The Iron Giant on the Big Screen

When I attended a panel with Brad Bird at Tribeca Film Festival in April, he announced that a special edition of The Iron Giant would be released in theaters in the fall. All I could think was that I wanted to take my grandsons who love the film as much as I do. 200 miles and busy schedules had me thinking that would never happen. Then Eli's birthday party got scheduled for the 3rd and The Iron Giant was playing on the 4th. Tickets were bought, I was one happy grandma. Seeing this for the first time on the big screen was pretty awesome and the kids were wide-eyed. It had been a while since we had seen the film, maybe a year or so. Even though it was familiar, it felt fresh as well. There was trivia before the film, extra scenes and a peek at a new documentary after the credits. As we walked out of the theater Miles delivered the ultimate compliment, "I want to watch that again, right now!" It was a great time at the movies with my favorite cinephiles.

Animated Voices - Vulture Festival 2015

I learned of the Vulture Festival through a comment Tig Notaro made on the Professor Blastoff Podcast. The date caught my ear because I was going to be in NYC that weekend. I looked at the schedule and bought a ticket for a panel called Animated Voices on the Saturday afternoon. The Milk Studios are a beautiful venue and I chose a seat second row center. When the talented voice actors took the stage and read scripts as their characters, I was in heaven. Alex Borstein, John Roberts, Larry Murphy, Heather Lawless, Keith Lucas and Kenny Lucas were on the stage. They performed Who's On First, and scenes from Shawshank Redemption, Fresh Prince, The Breakfast Club and Mad Men. The funniest scene was the contract scene from Fifty Shades of Grey read by Teddy and Linda Belcher of Bob's Burgers. I think everyone in the room was crying because they were laughing so hard. Absolutely brilliant. This was a very well run event, and I'm going to plan to go next year and bring a friend!