Month: November 2022

Disenchanted

Christine DzidrumsLeave a comment

Disenchanted was the choice for this week’s Friday’s Family Film. It’s the sequel to 2007’s Enchanted which found Amy Adam playing a fairy tale princess-type who is thrust into modern-day New York.

Disenchanted‘s plot was reminiscent of a less witty, squeaky clean Into the Woods with far inferior songs and blander characters. The premise…what comes after “happily ever after.” Giselle and family, which includes token sullen teenager, leave New York behind to settle in the burbs and yadda yadda yadda… Giselle falls under a curse that turns her into an evil stepmother.

We started the evening with five viewers but lost Timmy (12) halfway through the two hour and one minute movie. He grew weary of the forgettable songs and meandering story which leads me to my pet peeve…the movie’s unnecessarily long length. No family film needs to exceed the two hour mark, but it seems today’s directors think extra long = extra good. No thanks. This movie could’ve easily been told in 90 minutes.

Anyway, I didn’t care for the movie for reasons listed above. Also, the Maya Rudolph character was not needed and should’ve been axed.

Ashley (10) liked the movie a lot though and gave it her seal of approval. Nothing scared her, and she never seemed restless.

BoJack Horseman

Christine DzidrumsLeave a comment

After binging Breaking Bad over the summer, Joshua wanted to watch BoJack Horseman, the adult animated series about a washed up actor/horse. We watched the first two episodes last night, the pilot and BoJack Hates the Troops. The latter is one of my favorite episodes of the series. Stubborn BoJack gets into an argument at a grocery store with a an entitled Navy Seal over a box of muffins which culminates in a showdown between the two on live TV. It makes some interesting points about automatic hero worship without regard to a person’s true character.

BoJack Hates the Troops

BoJack: Maybe some of the troops are heroes but not automatically. I’m sure a lot of the troops are jerks. Most people are jerks already, and it’s not like giving a jerk a gun and telling him it’s okay to kill people suddenly turns that jerk into a hero.

The episode was also ahead of its time in regard to cancel culture. The world becomes outraged when BoJack won’t agree to call the Neal McBeal, the Navy Seal, a hero, on the sole basis of his service to his country, and the showdown is summarized by man as “BoJack hates the troops,” which spreads like wildfire.

I warned Josh that BoJack Horseman starts a little slow, but he was into the show right away. He probably would’ve watched more than two episodes last night if his brother hadn’t already reserved the big screen to watch the Artemis watch.

Pee-Chee Folders

Christine DzidrumsLeave a comment

Last night my husband asked me if we had any flat folders. We didn’t but I started thinking about those old Pee-Chee folders. It seemed everyone had one back in the day…probably because they were so cheap. They were super ugly so it was fun to deface the athlete drawings on them. I would always draw leg hair on the female tennis player. Real mature of me.

Anyway, I decided to Google them to see if they were in production….and what do you know…they are. Apparently, Mead owns the rights to them now, and you can buy them on their website:

Flash Cards. Stat!

Christine DzidrumsLeave a comment

Ashley burst into tears today because she’s dreading her spelling test this week. The class takes a pre-test every Monday and the real test on Friday. Apparently she bombed the pre-test and dreads the actual test.
Finally, something I can help my kids with. I’m useless when they have math problems, but language arts? Now we’re talking. So we grabbed some notecards and wrote down her 22 words. For the harder words, we came up with silly ways to remember the correct spelling. She kept struggling with the word fifteen because she was mispronouncing it fithteen. So I tied the word to the musical, The Sound of Music, one of her favorites. “Two people sing ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen,'” I told her. “Just like there are two Fs in the word fifteen.” Don’t ask me why I knew that convuluted method would work on her, but it did. By the end of her study sesson with her notecards, she was spelling the word correctly. Now, I hope she retains everything and aces her test.