New Faces at the Hopping Lamp

I'm sure you've heard them, but Pixar announcements have been coming out left and right. Yes, aside from the nice new posters for Monsters University (opening June 21st), we've been getting more details on upcoming projects.

However, the details don't exactly tell us what projects they are. No word on any titles or what the release dates are, just information concerning who is on board for these said films.

What we know is that Teddy Newton will make his directorial debut soon. Teddy Newton is a Pixar veteran, who directed the groundbreaking Day & Night (the short attached to Toy Story 3) and also has a distinct voice which he provided for characters like the news announcer in The Incredibles and Chatter Telephone in Toy Story 3. He also notably supplied his voice for Brad Bird's excellent Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Pixar has been giving people outside the Lasseter-Stanton-Docter trio a shot at lead director lately: Lee Unkrich with Toy Story 3 and the untitled Dia De Los Muertos, Brad Lewis with Cars 2, Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews with Brave, Dan Scanlon with Monsters University and Bob Peterson with The Good Dinosaur.

The screenplay will be penned by Safety Not Guaranteed scribe Derek Connolly (pictured above). Safety Not Guaranteed was a critical darling, and the directorial debut of Colin Trevorrow, who was one of the desired directors for the next chapter of Star Wars; though he confirmed that he won't be directed it. That being said, Pixar is really branching out with their choice of screenwriters as well. Early on, talent like Joss Whedon would often contribute to the writing, but most of the film are written and handled by the Brain Trust members themselves or veterans. Another example of this is Michael Arndt, who was given the Herculean task of writing the screenplay for Toy Story 3 and making sure it stuck to the main tone of the first two while going a decidedly darker and less comedic route than its predecessors. Recently, Pixar hired Mad Men writer Marti Noxon to provide the screenplay for a film, many of which have speculated that it will be the currently untitled film that's slated to hit theaters on November 25, 2015.

Teddy Newton's film may or may not be the November 2015 title, plus we have no idea on what Noxon was hired for. Who knows, Noxon could've been attached to Unkrich's film or maybe something else entirely. As usual with Pixar, most of the details about their upcoming projects are drenched in secrecy. After all, it makes speculating fun.

Rumors are going around about Pete Docter's "Inside the Mind" film. The title is supposedly Inside Out, but it may not be. We may find out soon enough, though.

So now, we've got...

Monsters University - June 21, 2013
The Good Dinosaur - May 30, 2014
"Inside the Mind" - June 19, 2015
Untitled - November 25, 2015
"Dia De Los Muertos" - TBD
Finding Nemo 2* - TBD
Untitled Teddy Newton Film - TBD

Given Pixar's one film a year routine, I have a feeling the untitled 2015 film will move, but again you never know. There's a lot to look forward to. The more Pixar news, the more excitement...

The Baby’s Portrait + Ramsign Winner

Do y’all remember back in September when I dolled up the baby for his three year formal portrait?  Well, Mother and I picked it up last week and I am just speechless.  It perfectly captures his precious personality and fleeting innocence, and I can’t help but smile every time I walk past it in the dining room.  We’ve been anxiously saving his spot for three years!







John’s portrait was done at the very same age, in front of the very same fence, in a very similar outfit (I wanted them to each have one to pass down) three short (but so long in many ways) years ago.  I will treasure these.  Always.

And while I have the baby on my mind, I have to share an exchange from earlier in the week...  While he was cutting paper at the kitchen table (a "job" he takes very seriously and performs so many times a day that it's a wonder I have anything left to write on), I reminded him that we need to clean up the play room before bed.

To which he replied in his practiced and most authoritative voice "Mommy I very busy and I not a octopus."  And I'm outsmarted by the baby.  Again!

Lastly, I want to thank everyone that entered my Ramsign giveaway!  I loved reading what numbers you'd choose and what styles were your favorites.  So, without further ado, the lucky winner (by way of random number generation) is... drumroll please...

Christine of Sweet Girl Design!!  It just so happens that I adore her choice (not that it's binding or anything) "Love the Metropolitan - that blue is gorgeous! I would get "4" for my 4 boys - it would be terrible to leave such a pretty sign behind if I ever moved!! :)"  

CoNgRaTs!!!  Look for an email from me lickety split!
xoxo

"Wreck-It Ralph" Scribe Will Co-Direct "Frozen"

Walt Disney Animation Studio's Frozen is not due out until November 27, 2013, but it's probably in some form of production right now. However, Disney surprisingly added another director to the project today, Wreck-It Ralph screenwriter Jennifer Lee.

This raises a lot of questions. First off, why so late in the game? Was something not working with what director Chris Buck had? It's no secret that Disney's adaptation of The Snow Queen was on and off at the studio for many years, dating back to the 1990s even. Perhaps the problems from the earlier versions are still present?

Or did Disney feel the need to add her to the project due to Wreck-It Ralph's success? If so, that seems like a bizarre move. Sure, Lee and Phil Johnson's screenplay for Wreck-It Ralph was a winner, but wouldn't Disney bring her on board the project as a writer and not a director? It all seems strange...

What are your thoughts on this move?

Making Spirits Bright

 
Pretty happy to have dropped these in the mail.  Merry Christmas, y’all!
xoxo

Best Animated Short - 1965

Ah, the joys of residency interviews. People keep saying that these are informal and that the residencies are making sure that we can work well with the staff in that facility, but that's what they said about medical school interviews. You still have dozens of people interviewing for one spot, so the chances of you getting that one spot is much diminished. Perhaps I'm still haunted by my med school interview season back in 2008-09, one that ended up with me getting waitlisted on seven schools in ten interviews, even though I was told that the interviewers liked me. Thinking back to those days turn me into a nervous wreck like Rainbow Dash over there. Maybe that's why I bomb these interviews. I can only think back to my failures and that set me into a cycle of failure. Well today is my ninth interview (at Eastern Virginia Medical School, which waitlisted me in 2008) so hopefully I can keep my composure, but I doubt it. Perhaps that's why I scheduled 27 interviews and am planning on going to all of them. Because part of me knows that's what it's going to take in order to get in somewhere. I wish I had the confidence to take only 5 - 12 interviews like everybody else that's doing psych at my school, but just look at poor Rainbow Dash. You think she'd be fine doing only 12 interviews in that state of mind? I thought not.

Read more »

Birthday Cake Popcorn

Right up until the eleventh hour, the PCP had requested rice krispie treats for his birthday snack at school.  And then, at the very last minute, he decided that he “actually” doesn’t like rice krispie treats (huh?  I’m questioning his parentage right about now seeing as Honey and I can tear through a pan in about twenty minutes flat.)  Instead, he wanted to take popcorn in for his class.  (This is the same child that took yogurt in one year.)  As soon as he said it, I remembered a birthday cake popcorn I read about a while back and I couldn’t wait to re-create it!  I'm also thinking this could be a great alternative for kids with allergies!




Birthday Cake Popcorn (24 servings)
5 - 3oz. bags of microwave popcorn, popped.  I went all out here and bought the kind with so much faux butter that it pops yellow.
white chocolate candy melts – I used an entire 12oz. bag plus about half of another bag that I already had open
a little canola oil (or whatever you have…except probably olive as that just sounds wrong)
yellow cake mix
mini m&m’s
sprinkles

1. Melt your chocolate in the microwave according to the package directions.
2. Stir in a tablespoon or two of oil to thin it out some.  Then stir in 8 tablespoons-ish of the cake mix.  Try to get most of the lumps out.
3. In a large bowl, dump in your popcorn, a bunch of m&m’s and the chocolate mixture.  Stir well.  I had to do mine in two batches.
4. Spread the popcorn out in one layer over waxed paper.  Add sprinkles.  Let cool and then crumble into pieces.




I had just enough blue paper cups left over from some party or another so I printed out large circle labels to decorate them and then loaded them up with the popcorn.

Easy peasy, pretty darn tasty and SO very cute!!  Oh, and rave reviews from the seven year old set… not that they’re really all that hard to impress.
xoxo

Twilight

Those fleeting moments at twilight, lit with the sparkling white lights of the holiday season, are breathtaking and magical.  And I try to soak them up in the generally hectic minutes between homework and suppertime for our family. 
 
Christmas music plays in the den… (I’d love to light the fire but somebody has jammed the key hole full of mini lego pieces?!?!?)


Honey and John ran out to throw the football mid-chess game…


The little manger was one of my first holiday decorations ever purchased, probably fifteen years ago now.
 

I love this room.  The littles tear through it on a daily basis in pursuit of something or each other but I’m the only one that ever sits and enjoys.


A roaring fire awaits us on the porch…






…and the hot chocolate station is at the ready…


 


What you can’t hear are the joyful squeals of my boys in the yard, the crackling of the fire outside and the Christmas tunes playing on the porch.  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
xoxo

PS. Approximately two hours after these pictures were taken a pipe burst in the basement and we spent another two hours cleaning up the mess.  Ahhh…I got jolted back to real life so quickly I’m pretty sure I got whiplash :-)

See our Christmas decor in the daylight here!

Seven Years Young

It sounds cliché, but it seems like yesterday that I was at Emory Hospital birthing eight pounds of joy two weeks before his scheduled arrival.  I marvel each and every day at how on earth I could be so lucky as to call this child my own.  It is such a tremendous gift to love him, protect him, dote on him and to show him the ways of the world.  He’s precious, he’s as smart as a whip, he’s strong willed, he’s abundantly self confident, he’s a loyal friend, he’s energetic (bordering on wild), he’s dramatic, he’s a leader (or ringleader as I like to call it these days), and I love him with all my heart.  I have enjoyed these last seven years more than any in my life, and I pray that I am blessed with at least seventy more with him :-) 

The birthday boy awoke to a bunch of balloons tied to the end of his bed.  I love for their first waking moments on their special days to be special!

We started our day at the crack of dawn with our requisite birthday pancakes (Honey makes their name and age on their birthdays) and hot chocolate from the hot chocolate station.  Per usual, I read from his Happy Birthday book and we had a grand old time before the sun was even up.

 




Now, this is the first year that the PCP’s big day has fallen on a school day and he was BEYOND ecstatic!  The baby and I were also pretty thrilled to cart these birthday cake popcorn cups off to school.  The recipe is coming very soon!

We had so much fun watching the class sing to John in their special tradition - Mrs. B does the conductor arms and, at the birthday boy’s request, they added in “cha-cha-chas” and an “eat more chicken”.  Afterwards, they enjoyed the popcorn on the playground at recess.



At the birthday boy’s request we enjoyed a special dinner at the Japanese restaurant.  He was mighty proud of himself for catching the flying egg before anyone else at the table!

And we ended the day by adding a SEVEN YEAR OLD mark on the growth chart.  I love this nook in our upstairs hallway and all the ages and stages it represents.

I think the PCP would agree that it was one pretty fabulous day.  Happy birthday, baby!
xoxo

"Ralph" Holds On, "Guardians" Disappoints

It looks as if one animated film was able to soar this past weekend, while another one didn't do the same...

Thanksgiving weekend is normally a lucrative time for box office, but this weekend in particular was massive thanks to big blockbusters with good word of mouth like Skyfall, but this weekend also worked in Wreck-It Ralph's favor. Disney's current animated champion is now sitting at $149 million at the domestic box office, and it's only going to go higher thanks to the very positive buzz (that it rightfully deserves) it's getting. Wreck-It Ralph was also able to hold its ground against Life of Pi and Rise of the Guardians, both 3D and marketed to the family audience. Life of Pi however was mis-marketed, a film that I can't see as something appealing to family audiences. It still opened well for a film in the league. (And yes, I saw the film, I thought it was stunning.)

DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians on the other hand didn't exactly rise. The film only opened with $23 million over the three-day weekend and it didn't get much of a boost from its Wednesday opening either. I was hoping that this film would be a big success for DreamWorks since their output has been consistently (for the most part) good for a while, plus the critical reception for this film was mostly positive. So what happened?

From what I gathered from all the pre-release buzz, the film most likely opened poorly because the concept just didn't appeal despite the fact that the trailers did a decent job at making these childhood heroes seem like something to take a bit seriously. To others, it looked too silly. Left and right, people were deemed the concept ridiculous and that it would have a hard time appealing, even to children. Maybe I'm just biased, but I'm surprised that the visuals, the funny bits in the commercials and the spectacle didn't work with audiences.

This opening means that word of mouth is definitely going to save this one, perhaps the way it saved other films that didn't make much on their opening weekends. A How to Train Your Dragon-sized multiplier is out of the question since that film had no family-friendly or animated competition in its way for a while. Rise of the Guardians will have to duke it out with Wreck-It Ralph, Life of Pi, the 3D re-release of Monsters, Inc. and The Hobbit. Can it make it to $100 million domestically? I think it can, what do you think?

What's your take on this weekend box office results?

The Sequel Problem

Not too long ago, a trailer for the upcoming Blu-ray release of Disney's Mulan has made the waves. Notice anything... Different about it?



The trailer states "Also available - Mulan II", implying that the film's direct to video sequel from 2004 is getting a separate release around the same time.

Disney's home entertainment division has recently been pairing their not-so-successful animated films with their direct-to-video sequels on Blu-ray, without giving consumers a choice to buy the first film on its own. This has angered several Disney fans, including myself, while others don't see the big deal about it. I have ranted about this before, so I'll keep the flames at bay. This trailer does make me wonder though, is Disney going to do away with the bundles? Or are they going us consumers a choice?

Don Hahn's comments on his Facebook have contradicted this, as he confirmed that the upcoming Blu-ray releases of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Atlantis: The Lost Empire will be packaged with the sequels. But... Why would Mulan be an exception? Why would the trailer say "also available"? To me, that says it'll be available separately. If Mulan II was in fact part of the set, wouldn't the trailer excitedly show clips from both and say "Mulan and Mulan II, coming to Disney Blu-ray"?

Mulan and Mushu don't approve of low quality
direct-to-video sequels...

Personally, if they were to axe the sequel bundles, I'd be satisfied. The decision to package The Fox and the Hound and Pocahontas with the dreadful direct to video sequels caused quite a backlash, and rightfully so. Maybe Disney got wind of this? Who knows, but this trailer is very vague about the whole sequel issue. Maybe we'll find out later come next year...

"Wreck-It Ralph" Blu-ray Cover Artwork Revealed!

Well... Not all of the covers, because we all know Disney's deal: There's the standard combo pack, the big loaded one and the DVD-only release. What's the release date? We don't know yet, but given the usual schedule, this Blu-ray will probably hit stores sometime around March.

It seems like Disney is picking up this "Ultimate Collector's Edition" packaging trend with their recent Blu-rays. Brave was the first to sport this label, and the forthcoming Blu-ray releases of Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. 3D will also be Ultimate Collector's Editions.

That being said, I love this cover and the nice gold border. The main image comes from the international poster, which I believe is one of the best posters alongside the original 8-bit teaser poster. What do you think of it?

Ramsign Giveaway

Y’all, I am so excited to be hosting a Ramsign giveaway!  I haven’t done one of these in ages!



Ramsign’s classic hand stenciled signs are gorgeous and would be a fabulous addition to any decor.
 

There are so many possibilities…from your house number to any other important number or date!



One winner will be invited to choose any house number sign with 1-5 digits (not name signs or address plaques) in any of Ramsign’s 5 design styles.



The giveaway will be open through Friday November 30 at noon EST! 



Here’s how to enter:

• Go to the Ramsign website and check out the five sign types: Metropolitan, Highlander, Arrowhead, Lighthouse and Engelhardt. 
• Post a comment on this post letting me know which style you’d choose or what number you’d pick! 
• For an extra entry or two, follow me through GFC, an email subscription or both!  Post a separate comment for each.
• And for a final extra entry, like Ramsign on Facebook.  Post a comment letting me know that too.

That’s it!  I’ll announce the winner Friday afternoon!!
xoxo

This giveaway is now closed.  The lucky winner was...
Christine of Sweet Girl Design!!  It just so happens that I adore her choice (not that it's binding or anything) "Love the Metropolitan - that blue is gorgeous! I would get "4" for my 4 boys - it would be terrible to leave such a pretty sign behind if I ever moved!! :)"