Monsters University!

I thought it was going to be good, and boy was I not surprised. On a scale of five desk lamps, I would put it in the fours and fives. It was laugh-out-loud- in -theater hilarious, and quite possibly, in my opinion, the funniest Pixar release since the original, Monsters Inc. Don't be fooled. It is very underrated compared to the tomatometer scores of the Pixar golden age.

Mike, Sully, and Randall were the hits of the show again, there were callback sequences that were hilarious if you thought the original was ok, there were even a couple of surprise cameos.

I better stop. I'm having too much fun. But if you were on the fence, go see it. If you'd rather ignore it, you're missing out. It is the best in years and gives good cause for hope that Pixar still knows how to make good movies.

p.s. this little note counts as my 100th post already...

Atlanta

Well, first off, we never would have gone someplace like Atlanta if we didn't have a semi-urgent reason to. For this trip, that reason was attendance at the National History Bee, in which my brother competed and scored in the top 20 out of 400 students. It was decided that afterwards we would just burn the rest of the week seeing everything Atlanta had to offer.
The trip to Atlanta makes Georgia the eighth state already that I have visited. I am on a roll...:)
The following is a day-by-day rundown, with photos, of the trip.

Friday, May 31st

On this day we traveled all day, reaching Atlanta around 2:00, I think. The Atlanta airport is the biggest one we've been in yet. Our baggage claim was a mile from the terminal, and the car lot was long after that. We're all tired.

Saturday, June 1st

Now, the real reason we went was so my brother (foreground) could compete in a smartness contest. He finished about as well as we expected. We never outside the hotel the entire day. and spent all afternoon in the basement levels.

Sunday, June 2nd

Ate the "world's best burger" after waiting two hours. Agreed that it was not as good as one made 15 minutes from our house... Yes, we waited two hours, and we all said it was second best. It was a great burger though. (Holman & Finche's Public House. The burger is so popular there is a line all day.)

Monday, June 3rd

Yes, there's actually a museum of all things Coca-Cola. Need I say more?

This room is filled with Continent-themed dispensers that offer every flavor Coke makes. There are more than 60. My favorite was the mint tea from Djibouti, Africa, and the Inca from Peru. But I don't actually like original Coke...
And there's more...Immediately after surviving that tasting room, we moved on to the biggest and best aquarium ever, right next door...

It's Dr. Ray from Finding Nemo!

I found Dory!

We had the great fortune to visit during feeding time, so all the exhibits were at their most active. We spent ten minutes watching the otters chase down every shrimp and then try desperately to break a rubber toy. It was a blast. (I know these aren't the best pics. Darn picture scanner...)

Tuesday, June 4th

We went to a Braves game! We are big baseball fans, and as such, we buy into the 30 park quest (Fans of American sports consider it the ultimate achievement to attend a game in every stadium. Do Australians do that?)Turner field is the 6th park we have made it to during various vacations. The game ended as a Braves victory in 10 innings. I'm amazed that people will do the tomohawk chop so often...

Wednesday, June 5th
I think this was the night we drove 20 miles to eat at a Waffle House. Waffle House is a small-scale regional competitor to  IHOP, and there's one every few miles. We actually missed three while trying to hit an exit. Checklist: Eat at a Waffle House. Done.
Thursday, June 6th

Our last full day was spent in Stone Mountain park, one of Georgia's biggest attractions. So there's this huge rock...It's kind of like the one in Austrailia. this one is the world's largest piece of exposed granite. The highlight of the day was an impressive laser light show that was projected on to the rock. It was all americana and patriotism, with a healthy dash of "how many things can we do to the rock" i.e. blowing it up w/ CG dynamite.
Friday June 7th 
We left fairly late to catch our flight, and we were ready in plenty of time. However, due to weather conditions in the South at the time, our departure was delayed a half hour out of the gate, and then shut down on the runway for half an hour. It was painful. What with all that, it was 1:00 in morning the next day by the time we got back to our house.

 

Man Of Steel Reaction

Well, I just went and saw Man of Steel, and although I will say it was a lot of hitting and missing, in the end I thought it was a better movie than Iron Man 3, in part because there was no attempt to cross up the audience with abrupt character changes. Also because Superman delivers harder hits.

Story

I was really disappointed to discover that the film was made as a disjointed medley of memories, flashbacks, and explosions, instead of playing out in a chronological order. Although all the scenes connected, it was tricky to figure out how.

Main Character

Superman as Superman was a lot of fun, however, I would say that as Clark Kent he was a lot of "ok, put on the suit already." He looked like he was constantly smirking, and it made it hard to like those parts.

Supporting Cast

There wasn't really any, except of course Lois Lane and the editor, with the addition of a couple of generals. They were like "we are reacting to Superman's presence. What else do we do?" In the other supermovies, the secondary characters have personalities.

Villian

General Zod is a cool villain, because no one named "general Zod" can possibly be a lousy villain, right? The way they set up the end just made him better. He gave us the smackdown we were counting on, and enough extra to move the plot along.

Music

The music was pretty cool, as a symphony of head-pounding noise. I think it would stand better alone. However, as the score to the movie my reaction is similar to IM3: it disappeared into the background and wasn't really a part of my enjoyment of the film overall.

Humor

There isn't really any humor except a couple quick bits that  briefly reference superman's powers.

In the end the chaotic nonstop battle was just what was to be expected from a superman movie, and it made up for the rest of it from the sheer fun of watching explosions go off. I only think it's weird that the world always goes back to perfectly normal after the super is done saving the day, no matter how much stuff has exploded. Although I did not enjoy it as much as the Avengers laugh riot, I would not say no to seeing Man of Steel at least a couple of times in the future. Was there a bonus scene?

Update

So I was going to make yet another post about how i graduated, but then I realized it got old fast. The event itself was pretty frustrating actually. It was agony standing up for so long. So this is really just a place holder for my next post. We spent the past week in Atlanta, Georgia and had an awesome time. However, I need a bit of time to properly relate the experience, so you'll see it in a couple days... It might be my biggest post so far...