Surprisingly, Tash & I have had time to watch some movies (mostly at hom, but we did get to the theater for one by leaving Mac with his Granny for a few hours -- we figured if we didn't do it now, we'd never be able to do it)...so here's the mini round up of reviews.
In Good Company -- A surprisingly good film starring the underutilized Topher Grace, the almost always engaging Dennis Quaid and the soon-to-be-annoying-cause-she's-being-over- hyped Scarlett Johansen. The plot follows an ad exec at a sports magazine (Quaid) who is the victim of corporate buyouts and shennaigans. He winds up getting demoted and gets a younger boss (Grace) who winds up falling in love with his daughter (Johansen). The movie doesn't play like a typical Hollywood film and is well done in all areas. A genuine surprise and worth watching.
A Dirty Shame -- John Waters seems stuck in the mode of trying to top himself. Instead of making "good" films like Hairspray, he's trying to top the shocks of his classic Pink Flamingos (among others). This film is all about sex addiction. It's really funny and very raunchy, but what else would you expect from John Waters? Tracy Ullman stars as a sexually repressed woman with a sexually promiscuous daughter (played by Selma Blair who may have done her first real nude scene on camera if you consider having an enourmous prosthetic bosom as being "actually" nude). When Ullman gets hit on the head, she changes into a sex addict and discovers that not only is that what made her daughter into one, but that she's destined to help all the sex addicts of the world discover a new way of achieving orgasm. The other sex addicts she encounters are a virtual catalog of weird ways of "getting off" (one guy likes to eat garbage). The film is hysterically funny in that off kilter and off putting John Waters way. Not for prudes or anyone who can barely discuss the subject of sex.
Kinsey -- Speaking of sex...the father of modern sex education and theories gets his own biopic and is played by Liam Neeson. Like the previously reviewed film, it's not for anyone who has problems discussing sex. Unlike the previous film, this one takes its subject matter very seriously. We get a good look into what made this man tick and what made him so interested in everyone's sex lives.
Fat Albert -- I watched the original TV series a lot as a kid, but I'll be damned if I can remember any real specifics about it (beyond knowing the characters and what they did each week). And I'm always very hesitant about big screen remakes of old TV shows, especially new live versions of cartoons...but I was very pleasantly surprised by this film. The cartoon characters enter the real world from the TV when they hear the tears of a teenage girl in trouble. Once in the real world, we get comedy from these now "real" people as they try to adjust and slowly discover that the longer they stay, the harder it is to go back. The film has lots of obvious comedy in it, but all of it is honest and the film has a very simple sweetness to it that reminds us of Bill Cosby's creations and all that they stood for when they were created. Cosby makes an appearance as well in one of the more touching scenes in the film. Great fun for the whole family.
The Princess Diaries 2 -- This sequel is everything a sequel shouldn't be. Where the first one was somewhat charming and cute, this one is annoying and predictable. If you're gonna have a scene on film these days where Julie Andrews actually sings, a hip-hop duet with Raven Simone is not the way to go and it pretty much sums up this film.
Fantastic Four -- Ignore every critic you may have read so far (especially Ebert & Roeper...Ebert hasn't been the same since Siskle died and Roeper's just a man with an asshole). Not every comic book character is supposed to be a brooding vigilante or a mixed up and confused teen or an allegory for hatred and prejudice. Some comic book characters were created just to be fun. And that's what this movie is. Is it perfect? Not at all. I could sit and talk about the pacing (it does slow down in a few spots) or the changes they made to Doctor Doom (I don't have as many problems as the rest of the geeks...and feel they'll fix the problems, which aren't that bad, in the sequel) or even comment on the casting (Jessica Alba's not my idea of Sue Storm...but she does better than almost any female in a comic book film made in the last decade much to my surprise). The film is fun and if you don't enjoy watching this, you're either too narrow-minded of a geek to really be allowed to be a geek or you don't know what fun is. I can't wait for a fully loaded DVD special edition (after all every film gets one whether it deserves it or not) and I look forward to seeing where they take the characters for a sequel. No...it's not as good as the Spider-Man or X-Men movies, but it's better than all the other Marvel Comics based films.
Well...that's all for today...we'll be back again soon with more Malcolm updates (like how does one deal with a child that essentially poops himself to sleep...grunts and groans for five minutes and then makes a sound that you know is bad and then just drifts off...do you wake him to change him or wait until he wakes himself...dilemmas, dilemmas) and maybe a few other surprises.
Be seeing you.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Adjusting to life with Malcolm
So the sounds my son makes are eerily similar at times to those of Gizmo the Mogwai from the movie Gremlins. Is this normal? I have no idea. There's cooing and whimpering and occassional crying (with even less occassional screaming)...and yet he's so damn cute to look at (sure...I'm being somewhat biased).
He also seems to have an innate sense of comic timing. He knows that it's funnier to only poop a little and force a diaper change, then as soon as he's freshly changed let the rest go and force a second diaper change (or sometimes he pees instead...holding it back for that second diaper change in a row...and he seems to have some amazing aim as it tends to shoot all the way up his back).
He's about two and a half weeks old now and we all seem to be slowly putting together some sort of routine. We're all pretty much asleep by 10:30 these days, but we're up again around 2 or 2:30 for a feeding. Then we're up again between 5 and 6 for another feeding before "starting the day" proper at 9 or 9:30. Our days consist of feeding Malcolm, changing Malcolm, catching up on laundry (mostly Malcolm's as he goes through more outfit changes than a runway model does in one show).
We've done a few outings so far (aside from pediatric appointments). A trip to look for a new minifridge resulted in my wandering the store while Tash fed the baby in the backseat of the car. Two lunch trips to a local diner (mostly so the wait staff could "oooh" and "aahh" after months of seeing us pregnant) went rather smoothly (only one diaper change).
More later as things change.
He also seems to have an innate sense of comic timing. He knows that it's funnier to only poop a little and force a diaper change, then as soon as he's freshly changed let the rest go and force a second diaper change (or sometimes he pees instead...holding it back for that second diaper change in a row...and he seems to have some amazing aim as it tends to shoot all the way up his back).
He's about two and a half weeks old now and we all seem to be slowly putting together some sort of routine. We're all pretty much asleep by 10:30 these days, but we're up again around 2 or 2:30 for a feeding. Then we're up again between 5 and 6 for another feeding before "starting the day" proper at 9 or 9:30. Our days consist of feeding Malcolm, changing Malcolm, catching up on laundry (mostly Malcolm's as he goes through more outfit changes than a runway model does in one show).
We've done a few outings so far (aside from pediatric appointments). A trip to look for a new minifridge resulted in my wandering the store while Tash fed the baby in the backseat of the car. Two lunch trips to a local diner (mostly so the wait staff could "oooh" and "aahh" after months of seeing us pregnant) went rather smoothly (only one diaper change).
More later as things change.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
The Longest Night & Day Ever
So the night of Friday July 1 into the morning of Saturday July 2 has officially become the longest night of my life...and that's gotta be saying something coming from someone who's had an aneurysm and spent five days in a Critical Care Unit.
The concept of breast feeding is a bit beyond me as a guy...and all the books one reads before the birth mention it as being the most natural thing to do...but watching my wife bravely attempt this was not fun and far from natural...in fact, it was a bit worse than dealing with her birthing pains as every time he failed to latch on brought on another bout of hysterics about how she's a failure as a woman.
Obviously, in my mind, this is not the case...and thank G-d for my in-laws being here. While I was able to send my brother-in-law to the drugstore to pick up some perscriptions, my sister-in-law took over as our lactation consultant and helped me calm Natasha down and remind her that any number of factors could be contributing to the problem at hand...especially since Malcolm had latched on immediately upon being handed to her our first night at the hospital. We got through round one of the "fight to feed Malcolm" with lots of love and support and just a bit of formula from a bottle (let's face it, his health comes first and if any of the Milk Nazis have a problem...well...they can go pump themselves).
Round two was rougher as everyone else was asleep by then (so we thought...my niece was apparently giving my sister-in-law her own problems). But we got through it the same way. Round three was even easier. By morning, Natasha had had some sleep, the baby had had enough food and everything was better.
Malcolm's first appointment with the pediatrician went well...he put on some weight since leaving the hospital (he was 8 lbs. 5 oz. at birth and went down to 7 lbs. 10 oz. upon discharge...this morning he was 7 lbs. 14 oz.) and thankfully, the pediatrician helped put Natasha even more a ease with our predicament ( her breasts are engorged, so Malcolm is essentially trying to suck from a 15 pound Brunswick bowling ball). Luckily we had some over the phone advice from an old friend of the Spickler family who is trained in all knowledge of this stuff...so once we were back from the doctor, my sister-in-law basically set up a "Booby Boot Camp" in the bedroom where we'd alternate Natasha putting hot towels and ice packs on her breasts in between pumpings and feeding attempts. We'd calm the baby down with 10cc of formula via a syringe and then make another feeding attempt via breast, feed him whatever came out of the pumps and then top him off with formula...this has been an all day affair and I'm beginning to think we could actually go into mass production if necessary (and just to give you an idea of how surreal this got, at once point, my sister-in-law was changing hot wash cloths every two minutes on my wife's breasts while my wife's got the electric pump on her, this with my niece slung on her back trying to look at what's going on and I'm syringe feeding my son while he sucked on my left pinkie...it was quite a sight).
We got some milk from Tash and it seemed like the engorgement was starting to subside, but the next morning Malcolm still wasn't latching the way he had in the hospital. I went back into panic mode about us starving our son and my brother-in-law took me out of the house while my sister-in-law went back to work on the two problems (apparently there was a repeat of the odd sights and I'm pretty sure my sister-in-law has seen more of my wife's breasts than I have of late). While we were gone, Malcolm did latch on and nurse briefly...we were called to bring home an orthodontic nipple so we could feed him the breastmilk without causing nipple confusion (and this brought back my fears of starving him, even though no one said anything to the effect that he wasn't eating...my mind just seemed to jump to that).
Armed with something labelled a Nuk, we got home and I discovered the baby was fine. He had eaten somewhat and we fed him some more using the new nipple to give him some expressed milk. So now we had the bizarre routine down to a science with dis-engorging my wife and feeding the baby now somewhat under control, we had to rest up for the next day's festivities...Malcolm's bris.
Be seeing you.
The concept of breast feeding is a bit beyond me as a guy...and all the books one reads before the birth mention it as being the most natural thing to do...but watching my wife bravely attempt this was not fun and far from natural...in fact, it was a bit worse than dealing with her birthing pains as every time he failed to latch on brought on another bout of hysterics about how she's a failure as a woman.
Obviously, in my mind, this is not the case...and thank G-d for my in-laws being here. While I was able to send my brother-in-law to the drugstore to pick up some perscriptions, my sister-in-law took over as our lactation consultant and helped me calm Natasha down and remind her that any number of factors could be contributing to the problem at hand...especially since Malcolm had latched on immediately upon being handed to her our first night at the hospital. We got through round one of the "fight to feed Malcolm" with lots of love and support and just a bit of formula from a bottle (let's face it, his health comes first and if any of the Milk Nazis have a problem...well...they can go pump themselves).
Round two was rougher as everyone else was asleep by then (so we thought...my niece was apparently giving my sister-in-law her own problems). But we got through it the same way. Round three was even easier. By morning, Natasha had had some sleep, the baby had had enough food and everything was better.
Malcolm's first appointment with the pediatrician went well...he put on some weight since leaving the hospital (he was 8 lbs. 5 oz. at birth and went down to 7 lbs. 10 oz. upon discharge...this morning he was 7 lbs. 14 oz.) and thankfully, the pediatrician helped put Natasha even more a ease with our predicament ( her breasts are engorged, so Malcolm is essentially trying to suck from a 15 pound Brunswick bowling ball). Luckily we had some over the phone advice from an old friend of the Spickler family who is trained in all knowledge of this stuff...so once we were back from the doctor, my sister-in-law basically set up a "Booby Boot Camp" in the bedroom where we'd alternate Natasha putting hot towels and ice packs on her breasts in between pumpings and feeding attempts. We'd calm the baby down with 10cc of formula via a syringe and then make another feeding attempt via breast, feed him whatever came out of the pumps and then top him off with formula...this has been an all day affair and I'm beginning to think we could actually go into mass production if necessary (and just to give you an idea of how surreal this got, at once point, my sister-in-law was changing hot wash cloths every two minutes on my wife's breasts while my wife's got the electric pump on her, this with my niece slung on her back trying to look at what's going on and I'm syringe feeding my son while he sucked on my left pinkie...it was quite a sight).
We got some milk from Tash and it seemed like the engorgement was starting to subside, but the next morning Malcolm still wasn't latching the way he had in the hospital. I went back into panic mode about us starving our son and my brother-in-law took me out of the house while my sister-in-law went back to work on the two problems (apparently there was a repeat of the odd sights and I'm pretty sure my sister-in-law has seen more of my wife's breasts than I have of late). While we were gone, Malcolm did latch on and nurse briefly...we were called to bring home an orthodontic nipple so we could feed him the breastmilk without causing nipple confusion (and this brought back my fears of starving him, even though no one said anything to the effect that he wasn't eating...my mind just seemed to jump to that).
Armed with something labelled a Nuk, we got home and I discovered the baby was fine. He had eaten somewhat and we fed him some more using the new nipple to give him some expressed milk. So now we had the bizarre routine down to a science with dis-engorging my wife and feeding the baby now somewhat under control, we had to rest up for the next day's festivities...Malcolm's bris.
Be seeing you.
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