Archive for the ‘Movie’ category

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Mitchell 20 – Host a screening

November 15th, 2011

I love the AZ K-12 Center. I went to one of their technology conferences thinking that I was pretty hot stuff and left with my brain aching trying to absorb everything. I attended a leadership conference a few summers ago and chatted with some heavy-hitters in education across the state and felt good just being able to keep up.

The AZ K-12 Center has exceeded expectations again by working with Randy Murray and creating Mitchell 20, the story of 20 teachers who vow to improve what they have control over: the quality of the teacher.

The Mitchell 20 Trailer from Mitchell 20 on Vimeo.

Looks great! I really want to see it. The showings are very limited right now, but venues do have the opportunity to book their own screening.

I like that one of the options on the form is “I have a crazy idea”. It very much fits in the teacher mindset. More than once, when planning a way to engage students in the curriculum, I’ve said, “I have a crazy idea.”

There are many reasons to support the film. It’s about a local school, Mitchell Elementary. It’s from AZ K-12. It’s narrated by Edward James Olmos. Most importantly, it’s about teachers doing what they can to help students.

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Posted in Movie, Philosophy, Relationship+Relevance+Rigor, The Fourth Way

The official Hunger Games trailer has been released

November 14th, 2011

Check out the trailer on iTunes by clicking here. I won’t spoil too much, just that it does include the platform/minefield scene that made me realize back in 2008 that Hunger Games was going to be different than other dystopias.

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Posted in Action, Movie, Sci-fi

Vanity Fair’s Hunger Games cast photo

November 2nd, 2011

Check out Vanity Fair’s article and photo of the Hunger Games cast. As you hover over the actors, more info pops up. An interesting fact I learned from the article: the girl who plays Rue wore twigs and mud to her audition.

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Posted in Movie

Will the Ender’s Game movie finally get made?

October 26th, 2011

One of my favorite books of all time, Ender’s Game, has been in the process of being made into a movie for a very long time. Orson Scott Card has been diligent about making sure the screenplay stays accurate to the feel of the book. He has had to stand up to movie executives who have wanted to cast twenty year-old heartthrobs as the six year-old protagonist. A major theme of the book is innocence lost and Ender’s age plays a huge role in that.

Well, Summit Entertainment just announced a release date of March, 2013. That’s interesting, considering they don’t have a cast yet. I guess release dates can always be moved. Anyone who has talked to me about book to movie adaptations knows that I’m always distrustful of a February/March release date *cough* Hunger Games *cough*. The big movies come out during Summer or Winter Break, not Spring Break.

Orson Scott Card did have some comments about the film that you can find here.

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Posted in Movie, Sci-fi

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing

October 25th, 2011

I’m a fan of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. I’m a fan of Joss Whedon. (Check out his writing credits – have you ever heard of Toy Story?)

He’s also the screenwriter and director for the new Avengers movie that’s coming out next summer. Last month, they finished filming the Avengers movie and have sent it to post-production. Whedon was supposed to take a month’s worth of vacation, but his wife encouraged him to make the movie he’s always wanted to do: Much Ado About Nothing. Here’s the movie’s site.

He filmed it in 12 days at his house and used his own production company. This may prove to be a technology landmark if this movie forgoes the traditional movie release process. Theatrical releases may have to compete with Internet streaming.

Check out the cast list. Many are friends with author P.J. Haarsma.
The Players:

Amy Acker – Beatrice
Alexis Denisof – Benedick
Nathan Fillion – Dogberry
Clark Gregg – Leonato
Reed Diamond – Don Pedro
Fran Kranz – Claudio
Sean Maher – Don John
Spencer Treat Clark – Borachio
Riki Lindhome – Conrade
Ashley Johnson – Margaret
Emma Bates – Ursula
Tom Lenk – Verges
Nick Kocher – First Watchman
Brian McElhaney – Second Watchman
Joshua Zar – Leonato’s aide
Paul M. Meston – Friar Francis
Romy Rosemont – The Sexton
And introducing Jillian Morgese as Hero

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Posted in Movie

Is Netflix trying to psych us out?

August 26th, 2011

edited 8/26/11 4:40pm: Clear your cookies for Netflix. Cookies store passwords and other information for websites. If you don’t want to clear all your cookies, you can check your browsing history and right-click (in Firefox) on the site in the list and ‘Forget this site’. It will look different on other browsers, but the idea is the same.

As September 1, and the new Netflix pricing, approaches, many people I’ve talked to are ditching the DVD portion of their Netflix subscription.

I find it interesting that since last night I’ve seen this on Netflix’s homepage:

Are they trying to prove that streaming is not reliable? It’s just on the website; my 360 is still streaming fine. Will the website have improvements? Is Netflix going to surprise us with a Watch Instantly library that includes more than low-budget movies from the early 90s? Is this another attack from Anonymous?

Whatever the cause for the outage, have you seen downrightnow.com? For any website, you can visit this site instead of hitting refresh over and over again (if you’re like me). downrightnow can help you diagnose if the site is really down or if it’s simply on your end of things.

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Posted in Movie, Tech How To, Technology

More info on the Uglies movie

July 27th, 2011

We’ve been waiting since, like, 2007 to hear solid details about an Uglies movie. Scott Westerfeld mentioned during Comic-Con that the Lola special effects group (the people who put Captain America’s head on a scrawny body in the new film) are doing work on the film. The surges should be pretty cool looking.

Westerfeld also mentioned a manga to be published by Del Rey that takes Shay’s side of the story and expands on it.

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Posted in Movie, Scott Westerfeld

The Invention of Hugo Cabret Movie Trailer

July 15th, 2011

Every time I booktalk Hugo Cabret, I always say each page is like a movie storyboard. The pacing of the 540+ page picture book is amazing.

Well, now it’s going to be a movie for real:

It stars Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee (Saruman/Count Dooku), and is directed by Martin Scorsese. Those are some big names. It looks exciting.

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Posted in Historical, Movie

No Harry Potter Spoilers here

July 13th, 2011

I’ve had some friends go to advanced screenings of Deathly Hallows Part 2 and I’ve heard very positive reviews. If you’re a fan, odds are you’ll be happy.

I’m more excited about the amount of beards in this most recent photo from The Hobbit:

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Posted in Movie

The dwarven party is coming together!

July 7th, 2011


So exciting. I like the art style.

From New Line Cinema:

DORI, NORI & ORI
These three brothers, all sons of the same mother, could not be more different from each other. Dori, the oldest, spends much of his time watching out for Ori, the youngest; making sure he’s not caught a chill or got himself killed by Wargs or Goblins. Nobody quite knows what Nori gets up to most of the time, except that it’s guaranteed to be dodgy and quite probably, illegal. Dori, Nori and Ori are intensely loyal to each other – and whilst they are perfectly happy fighting amongst themselves, woe-betide anyone who means harm to one of these brothers.

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Posted in Movie