Moxie – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2021 film Moxie.

Story

The movie walks the line between heartwarming coming of age and showing the real horrors of sexism and racism. In the end it firmly settles on heartwarming coming of age.

It took me much too long to realize what the movie was going for and I kept waiting for the metaphorical axe to fall. I was expecting expulsion, but instead I got successful social action, and the drama came from the angry teen.

Beyond my expectations being skewed, the movie abandoned some threads and didn’t give enough room to some of the characters. Even after adjusting my expectations, it felt too clean and sanatized.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The main character is a quiet girl whose whole goal in high school is to fly under the radar. When she gets exposed to some severe racism and sexism, she goes from shy wallflower to passionate SJW.

Everything in the movie is seen through her lens, which is a great way to introduce white people, especially young girls, to these issues. However, because of that, there are characters introduced that have no story or very little.

In order to make the movie end on a happy note, the “villains” had to be comical and a mixture of inept and lazy.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The dialogue is designed to make everyone understand the main topics and hint at some of the others. The dialogue is very cleverly written, being both authentic and educational.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

Just like the dialogue, the cinematography is very cleverly done to both illustrate and emphasize the different issues.

The music is well picked and does a great job to enhance the story.

Score: 1

Fun

The movie stressed me out; I kept expecting something predictable and horrible to happen. It didn’t happen, but it did affect my enjoyment. I think a second viewing would be easier.

That being said the romance was cute and the high points were satisfying.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A great introduction to social issues that a lot of privileged people don’t know or want to think about. The issues are wrapped in a predictable coming of age story and shown through the lens of a partially oblivious white girl.

It’s a fun high school romp with a great set of messages, but it’s an overly optimistic and shallow introduction to social issues.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5

The ULTIMATE Mac & Cheese Test

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Hello Mac & Cheese lovers,

I few friends gave us 3 kinds of mac and cheese that they didn’t want, so we decided to make them and our favourite and see which was the BEST MAC & CHEESE.

We had Annie’s Shells and White Cheddar, PC White Cheddar, Annie’s Four Cheese, and Classic KD.

I followed the directions exactly as the boxes said and prepared the 4 different kinds. I found that following the instructions left the KD and PC really liquidy and I had to put them back on the stove to boil away the extra liquid. The Annie’s White Cheddar was slimy even after cooking a little longer and the Four Cheese was too dry.

Tasting

Dragon (4 years old and hates leftovers) loved all four of them equally, according to her.

Pegasus (21 months old and eats anything) ate all of them, but said Om-nom-nom for the PC and spit out the last bits of the Four Cheese.

Jen (36 years old and a bit of a picky eater) liked the KD more than she thought she would, but found both of the Annie’s tasted bad. She loved the PC despite me not telling her that was what it was.

Éric (37 years old and self-declared Mac&Cheese lover) was brought back to his childhood with the KD. The PC was delicious as always and both the Annie’s were cloying. Tasted like fake cheese.

Thoughts

I don’t think I’ve prepared Mac & Cheese without stuff in it since the mid-aughts. (My go to are zucchini, mushrooms, bacon, and a little mozzarella, salt, pepper, and some hot sauce.)

I’m fairly certain I’ve never prepared KD or PC Mac & Cheese by following the instructions. It was really watery and needed to be put back on the stove to thicken, but once it was, it was pretty creamy.

I was excited about trying the Annie’s and honestly it was pretty bad. I wouldn’t try it again.

Winner?

Honestly, the best taste on it’s own was definitely the PC White Cheddar, but Kraft Dinner was pretty good and brought me back to my childhood. (I almost went to get the ketchup.) Makes me want to try the new versions of KD and see how they taste. (I did enter the contest for the Pumpkin Spice version but didn’t get any. What? It’s Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Ginger, and sometimes cloves.)

None of them of them come close to homemade, but they are fast and easy.

Conclusion

I’m too old to have Mac & Cheese without anything in it (it just doesn’t last me) and I won’t be trying the Annie’s again.

What’s your favourite Mac & Cheese?

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Week 28 – Springtime with Roo

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I watched this movie for the first time last year. I don’t particularly enjoy it, but Dragon does, and it’s kinda cute. (I love Roo)

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch moviepainting eggsmake a daffodilpaint a flower potFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials

Storytime

Activity

Painting eggs – link to paper mache egg

Make a daffodil – link to activity

Paint a flower pot – link to activity

Next week: The Secret World of Arrietty

Week 26 – Inside Out Results

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Virtual school was interesting this week. She sang along with every song in the morning. But when the teachers asked her a question, she wasn’t able to concentrate long enough to formulate her response. I blame time change.

They learned about the letter ‘d’. They initially tried having the kids listen to words and tell them which ones had the sounds ‘d’ in it, but the sound quality wasn’t great. Dragon suggested that they write the letters, and she wrote ‘dauphin’, ‘dragon’, and ‘deux’.

The story was about different professional jobs. Dragon liked the pictures.

In the afternoon, they learned about solid shapes. Dragon had a LOT of fun playing the games and did very well with it.

She presented her giant Yoshi to the class. The teacher asked her what shape it is, and she was completely stumped.

Homeschool went well this week, although I completely underestimated how long making a board book would take, so we ended up not doing the paper maché.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: We started with the fingering exercises, which she did very well with. Then they did the recognition of the notes and the clapping and counting, and my mom has discovered that Dragon has memorized them based on where they are on the page. So they tried a different page, and yes, she has them memorized. So there will be a game devised to help her actually count properly. Lesson 3 was perfect, no problems. Then they did lesson 4 and it did not go well at all, so they stopped at the end of that.

We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

She did not do any crochet this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 70 out loud. I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a large amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s. We tried counting by tens for the first time this week. She kinda got it.

Math: Dragon found the math fun this week. She liked the second worksheet.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Write touch and feel book
Put touch and feel book together – Dragon made a 4-page book about emotions, based on the movie emotions. We didn’t do anger, because we couldn’t figure out how to draw it. It took a lot longer than I realized to make this, so we didn’t manage to make the emotion ball. We might do paper maché at some other time.

  • Brainstorming
  • Working hard
  • The balloon and pages, pre-used
  • Decorating th mirror
  • Colouring darkness is hard!
  • Weight to hold the glued pages down
  • Painting the spiders
  • Scared page is glued
  • Disgust page is glued
  • Sadness page is glued
  • Happy page is glued
  • Gluing the pages together
  • Trying to line the pages up
  • The cover is cut – but I measured wrong…oops!
  • Writing the cover
  • Didn’t notice until later that she spelled her name wrong :O
  • Full cover
  • Completed book! Front
  • Completed book! Happy
  • Completed book! Sad
  • Completed book! Scared
  • Completed book! Disgust
  • Completed book! Back

Finding ‘Ohana – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2021 Finding ‘Ohana.

Story

This is the way to pay homage and still make something original at the same time. Obviously influenced and lovingly made in the style of 80’s summer adventures.

I loved the respect they had for culture and family.

Score: 1

Characters

The brother sister relationship was both annoying and heartwarming (just like real family), the romance was a little over the top but cute, the mother-grandfather relationship was amazing. Basically, this movie is all about family and family relationships and it’s done wonderfully.

Score: 1

Dialogue

A great combination between campy, 80’s, and heartwarming. The dialogue was fun funny, and had enough references to old movies to make me smile.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The locations were utterly gorgeous, but that’s to be expected of Hawaii in movies. The caves, shot in Thailand, were well staged and fun.

The music wasn’t particularly great, but it did what it needed to do.

Score: 1

Fun

The movie was filled with heart and adventure. The whole family loved it. Even the slower scenes had everyone glued to the screen.

Overall

A fun 80’s style adventure with lots of heart. It’s exciting and fun with lots of respect for culture. A near perfect family movie.

Score: 5 Stars out of 5

Damien Robitaille or How the future is stranger than I expected

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

I had a surreal moment yesterday. It takes a little setup so check the full story after the picture.

First let me shout out Damien Robitaille who had a concert yesterday and it was awesome. If you enjoy music check out his webpage and facebook, he posts new covers almost every day.

Pegasus and I watching a live concert on the Google nest hub while I make snacks.

A lifetime ago, I worked at a little radio station CFRH Radio Penetanguishene. I was a student radio host, and honestly was way out of my depth. The people I worked with were fantastic at their jobs.

One of the people was Damien; he was in his last year of university or college and he was a lot of fun to work with. A really down to earth and friendly guy. At a party, I mentioned that I was feeling like I wasn’t good enough for the job. Damien told me that I was doing fine and then said something that stuck with me since. He said that the next few years (meaning university) would be a big adventure and that I’d grow a lot. It was good advice and helped me relax and not worry so much about feeling less mature than my coworkers or later those older than me.

Fast forward fifteen years, and I see his face in an ad for his fourth album on amazon. I wasn’t sure it was him so I checked his wikipedia page and yeah, it was. (I have 5 published books, when do I get a wikipedia page?)

Yesterday was a hard day, my stomach was upset and the toddler was getting super restless, so I checked facebook and saw Damien was playing a concert. So I sent the stream to my kitchen hub and we watched while I made us toast to snack on.

The whole situation was mildly surreal for me. First, that I’m of the age to have met people twenty years ago who are now famous (wikipedia page famous anyway).

Second was that I could watch a live concert that was being streamed by almost a thousand people around the world and share that with my son while making toast, while the musician was in his home studio. How cool is that? It was a surreal moment for me.

I’m sure he doesn’t remember me and it really doesn’t matter. I think the whole situation was something special. I am extremely jealous that he can play drums, piano, and sing all at the same time. I have trouble walking and talking at the same time.

Be kind and stay safe,

Éric

Week 27 – Rise of the Guardians

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This movie has Santa and Jack Frost, but it’s set at Easter, so that’s when I like to watch it. It is absolutely GORGEOUS, and if you haven’t read the books it’s based on, you really should, because they’re stunning picture books.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch moviedraw Easter eggsdesign Dreamlandlearn about the moonFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet

Storytime

Activity

Draw Easter eggs – template in download files

Design Dreamland – imagination drawing, mood board, etc

Learn about the moon – can look through a telescope, video

Next week: Springtime with Roo