Review: How to Train Your Dragon

Zach was busy with his stuff the other week, so I hit up the post theater. Granted, I was a single adult going to see a kids' movie, but I had fun anyways. Here you go: How to Train Your Dragon.

Summary: Set in the northern town of Berk ("twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death"), the story follows the young Viking Hiccup. Berk has a pest problem: dragons, which continually raid the town. Hiccup wants to join his town's fight against the dragons, but is on the small, clumsy, and weak side of the spectrum, so his father, village leader Stoick the Vast, will not allow him to participate. The inventive Hiccup, however, still ventures out into a battle and ends up downing a mysterious Night Fury dragon with his one of his contraptions. When he sees the dragon face to face, however, Hiccup can't bring himself to kill it. Instead, Hiccup and the dragon (whom he dubs Toothless) begin a friendship that teaches Hiccup much about dragons and how his people have misjudged the species. Together, the two then face Hiccup's dragon fighting training, the ignorance of his town's residents, and a massive destructive force threatening both dragons and people.

I'm saying it now, but this movie reconfirmed my inner desire to have a dragon. Heck, I'd even settle for a fire lizard! I blame my mother for raising me on classics like Patricia C Wrede and Anne McCaffrey.

And just for reference, I didn't see it in 3D. That was just the only poster image I found that I wanted to use.

As I've mentioned before, voices are important to me in animated films. The voices here were pretty decent, nothing exceptional one way or another. I did think it was funny that all the adults had very thick Scottish accents (natural for both Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson), but none of the kids did. I suppose if you really wanted to over-think it, you could argue that it was from the new generation breaking with the old traditions, in more ways than one, but I think that's just years of IB obfuscation coming out :)

Oh, and David Tennant (of Dr Who fame) has a voice cameo too! He also did the audiobook readings for the series, so it was completely understandable that they find a way to slip him in :)

I liked the dragon designs. A lot of really creative variety in the different species, and I particularly loved Toothless' feline characteristics. Apparently the character designers were inspired by a staff member's black panther screen saver! Thank you IMDB trivia!

I wasn't as fond of the human designs. Well, really just the teenagers in Hiccup's class. Particularly Astrid. They were all just a bit too modern-southern-CA-teen styled for my taste. Particularly Astrid. Hiccup had a pretty modern hair style too, but it was still enough that you could see his face. With Astrid, I just wanted to clip her bangs out of her face SOOOO badly. Of course, I also have that feeling looking at the average teenager around here. Not a fan of SoCal teen fashion, lemme tell you. So, minor irritation, but it was definitely there.

Random thought: Hiccup is left-handed. I liked that.

The animation itself is great! In a dragon movie, it's really all about the flight sequences, and this one passes with flying colors (pun slightly intended!) The flights along the sea and sunset and misty, mysterious island are all very seamless and natural-feeling. The colors in the movie are so rich too, playing well with the different feelings of the scenes. And the final fight sequence is just awesome. They really pulled out all the stops with that one.

The story is wonderful. The movie is based on the books, not an actual adaptation, but I really want to look up Cressida Cowell's books at the library now and read the whole Hiccup series. How to Train Your Dragon is only the first. Most importantly, the movie keeps it as a character-driven story. There are funny lines and funny scenes, but it's really about Hiccup and his relationships with his father, his town, and his dragon. Keeping it centered around the characters really makes the climatic battle more intense (no spoilers, but it was intense! I was worried how they'd work it out!)

Ranting Sidenote: I need to not go to kids movies at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon. Too many uncontrolled kids and/or fussy younger siblings too young to sit through a movie. I realize I am a crotchety old movie-goer at the ripe old age of 20-something, but still, don't ruin the fun of the movie for everyone else simply because you didn't want to pay for a babysitter for your 2 year old while you took his 7 year old brother to the pictures!!

Overall: 5 of 5. Dreamworks has done it again. Between Kung Fu Panda, this, the Shrek movies, and the Aardman animation movies (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc), Dreamworks has definitely eclipsed Disney animation in recent years. (Don't worry, I'm counting Pixar as separate from Disney). Definitely want this one on the shelf.

Oh, and the Dreamworks cast pictures again. I like them, and I have a spoiler down there, so needed the spacers :)

HERE BE SPOILERS (and dragons too)

I LOVED LOVED LOVED the last scene, where Toothless with his injured tail is walking with Hiccup with his now-missing foot to the door of the house. Very Anne McCaffrey's "The Littlest Dragon Boy" (my absolute all-time favorite short story of hers). Very sweet scene, not over emphasized. No sappy rubbing-your-face-in-the-pairing-of-cripples. Made me smile and I had to share :)

So, I lied...

Yeah, I had the goal of not casting on any new projects until I tackled some of the hibernating WIPs stashed about the apartment. Didn't work.

Needed a quick-fix FO to satisfy me, as I'm dealing with all these lace projects, so I found this one: the one-ball scarf with Red Heart Pomp-a-Doodle. A total impulse buy :)

Pomp-a-Doodle is a novelty pom-pom yarn. This one is just the Red Heart version, though there are several companies that make similar yarns. We'd seen some similar ones at Stitches, and the fabric that it creates is actually really, really soft. Seeing that Red Heart has a $5 version, instead of the more expensive equivalents, it seemed like a simple splurge.

The scarf itself is just garter stitch, just working around the pom-poms as you get to them. Yarn knits up very soft. The pom poms shed a little, so I doubt this will be a scarf for heavy wear, but it’s fun and quick and for $5, can’t beat it!

The whole scarf was done in under 2 hours - less than 2 episodes of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, including weaving in ends! In fact, the in-progress picture above was done after the first episode I watched. I had to get up to switch discs in the DVD player, so I took a picture while I was at it. All in all, a very good quick-fix project :)

The pattern is available free at the Red Heart website. I've raveled my project here.

Review: Kung Fu Panda

Yes, I do love some classics and adventures and blowin'-stuff-up sort of movies, but I'm also a fan of silly cartoons. This week's Netflix is one of those latter movies. Here you go: Kung Fu Panda.

Plot: Standard under-dog turning things around, finding one's place sort of movie. Po is a fat, lazy, sarcastic panda who loves Kung Fu, despite being totally physically unsuited for it. He works in his family's noodle shop, and is surprised to find he is chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy as the Dragon Warrior. Po goes to study Kung Fu alongside his idols, the legendary Furious Five (Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey) under the leadership of their teacher, Master Shifu. However, danger approaches as the evil snow leopard Tai Lung threatens their valley, and it's now up to Po to defend everyone from the oncoming threat.

Casting in an animated movie is important to me, as I watch a lot of cartoons and need the voices to be suitable. (Think Claire Danes in the English dub of Princess Mononoke and you'll see what I mean - still makes me cringe inwardly!) They worked very well here. Dustin Hoffman's deep growl coming out of a tiny red panda made me chuckle, especially with the twitchy panda ears. And Jack Black was well suited for Po, perfect really. The ultimate over-enthusiastic fan boy. I'm a lukewarm Jack Black fan in live action movies, because like a lot of actors with over-expressive faces, he tends to rely on it too much (I have the same frustration with Jim Carey, come to think of it). Here, depending only on his voice, it was a lot funnier than if the character had been live action and we'd seen Black's face. I really liked Randall Duk Kim as Oogway, too. I want to be like that when I'm really old :) Ian McShane is a wonderful villain voice, so arrogant and threatening. And I love Lucy Liu, a sweet character, despite being Master Viper. C'mon, she knocks Po out, and then apologizes, "I'm sorry, I thought you were ready!"

My favorite voice though, hands down, was James Hong as Mr. Ping. James Hong has a career going back to the 1950s, bad guys in numerous TV shows and movies. Some animation too - Mulan and "Jackie Chan Adventures," among others. Here, he is spot-on as the insanely happy, proud father and noodle shop owner Mr. Ping. He made me smile every time that goose opened his mouth! Earned an Annie nomination for that role too (animation annual awards). Well done!

The story itself is simple and a standard formula, but it is treated well. There is a lot of heart in the movie, in with the action and funny lines. Po and his father bond and understand each other, Master Shifu and the Masters accept Po, Po finds his own place, lots of good heart-warming stuff. No, I don't consider those spoilers, as we all knew it was going to happen :) As much as I like Shrek, I liked this one even more. The movie isn't just running jokes, but some plot and emotional involvement in the characters too. These are very real characters (I swear, I've got friends like Po), so it makes the movie that much more enjoyable.

The animation is very well done. Each of the 5 masters is based on a particular style of kung fu, and the martial arts they use are actually based on those styles. As a fan on martial arts movies, I enjoyed seeing how they incorporated that into characters like Mantis and Viper. How do you do a kick, for example, when the character has no legs? It was a lot of fun. Plus, on CGI points, you have a lot of motion in furry and clothed characters, two very involved details, but it looks very smooth and natural. Which is impressive, when you consider you're animating a giant panda in pants doing kung fu :)

On the fun side of things, if you are like me and (as I just mentioned) a martial arts movie fan, you'll get a kick out of this one, because it really is a martial arts movie. All the standard movie points are there. The crazy training apparatus in the secluded school grounds, the training montage for the hero, the battle on a dangerous environment (a rope bridge here), a battle using everyday objects (here, cooking pots)... not that any of these are supposed to be references to specific movies, but all the standards of the genre are well represented :) Besides the 5's fighting styles, Tai Lung and Po are representative of their own kung fu styles too - leopard and bear. IMDB's FAQ section on the movie has a good description of the styles.

The writers had fun with the names too. Besides the 5 (obviously named after the 5 styles they represent, as well as the actual animal they are), there is Master Shifu ("shifu" is "master" in Cantonese) and Master Oogway ("tortoise" in Chinese). And according to IMDB trivia, the characters of KG Shaw and JR Shaw (I think those are the pigs in the town) are a reference to The Shaw Brothers Creative Group, who created many 1970's kung fu movies, and Tai Lung is named after Shaw star Lung Ti. I love dorky inside jokes like that :) Makes my inner fangirl very happy.

There are some really fun extras on the DVD, too. Besides some good behind the scenes stuff with the voices actors, the animators, and the Foley artists (sound folk), there is a noodle shop behind the scenes! And by "noodle shop," I mean, 5 star Chinese cuisine. Since Mr. Ping is a noodle shop owner, the extra clip went to a Beverly Hills Chinese restaurant and watched one of their chefs make noodles. I mean, make-by-hand 'make noodles.' Coolest cooking trick I've ever watched!!

Oh, and stay all the way through the credits. If you have to mute "Kung Fu Fighting," do so, but there is an extra scene at the end. A very sweet one. Made me smile :)

Overall: 5 of 5. Definitely would love on the shelf :)



This series of pictures below is one Dreamworks often does for their animation productions, pairings of the voice actors and their characters. I like it :) Oh, and the picture of Seth Rogan has Mantis perched on his shoulder, if you can't see it.

Altador Cup time!

Pardon the interruption of crafty news for some silly, (slightly) dorky news instead! It's Altador Cup time on Neopets again! So, the team I was on last year took second (stupid Pirates beat us in the finals) so here's looking for a strong showing again this year :) Come join the fun, if you're so inclined. Game play starts Wednesday 5/26!

Shenkuu Ninjas, all the way!

Take this, Mojave!

So, in my ongoing war for sanity, waged against the endless brown, dry windiness that is the Mojave Desert, I am trying to grow plants again.

I do not have my mother's brown thumb (Love you, Mom!). She really only has luck with ivy, weeds, and mint. You know, those plants that you cannot kill. I do not have that type of track record. I had plants in SC. I had plants in VA. I had a practically INVINCIBLE kalanchoe from my freshman Botany class in college. That thing was over 6 years old when it went. I'd had to re-pot it twice because it had grown so much. And then the cross-country move killed it. I had a very healthy African violet too (until Joey knocked it off its shelf and are all the leaves...). And I had a relatively healthy philodendron which couldn't be watered fast enough when we moved out to the desert.

All of this greenery ended when I moved to the desert. I couldn't keep the plants watered enough to survive out here. So, I gave up for a while. The job just took too much time.

But, now that I have time again, it's time for a change. I am tired of a house with no plants. I want to grow herbs again. Add to that, I was seriously jealous of my sister's window box/balcony of plants last year when we visited. Need basil? Step out onto the patio and clip some! A good dose of sibling jealousy will get anything stirring again, right? ;)

The final straw came Thursday when I was running errands in Town and ran to Target. They have their little $1 bins at the front, right, and since this is the changing of the bin contents, the last round of stuff was 50% off. That includes all the little gardening goodies they had. So, I invested all of $2.50 and picked up two types of basil, parsley, pepper plant, and a tomato plant. I don't know how many (if any) will survive, but I am giving it a shot! And if they all dry out, well, I'm only out $2.50, right?

So, I got them potted today, and here they are, all lined up on the window sill in the kitchen. That window gets sunshine, but not the ant-under-the-magnifying-glass type of sunshine we get on the other side of the house. (Yeah, we really don't have a shady window here in the desert.) Wish these little guys luck!

Knitting Updates :)

Oh, yeah, in all that's going on, I've been knitting too! So, here are project updates:

• Gaia - all done, both Sarah and I! I LOVE how this came out. The silk gives it a nice drape, and makes it not quite so heavy, which is good for the desert. And I love how different the same pattern, same yarn but different colorways look. That was part of why this project was so much fun as a KAL, seeing the two different shawls take shape. There was only one thing I'd change in the pattern next time, and that's just personal preference - to make the stockinette and reverse stockinette sections the same at the eyelet rows. You can see it on the picture where's it's zoomed in on the edging, how the eyelet rows are always flanked by purl rows. If I did it again, I'd have that row be whatever stripe I just finished (stockinette or reverse), just to keep it balanced and extremely reversible. Not that it's noticeable now; I'm just picky. Other than that, this was a great mindless knitting project - once you get used to the pattern, just look for the color changes in your yarn. Easy! But with impressive results! Raveled here.
  

• Sugar Leaves - continuing on slowly. I still love this project, but like all my long and slower moving projects, my knitting ADD means I've more than this one going. So, I'll work on it a few rows at a time, and am now through about 3 pattern repeats. Raveled here.
  

• Yoga Set - finally finished up the details :) I've had the bag finished for a while now, and use it regularly. I'm just getting around to the details of the strap loops, seaming the block bag, etc. I'm going to write up what I did as a pattern/guide available here, since (though I started with a bag pattern available, it was really little more than an inspiration piece and I figured out everything else myself). No new pictures on this one yet - they will come soon, though, when I write up my notes. Raveled here.
  

• Yoga Socks - starting on my second one. This is my travel project right now, the perfect size for Weight Watchers meetings, for example. Our aerobics room here on post, where the yoga class is held, is sometimes enthusiastically air-conditioned. So, I'm making a pair of these to keep me a little warmer as we get started. If I like them, I'll probably make more :) Raveled here.
  

• Baloo Hat - another FO to report! A friend does theater costumes, and needed a ear-flap hat with ears for Baloo in a production of "Jungle Book." Basic top-down cap with ear flaps. The ears are picked up from the top of the finished hat, and are based off of the Official Kittyville Hat from Stitch’n’Bitch. The shape of the ears was adjusted to be more bear-like than kitty (I simply adjusted how the decreases were placed) Also, I added 2 rounds of single crochet along the base of the cap and earflaps (to keep it from curling), and two ties of single crochet. Finally, I used tassels instead of pompoms, as am for some reason unable to make good pompoms. Raveled here.
  

More beading fun

Not just stitch markers this time either! Though there are some of those as well :) Sarah saw how much fun I was having with these, so ordered her own supplies, and we spent part of a Knit Night playing with them. These are sets I made on my own, though.

While Sarah was learning how to play with her beading stuffs, I made a bookmark! These are cute, and it's not like I don't have hundreds of books in my house (no, I'm not exaggerating) so I'm sure it will get used. This one I think will spend most of it's time on my knitting bookshelf, as it says "Knit" in little beads and has a little sweater bead hanging on it. So cute! (And yes, I know the 'T' is upside down in the picture!)

So yes, family and friends, you might be seeing something similar in Christmas and birthday packages down the road. ;)