Neato Coolville: December 2010

Ah, collecting “found” snapshots can be very rewarding, especially when you find two quirky Christmas snaps like the ones below.

First up is Merry Christmas from the Painters.

I can just imagine the amateur photographer, which we can assume was Mr. or Mrs. Painter setting up this little set. He/she or maybe both of ‘em worked together to set up this little scene. “Honey, where’s the box of Ivory Snow?” I like that they made little Santa foot prints in the snow. They probably printed up a couple dozen of these photos and mailed ‘em out as their Christmas card. Way to go Painters!

In this second Christmas snap we see a nice photo of a couple relaxing next to the Christmas tree.

Hey, wait a minute, you can see through the woman. Yipes! Is she a g-g-ghost?

Ah, our photographer, the man holding the camera switch button thingy must have pressed the button a bit early creating a double exposure of his wife. Hmm... they do look kinda alike. Shirley, that’s not the same guy dressed as a woman. I’ll let you decide.

A sequel that I’ve been waiting to see for 28 years finally hit theaters this past Friday and I didn’t see it on opening night. That’s right, and I skipped Tron Legacy for a date night with the first lady. (She’s not a Tron fan.) We saw Tangled instead, which to my surprise was really a fantastic movie. Shh... don’t tell the first lady, but it wasn’t all for love that I skipped Tron Legacy on opening night. The complete truth is that I didn’t want to see it at my IMAX-less local theater and I wanted to experience it with my brother just like we did for the original Tron back in the day.

So we road tripped three hours away to catch Tron Legacy in IMAX 3D and met up with big bro, sis in-law and my two nephews. My nephews enthusiasm before the movie reminded me how my brother and I felt with the original Tron. This made my already sky high hopes for this film even higher. Could the movie match the hype and marketing that I’d followed for the past two years? The answer is yes - yes it did.

I really enjoyed Tron Legacy! Sure there’s many things to be critical about the movie if a person wants to get nitpicky, but for me, it was fun once again to revisit the world of Tron. It has a lot of “cool” and “wow” moments! This second visit is a bit more touchy feely than the first one with a son trying to reconnect with his father. (This might be the perfect film to watch on Father’s Day!) What the movie lacks in plot and story it makes up for in style and design. Though for me, I wished for more neon. Some parts were a bit too dark and so it needed more splashes of colorful glowing lights. Glowing light just pops in 3D and this film needed to punch it up with more light.

As cool as it was to see Jeff Bridges play Kevin Flynn it was even cooler to see a younger Jeff playing Clu in digital form. Just like the first movie, this movie pushed the limits of computer special effects and it gave Clu a creepy quality for a great villain. The one actor that stole the show was Olivia Wilde as Quorra. She plays such an interesting character that she you want to learn more about her. Thumbs up for Quorra! One major character from the first movie is poorly used in this sequel and for Tron fans, this will probably be the number one complaint. I was disappointed in this character’s lack of screen time. (Hint: the movie is named after him.)

A new game can be played with TL and it’s called - Name the Movies Tron Legacy Borrowed From. I was able to name five, how ‘bout you? Ah, this is not necessarily a bad thing since they take from movies that I love, so all is good. The best part of the film is the super-duper soundtrack by Daft Punk. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a movie with a soundtrack that moves the story forward as well as Daft Punk’s score did.

My non-Tron fan wife liked Tron 2 much better than the original. My nephews really loved it and gave it five awesomes! As for my brother, well, he dug it just as much as I did and enjoyed the wave of nostalgia too. Tron Legacy is film to have fun with and to let yourself fall into a Tron trance and just enjoy the eye candy that it truly is. I can’t wait to see it again!