I recently received a review copy of Disneynature: Crimson Wing – The Mystery of the Flamingo (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) and I was a little skeptical at first, as I was thinking, ‘a feature-length film all about flamingos?’

But not one teeny tiny ounce of skepticism was necessary! I absolutely and completely loved this movie! It was so interesting! I was riveted the whole time. Well, except for the part where I fall asleep. But that really says NOTHING as it is a genetic condition I inherited from my mother. Doctors have been unsuccessful finding a cure so far.

The condition? Oh, it’s called FallasleepwatchingTVormoviesitis. It is hard to live with, for sure, but, my mother and I both do our best to cope with the cards we’ve been dealt. And it absolutely does not matter how much we love the show, how loud-shoot-em-up it is, how super-mondo scary it is – none of it. We will fall asleep. In fact, when I’m still awake at the end – my husband is pure shell-shocked.

But we have to get back to the flamingos here, people.

Ok, well – first off, it comes in Disney’s super groovy DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack. I think I’ve told ya’ll about those before. They come with a DVD, a Blu-Ray and the disc for copying to your little player-gizmo-thingymabobs. What do they call it? Hmm….

Oh wait, I’m a dope – this one doesn’t come with that copy disc thing. Shoot, I forget what they call those things. But – no matter. We don’t have one in this set. But you do get the Blu-Ray and the DVD, which in my absolute weirdness is cool, because, even though I don’t have a Blu-Ray player – I still get the pretty blue box for my movies! Ha! (I’m jealous of people with Blu-Rays, because, they get the cute, more compact blue cases? Dang, I am weird. And besides – I might actually have Blu-Ray – don’t one of the XBox’s have that capability? Or am I just crazy? Wait – don’t answer that.)

Geez, people – flamingos, we’re supposed to be talking flamingos. Right. I learned so much amazing stuff about them that I had absolutely no idea about. And I’m hesitant to even describe much of it to you, because, if you don’t know the flamingo deets either, I’d love for you to have the fun surprise of learning like I did. I was so excited!

My family watches a LOT of educational television (and movies, too, I guess) and we particularly love creatures so a lot of our media education has been about things that live. (We have to think about the trees! I am a treehugger, after all!) {Ha! Spellcheck doesn’t like treehugger – silly thing! And guess what else it doesn’t like? ITSELF! It doesn’t like spellcheck. Spellcheck says that spellcheck is spelled wrong! haha!} Tangents, darn. I have tangent issues, which I expect you know if you have been reading any of my blogs. What I was trying to say is that we watch a lot of critter TV. There aren’t a lot of surprises in educational animal-friendly TV. I still learn a lot, but, I suppose it’s like expanding on what we know, adding to it, you know? But this was ……

Also included, in the extras, is the making of the movie. That part was just as fascinating as the movie. It was so interesting to learn what those people went through to get all of the incredible footage of these pretty pink creatures!

I’m really running my mouth here and I haven’t told you much at all about the movie. But I really, really didn’t want to. My big, main point is that ….

And I can’t wait to send it to my brother, Mic, who lives in Dallas. He was here went it arrived and he was really excited about it. (And yes, I was still skeptical at that point. Guess I should pay attention to my big brother, eh?) I only wish I could be there with him when he watches it!! We would have so much fun watching it together. We will just have to wait until summertime to enjoy it together when we go there for our visit. At least I’ll know he’s getting to see it, though!

Don’t forget to pick up your copy here: Disneynature: Crimson Wing – The Mystery of the Flamingo

I recently received a review copy of this DVD/Blu-ray combo set of James and the Giant Peach. I’ve had some internet connection issues (I got a virus! Ack!) so I was not able to blog about it until just now. But let me tell you, this movie was a HIT this summer with my kids and their cousins and their friends! They all loved it!

Here’s a shot, though pretty bad (my camera phone is no good indoors) of two of my kids and two of their cousins completely caught up in the movie:

I know that my daughter also watched it several more times when she had friends over. The funny thing is that when my boys were little, we rented this movie once – and I don’t think they even watched it all the way through. It scared them!! So when Patrick was watching with the girls (above photo), I kept going in there and asking him, “Are you scared?” and driving them all crazy!

(Unrelated note: Patrick also used to be scared of Pappy on Pappyland. Man, I loved that show – it was so cute!! Sam and I had to watch it when Patrick wasn’t around, because, it just freaked him out!)

The story is about a boy named James, who is orphaned when he is young and has to go live with his two aunts, who just treat him horribly! The poor kid has a really sad life with his aunts, Spiker and Sponge, until one day a mysterious stranger gives him some magic crocodile beans and everything turns around. On his way home to his aunts’ house, James trips and drops the beans on the roots of a peach tree. The beans do amazing, magical things to one of the peaches and to some of the critters that live on the tree, who soon become wonderful friends for James. They all wind up going on a great adventure and things really turn out much better for James.

It is a great story, but, there are some dark parts and I can see why the boys were scared when they were little. My nieces didn’t get scared at all, though, but, they are older than the boys were when they first saw it.

The story was originally a book written by Roald Dahl in the 6os. Since we enjoyed the movie so much, I would be really interested to read the book, for sure! I hope I remember to check it out next time we go to the library. This was a great movie and I’m grateful for the chance to have reviewed it!

P. S. If you’re interested in checking this movie out yourself, you can find it on Amazon by clicking right here: James and the Giant Peach

How cool is this, ya’ll? Check it out:

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT TO BREAK GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR THE TALLEST ICE SCULPTURE EVER CONSTRUCTED…IN THE LIKENESS OF ICE AGE’S SCRAT

WHAT: To coincide with the release of the Ice Age 3 Dawn of the Dinosaurs Blu-ray disc and DVD, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for Tallest Ice Sculpture at the opening of the ice skating rink, ICE at Santa Monica.

Fun Facts:
The Scrat Ice Sculpture will stand at 45 feet tall
Over 133,000 lbs. of ice will be used, gathered across 4 states
Months of preparation went into the logistics
Artists from Blue Sky Studios developed the look of the model
The current record for the Tallest Ice Sculpture is 40.28 feet and was achieved by Michel Amann (France) in Ski Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on April 20, 2006. (Dubai has all the cool architectural feats! Even if it was in ice!)

Additional Highlights:
World Figure Skating Champion Randy Gardner will perform to the
“Walk the Dinosaur” song featured in the film
The one and only acorn-loving Scrat will demonstrate his own skating abilities
Skating for the entire family, including music and many more fun activities
ICE at Santa Monica is an 8000-square-foot outdoor ice rink in Downtown Santa Monica

WHO: A team of 14 skilled sculptors from Ice Bulb LLC will build the world’s Tallest Ice Sculpture over a 4-day period on the ice rink at the ICE at Santa Monica. A Guinness World Records™ adjudicator will be present to oversee the attempt.

WHERE: ICE at Santa Monica
1324 5th Street (at Arizona Avenue)
Santa Monica, CA 90401

(What am I doing in Alabama?? Bummer!!)

WHEN: Tuesday, October 27, final Scrat sculpture to be unveiled at 4:00pm
Entrance is Free to the public
From October 27 through January 31, 2010, the ice rink will be open Sunday through Thursday, 10am to 10pm, and Friday and Saturday, 10am to midnight
Admission is $10 and includes rental skates
* Stand-ups and in-progress check-ins available beginning Saturday, October 24

Oliver and Company (20th Anniversary Edition) was a really fun show to watch! Given that it’s loosely based on “Oliver Twist” – a story I love, this was sure to be a hit with me – and it was!

Oliver is a feisty, adorable kitten alone on the mean streets of New York City – and he’s hungry! He falls in with a gang of street mutts who begrudgingly let him join them. They start to teach him how to be street-smart …and how to steal. Before Oliver gets too entrenched in his life of kitty crime, he meets his sweet savior in the form of a wealthy little girl. Her name is Jenny and she immediately falls in love with Oliver and they spend countless hours together having wonderful adventures in the city! Her fancy, shmancy poodle at home is not at all excited that Jenny has taken Oliver in!

All kinds of drama, antics, and heroics follows for over an hour of fun! This is a classic Disney tale and it has an awesome line up of superstars voicing the characters. You’ve got Billie Joel, Bette Midler, Joey Lawrence, Cheech Marin and even Dom DeLuise! It’s definitely one of Disney’s greats!

Ok, I just love bonus features and Oliver and Company (20th Anniversary Edition) has some pretty good ones. One bonus feature I almost always look for is ‘The Making Of’ and this edition of Oliver and Company has one and it was really interesting! I absolutely love seeing how movies are made!

There are a few other bonus features… There is a fun game called Oliver’s Big City Challenge. And there are two sing-along songs and two shorts. They’re called “Lend A Paw” and “Puss Cafe”.

And to go along with your movie-watching fun, I found this great page of Oliver and Company coloring pages!

I’m so excited – I just got Ghost Town in the mail today to review for ya’ll! This is one movie that I have really been wanting to see!! It looks so funny! And if you know me at all, you know I eat up metaphysical goolash like it’s going out of style! I love Tea Leoni, I love big dogs, and I love ghosts!! So this flick is right up my alley!

I’ll edit this post with details ‘after the fact’. For now, just picture me cozy up in my bed with lots of blankets and pillows, eagerly and happily watching my laptop that is perched on my dresser.

So that will teach me to listen to movie critics! When I first heard about Tropic Thunder, I was really interested in seeing it. It sounded like a fun movie with an interesting twist. Then the grumpy movie critics started spouting off about it.

“Eww…we hate it!”

“Oh, it’s so dumb!”

Etc., etc……

And then …I was offered the movie to review! And I thought to myself, ‘I think I’ll try it, after all, I was really excited about seeing the darn thing before I listened to those critics!’ So I said, ‘Sure! I’d love to review it!’ And it’s a good thing I did, because, not only did I like it, but, my husband really enjoyed it, too!

Slapstick silliness? Yes!

Incredible goofiness? Yes!

Extreme personalities? Yes!

But, it was FUNNY!

Tropic Thunder‘s tagline lets you know that you are in for an out-of-the-box type of movie:

The movie they think they’re making… isn’t a movie anymore.

So it’s a movie …about a movie …that isn’t a movie …and then gets made into a movie! I love that!

So you have these spoiled actors (and one unspoiled newcomer actor) in the fields in Vietnam, attempting to make a movie about a Vietnam veteran’s memoir. The supposed Vietnam vet is there, too, to lend a hand (bwahaha!) and advise as needed.

At one point, due to the intense spoiled attitudes of the actors, a $4 million explosion goes off with NO CAMERAS ROLLING! The press soon gets wind of the troubles they are having getting the movie filmed and soon dub the flick:

“the most expensive war movie never made”

The ‘Vietnam vet’ suggests to the director that he drop all of the spoiled actors in the jungle, after having placed hidden cameras and special-effects explosions along their path they are to follow. He thinks that will ‘un-spoil’ the actors and make their experience more real, so they can finally get into character and stay in it to get the job done!

The problem with that is that there are real explosives left in the jungle from an old war – and there are men with guns in the jungle! The men with guns are part of a huge drug ring and they think the actors are DEA agents!

When they first get left in the jungle, the director gets blown up – for real (for fake). Some of them realize it was a real explosion and that a human was just blown to bits in front of their eyes – and some of them think it’s all part of the movie set up!

For some odd reason, that is my favorite part of the movie! I think it was hysterical! And the hilarity continues from there….

Loved it! Glad I ignored the critics!

Son of Rambow is a fun movie, with a bit of a look at the darkness of human nature. The story follows an 11 year old boy as he winds up befriending the school bully, and they make a lively home movie together, based on having seen the movie, “Rambo”.

Will, the star of the movie, is a very quiet and shy boy, and he and his family belong to a very strict religion, which dictates that they are not allowed to enjoy entertainment media. He even has to leave the classroom if the teacher puts on a documentary for the students to watch.

The bully, Lee, has been abandoned by his parents and is the ward of his bossy older brother. He is the worst-behaved kid in the entire school. He has access to his brother’s film-pirating equipment and that is, in part, what inspires him to make the movie.

They are both quite lonely and really bond with each other in the making of their movie. The rest of the kids at school soon find out about the movie and many of them wish to be in it themselves. Will invites them to come along, and Lee is quite upset by this, telling Will it was better when it was just the two of them.

It is a very adventurous and rambunctious movie with some very funny stunts. And it has an extremely pleasing ending!

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a great family show! It is a funny portrayal of the different holidays we celebrate and what it is like to actually live in those holidays year round!

The ‘people’ of Halloween Town seem to think that all there is to life is scaring people. Jack, the skeleton guy ruler of Halloween Town, thinks there must be something else out there. There must be more to life than just this year-long preparation for the ‘Best Halloween Yet’ every single year.

He takes a walk with his ‘dog’ and stumbles into a portal with doors leading to different holidays. He accidentally falls into the Christmas one. He is astonished and surprised at all of the jolliness of the townspeople.

He quickly goes home and describes it to everyone back in Halloween Town. And he decides to kidnap ‘Sandy Claws’ and run Christmas himself! What happens is nothing short of a disaster, though!

Luckily, things wind up turning out alright. I won’t tell you what happens, in case you haven’t seen it yet. Things do turn out fine, though, and there is even a little romance brewing throughout the film!

The new Collector’s Edition release of the film comes with plenty of extra features and it also comes with something that is totally new to me. I had to look it up on Amazon to really understand what it was. It is called a Disney Digital File that you can put in your computer and copy it to your hard drive or you can copy it to a compatible iTunes or Windows Media portable player. So you can watch it on the go – or even just on your computer.

Image via Wikipedia Teenage drama, teenage romance, and teenage wanna-be rock stars – the movie, Camp Rock, has it all! And of course there is the fun of camp, too!

Camp for kids is a little bit like a dry run of going away to college. Although there are grownups around, and you are supervised, you are still a LOT more independent than you are at home. Movies about kids at sleep-away camp are always fun!

Mitchie is the lead female in the movie and she really wants to go to Camp Rock, but, it is very expensive and her parents can’t afford it. Her mother, however, is a caterer and takes her catering business to Camp Rock and Mitchie can go, if she will help in the kitchen. She agrees – and she tries to hide this fact from the other campers.

Shane Gray is a pop star with a bad attitude, so his bandmates drop him off at Camp Rock to teach singing and dancing lessons, in an effort to straighten him up.

These two facts lead to a Cinderella issue in the movie. And the ‘prince’ does fall for the ‘poor stepdaughter’, but, instead of looking for a girl who fits the glass slipper – he was looking for the girl with the heavenly voice. He finds her on the night of the Final Jam and they wind up singing their two songs together.

Sammie had been really looking forward to this movie as a Disney Channel Original Movie – and now she is totally thrilled that we own it on DVD!

Miley Cyrus has been in the news quite a few times lately, due to questionable behavior. I have decided that it is still perfectly fine for me to adore her two characters that she plays on her show, though! I really like the show and I like her music, too (shh! don’t tell anyone!) and I didn’t want to give that up, because, Miley’s being a silly teenager. We all did stupid stuff at that age – we just weren’t being put on the 6 o’clock news with our shenanigans. (Thank God! And my mother thanks you, too, God!)

So I was rather excited when we got the DVD, Best of Both Worlds Concert: The 3-D Movie: Extended Edition. We enjoyed this movie – it showed Miley in several of her concert stops over the course of her 2007 Tour. She really keeps the crowd up and excited! She seems to kind of get out of breath fairly quickly – but, she is definitely pumped up!

They also showed a lot of behind-the-scenes happenings of a traveling tour and all of the hard work that it is for everyone involved. And the Jonas Brothers also perform in the movie.

It is a 3D movie and I’ve heard that was pretty cool in the theater with newfangled digital 3D glasses. That cannot be replicated on TV’s, though, so we are stuck with the old-fashioned red and blue 3D glasses, which makes the experience a little more hokey. It was still kind of fun, but, hokey nonetheless.

This extended edition comes with two DVD’s – the 2D version and the 3D version. And it comes with four pairs of 3D glasses.

The bonus features include extra songs from the concerts that were not in the original movie and a personal tour with Miley and the Jonas Brothers to see what a day is like in the life of a teenage rockstar!

This was definitely a fun flick!