Sophie's Blog

It’s been a while since Sophie first learned to roll over onto her back but now she’s figured out how to keep going and flip to her stomach as well. The best part is that Kelly was quick enough to catch it on camera the very first time. See the exclusive video now:

We’re obviously excited that she can perform this new acrobatic feat but we are also saddened because it marks the end of being able to leave her in one place. No more quick diaper refilling while she’s on the changing table. No more running to the other room to grab the phone. I was watching her while making coffee (step by step) and by the time I was finished, she was halfway across the living room floor with a proud smile on her face. Time to start thinking about what needs to be put away as more mobility is sure to follow.

 
Meanwhile, on the TV…
 

Kelly and I have been able to fit in some movie watching thanks to our AppleTV. Without the near instant movie rentals it provides, we wouldn’t be able to fit anything but bad tv shows between the time we put Sophie down and Kelly goes to bed.
Well, the other night we rented the 2007 Beowulf movie. This is another one of the recent crop of 3D animated movies featuring extremely realistic faces that cause Hollywood reporters to turn into Chicken Little. “Actors will be replaced with computers! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

It is a beautiful movie with many moments where you forgot that what you were watching wasn’t real, however, the plot was not so realistically rendered. The script writers really wanted to make something of substance but fell short. I guess it didn’t help that I had watched Blade Runner the night before. Blade Runner is a film that is full of such uncompromising excellence, a proper review would required me writing it in City-Speak. (Those of you who understood that last sentence should read it as an invitation to meet me at a nearby coffee shop for hours of intellectual yet geeky discourse.)

Beowulf was, for its time, an extraordinarily thorough collection of oral histories recanting the epic adventures of an Anglo-Saxon super-hero. On the contrary, the 2007 Beowulf film is just a big budget retelling of a fight between noisy neighbors who settle their differences by fighting and sleeping with each other. Grendel, who is supposed to be a physically overwhelming and frightening monster, is reduced to a cross between Resident Evil’s “Nemesis” and “Corky” from Life Goes On, Grendel’s mother is pretty much Angelina Jolie in gold paint, and Beowulf goes from olden-times super hero to flawed-for-no-reason braggart.
I won’t bore you with any more details but, just in case you were still interested in seeing this film, I thought I would end with a list of alternate movie titles.

Unofficial Beowulf Alternate Movie Titles

• Beowulf: Tis no Polar Express
• Beowulf: The biggest video game cut-scene since Final Fantasy
• Beowulf: Look who’s sleeping with Grendel’s mother now!
• Beowulf: The village common sense forgot.
• Beowulf: The block-party that just won’t stop!
• Beowulf: Yeah, our animators imagine Angelina Jolie naked too.
• Beowulf: Who’s left to keep repopulating this place?
• Beowulf: The hair that wouldn’t move

This post is tagged