional to begin with after a specific point in the latter part of the movie after Terminator knocked the shit out of it. But John Connor gets a good beating heart? Bullshit, he could have totally made a recovery in some nonrealistic way if they can send shit back in time. Plus it sort of quickly wraps up, and lamely wraps up, the redemption background of the character. LAME. 0/10

*end spoiler*

It was an entertaining movie if you forget much about Terminator. Well, no, because it's difficult to understand the overarching storyline. Scrap what I just said, I don't feel like backspacing.

[Sierra]

Up: Is good and stuff. Yeah.

[Fudozukushi]

was malfunctional to begin with after a specific point in the latter part of the movie after Terminator knocked the shit out of it. But John Connor gets a good beating heart? Bullshit, he could have totally made a recovery in some nonrealistic way if they can send shit back in time. Plus it sort of quickly wraps up, and lamely wraps up, the redemption background of the character. LAME. 0/10

Za

They don't have the Time tech yet.  Kyle and the T-800 being shiny new are evidence of this.

[Cmdr_King]

Here's what stood out to me; Skynet was specifically after Kyle Reese.

This makes perfect sense to the viewer- kill Kyle Reese, he never goes back in time to become John Connor's father.  Thusly, John will be highly motivated to save him and easy to trap.  Direct, logical.

But why does Skynet know this in-context?  John's father is, unless I've completely lost my mind, listed as "unknown" in all John's files (I recall them actually showing this in T2).  I suppose you could make up some justification about the info being in Sarah's psychiatric file?  But it seems more likely to me that the series has entered Timey Whimey Ball status and thus we're on a timeline in which Skynet knows that it's sent Terminators into the past and the info they gathered.  Crazy, but fun possibilities.

[Shale]

Star Trek: Watched it over the weekend. Very good. The backstory was really, really dumb, but everything else ranged from solid to excellent, particularly the casting. Zachary Quinto sold me on him as Spock pretty quickly, and Karl Urban must have used necromancy to summon the wandering soul of DeForest Kelly or something, because he was freaking perfect.

Also, for all the ways in which the story wasn't "real" Trek, it did something genuinely interesting and different with the setting that makes me want to see what happens to the Federation next, and not just to the characters. That hasn't happened since the Dominion War.

[Captain K.]

Also saw Star Trek, and it was really really good.  They screwed with the canon, but they explained why they screwed with it.  So it worked for me.  Spock makeout scenes are just wrong though.

[Excal]

Even if they involve Kirk?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Leonard Nimoy hasn't gotten any younger. And let us not talk about William Shatner in his undies.

[Grefter]

I fail to see how this makes it any less sexy.

[Cotigo]

You wouldn't.

[Grefter]

Either would you.

[Yakumo]

Saw Gran Torino while I was back home.  Not at all what I was expecting, but still a good movie.  Bogs down a bit in the middle though.

[Hunter Sopko]

I haven't seen it, but apparantly "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" involves 4 guys taking over the 6 Train at rush hour....

HAHAHAHA. Talk about requiring a suspension of disbelief. I doubt a terrorist would have enough room to pull his gun on the 6 train at rush hour, let alone be able to taking the entire train.

[superaielman]

Hot Fuzz- Hilarious. Not usually in the laugh out loud sense, just for the sheer over the top nature of the movie.

[NotMiki]

I haven't seen it, but apparantly "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" involves 4 guys taking over the 6 Train at rush hour....

HAHAHAHA. Talk about requiring a suspension of disbelief. I doubt a terrorist would have enough room to pull his gun on the 6 train at rush out, let alone be able to taking the entire train.

The 6 Train?  Seriously?  Well, I guess the thought of the cops caring about, say, a hijacked J train is also pretty hard to believe.

[Sierra]

I haven't seen it, but apparantly "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" involves 4 guys taking over the 6 Train at rush hour....

HAHAHAHA. Talk about requiring a suspension of disbelief. I doubt a terrorist would have enough room to pull his gun on the 6 train at rush hour, let alone be able to taking the entire train.

It has John Travolta. His existence alone demands more suspension of disbelief than most movies can ask of you.

This is where I slip into grouchy hipster mode and say to just watch the 70's version of Pelham instead. It has Walter Matthau, Transit Authority officer and generally does the low-key, normal-people-caught-in-shitty-situation thriller thing well. Also, it doesn't have John Travolta.

[Shale]

It has John Travolta. His existence alone demands more suspension of disbelief than most movies can ask of you.

This is where I slip into grouchy hipster mode and say to just watch the 70's version of Pelham instead. It has Walter Matthau, Transit Authority officer and generally does the low-key, normal-people-caught-in-shitty-situation thriller thing well. Also, it doesn't have John Travolta.

Seconded with fury. Pelham 1-2-3 needs no remakes.

[NotMiki]

Say, shouldn't it be, y'know, on the red trains if it's 1-2-3?