Summer Movies

Back from a brief trip to Vermont. I went to a science center with my son. There were a TON of kids there, I'm guessing it was a mandated state-wide field trip day. But we managed to move around and get some time at most of the stations. Apparently there is a similar museum about an hour from where we live, which we may try and get to at least once this summer.
Here is a movie of my son playing at the Vermont science center.

So, I'm about ready to start another series of movies with my son. I've got a noir mystery sort of scripted, but I'm going to need some actors besides just my son for it to work. So, maybe I'll collect footage for that and edit / post it later this summer and do a quick series with just him for now. Also, I've been looking at some on-line video contests that could be some fun. But with those I usually need voting help. Get ready for mass e-mails. I was going to start with a Ben & Jerry's Birthday Video contest, but they state in their rules that no one under 18 can appear in the video. And since my idea involves my son, and he's still a bit under 18, I think we'll skip this one.

Movies I've seen recently (over due):
Iron Man: Another addition to good superhero movies being produced. It's not as good as Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, but it is close to the level of the first Sam Rami Spiderman (which get bonus points for re-establishing the superhero movie as a viable franchise.) Iron Man works due to an excellent selection of enemy that works for the non-comic fan (Mandrin would have been a disaster). It also only updates what needs to be changed to work as a current story (IED in Iraq rather than a landmine in Vietnam, for example). The humor and playfulness was fantastic as was the feel that the armored characters were really there not a CGI paste in (see Ang Lee's Hulk). However, I think the movie spent too much time on the build process and not quite enough with villain development. The War Monger seemed to be there just so that there could be a fight at the finale of the movie. On a serious note, movies don't all have to be 2 1/2 hours long for me to feel like I got my money's worth.
rating: 3.5 out of 5

Speed Racer: Okay three things. 1, there was enough racing from my son (good). But, 2: there was too much monkey for both of us. Seriously the three year old was unimpressed with the monkey sidekick. 3: Too much close-ups. I know this is because of pressure to make movies more accessible and enjoyable on smaller screen (phone, ipod, ect) distribution. It's just disappointing to see what I assume is studio pressure effect artistic decisions in film making in a way that detracts from the overall quality of the film. For Speed Racer, there was the potential for a good movie there, the Wachowskis just didn't quite get it to the screen.
rating: 2 out of 5

King of Kong: Documentary about the world record high score on Donkey Kong. I remember making my dad get me past boards on the Atari 2600 version of Donkey Kong so that I could play the later levels. This is a fantastic documentary. There is a wonderful story arc, characters emerge develop and evolve. There are heroes and villains. As someone who as a hobby that falls outside of the normal range of leisure activities, I found a lot to identify with in this movie.
rating: 4.5 out of 5

Finally, on my leisure activites. I'm helping to train an army for Pennsic. For those of you who don't know what the large scale stuff we do looks like. Here's a link to Blackstone Raids, a much smaller event at the end of April. If I remember correctly there were 180 fighters on the field that day, about 80 on one side and 100 on the other. Pennsic will have numbers closer to 400 on a side.

Finally, here's another movie of my son. Doing a sword fighting drill he made up:

Hopefully I'll have a new movie up Monday.