Random Pix
29
Jul, 2012
Ponies Getting Married Is Totally Normal
My daughter, Aubrey is 5 yrs old and is a great mix of girly and goofy. She loves sports, but is definitely a girly girl. She prefers dresses, loves stickers and glitter and has pink handlebar streamers on both her Razor scooter and her bicycle. It should come as no surprise that she LOVES My Little Pony. Anything to do with ponies and horses is right up her ally, but My Little Pony is pastel colored, singing ponies who are really into fashion and fun which is pretty much her dream come true.
The My Little Pony – Friendship Is Magic: Royal Pony Wedding, 5 episode DVD is coming to DVD on August 7 and we were lucky to get a review copy! Aubrey has been watching it over and over and here’s her review:
“I LOVE IT!!”
It really is a well done series, currently airing on The HUB TV Network and we also stream it on Netflix. Magical, sweet little ponies with a wide variety of personalities and styles teach lessons in patience, kindness, honestly and integrity through hilarious story lines and super catchy tunes. I have a degree in music education and I have to admit I’m consistently impressed with the music on this series. It’s the quality of a good Broadway musical most of the time. OK, OK, I admit, I actually kind of like watching it too. But it is wildly popular with young kids and I won’t even get into the whole “Bronies” phenomenon. Google it. Oh wait. I already did it for you.
This DVD contains 5 episodes from the last season:
A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1 (yes, one of the ponies gets married to another pony, duh)
A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2
Hearts And Hooves Day
Sweet & Elite
The Best Night Ever
And bonus features of 2 sing-alongs and coloring sheets. Aubrey loves these wedding episodes SO much she reenacts them with different toys and even like to pretend we are the good and bad ponies on our bicycles in the driveway. Somehow, I always end up being “Nightmare Moon” (or as Aubrey usually calls her, “Mare Night Moon”). She’s the baaaaaad, evil pony!
Look for it in stores August 7 or pre-order on Amazon.com now! Priced at $14.97
*I was not compensated for this post, but was provided with a DVD to facilitate the review.
Tags: A Canterlot Wedding • Amy Anderson • Aubrey Anderson-Emmons • DVD review • Friendship Is Magic • Hasbro • MY Little Pony • Shout! Factory • The Hun TV Network
12
Jul, 2012
Candy That Is UNREAL
I’m not going to lie: Aubrey and I LOVE candy. I was one of those new moms who didn’t let my baby have any refined sugar for the first two years. Until almost two and a half, Aubrey did not taste candy, donuts, ice cream… nothing! The only things were her 1st and 2nd birthday cakes which were made by me, from scratch so they weren’t too horrendous.
But I love sugar and junk food and I knew it was only a matter of time before Aubrey would be away at preschool and the holiday and birthday parties would change her palate. I knew it was coming and I was fine with it. Now we enjoy sweets as part of our daily lives. We enjoy having a little treat of some sort every day, but everything in moderation and we try to not eat COMPLETE junk. For instance I try to limit artificial flavors and colors and we don’t drink soda pop or instant flavored drinks in our house. We bake a lot of our own treats from scratch mainly because it’s a fun thing to do and I know what ingredients go into what we eat and I can choose real food ingredients.
A couple weeks ago, I was introduced to a new snack food company that is out to change the way we treat ourselves and I can’t tell you how excited I am about it! The name of the company is UNREAL.
Their junk food concept is junk food UNJUNKED. What happens to candy when you take corn syrup and replace it with real cane sugar? Take out artificial colors and flavors and replace them with more cacao and plant dyes? Research and use a superior packaging material to keep the candy fresh without the use of artificial preservatives? What happens when you make a candy with sustainably farmed ingredients, no hydrogenated oils/fats, real milk from grass fed cows, also free from artificial hormones and antibiotics. No GMOs?! The result is an amazing tasting candy with more protein and fiber and over 40% less sugar per serving, on average. Yes! It is possible.
At this point you’re probably thinking – oh I bet it’s expensive and I’ll only be able to buy it at high end hippie stores where they shoot you dirty looks if you don’t bring your own reusable, help shopping bag. NO! It really IS delicious and it’s the same price as the junk filled candies you have settled for for years. And soon you will be able to buy UNREAL candy in over 30,000 stores nationwide.
I did have the opportunity to take a sample box of UNREAL candies home and Aubrey and I really enjoyed tasting them. We both love all of the 5 current offerings: UNREAL 77 (peanut butter cups), UNREAL 5 (chocolate caramel nougat bar), UNREAL 8 (chocolate peanut caramel nougat bar), UNREAL 41 (candy coated chocolates) and UNREAL 54 (candy coated chocolates with peanuts). #8 is my fave 🙂 Click this pink banner to see more nutritional info!
As a mom, I’m sold. I believe in trying to feed my kid real food as often as possible and I am disgusted and shocked that in 2012 a typical US grocery store is filled with mostly “food” that is not really food. Chemicals laden with salt, corn syrup and artificial flavors and colors. Did you know that most caramel in the most popular candy bars isn’t actually caramel? It’s corn syrup colored to look like caramel and most of the chemical and non-food additives put into candy isn’t there to make it taste better. It’s there to make it cheaper to manufacture. None of us are perfect consumers or perfect moms but here’s an easy way to give your kids, and yourself, something everyone enjoys and feel a little less crap about it. Another way to eat real food and demand better.
UNREAL candies are currently available at Michael’s CVS & Walgreen’s stores and soon will hit the shelves at Kroger, Ralph’s, BJ’s, Target, Fred Meyer and Food4Less. Check out their super groovy website, www.GetUnreal.com, and read the UNREAL story, get the UNREAL facts. Get inspired to UNJUNK your junk food and support this new company doing the right thing for people and the right thing for our planet. What a refreshing and yummy change!
* I was not compensated for this post and I did receive a sample box of UNREAL candies to facilitate this review. I honestly, truly did this candy and this company’s mission! Yay!
Tags: candy • chocolate • junk food • peanut butter cups • snack foods • UNJUNKED • UNREAL
22
Jun, 2012
Movie Review: People Like Us
Last night I saw an advanced screening of the new Dreamworks drama/comedy, People Like Us, starring Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Hall D’Daddario. Plot summary goes that Sam (Pine) finds his estranged father has died and reluctantly returns home to Los Angeles hoping to inherit some money but instead finds out he has a 30 year old sister and young nephew. A result of his father’s extra-marital affair. As this relationship develops, Sam is forced to examine everything he believed to be true about his family and reevaluate his own life choices.
First off, I liked this movie a lot. It’s not the best drama in the world, but it’s a pretty darn good one. Dreamworks is selling it as a “dramedy” but there’s very little “medy”to it. It’s mostly drama and pretty heavy at that. The young Josh (D’Daddario) lends a few laughs to the picture, here and there, but overall it’s a serious film about family and relationships. Bring tissues.
Their are many strong points to this film – the acting is excellent and so it the direction. I was especially impressed with, well all of the main characters I mentioned in the first sentence up there, but Michelle Pfeiffer is great as the grieving widow and distant mother. Nice to see her playing her age and doing it well – wrinkles and all! The young boy in the film, Michael Hall D’Daddrio, is fantastic. I’m always amazed by superb child actors and he really does a great job delivering a wide range of subtle emotion over the span of a very large and demanding role for a kid his age. Pine and Banks were also super watchable and each of them delivered layered characters that were believable and compelling. The only kind of wasted role was Sam’s girlfriend, Hannah, played by Olivia Wilde. She did a fine job with a boring role that was mostly about exposition. And of course, the wonderful Philip Baker Hall as the attorney and long time friend of the deceased father, was as natural and seamless as ever. One of my favorites!
I found it interesting that the movie is loosely based on the real life events of writer/director, Alex Kurtzman who knew his father had had a family before his but never knew them. He then met his half-sister for the first time, completely by chance, at a party on the very same day he was thinking about writing a script about a guy meeting a long lost sister. Wacky!
The film has well developed characters and natural dialogue and only loses a little of that tightness at the end, when things feel a little more contrived at times, but not to the point where it ruins the rest. Not even close. My main complaint was the score. Composer A.R. Rahman is a two time Academy Award winning composer, but his work just didn’t jive with me on this one. Right from the beginning of the movie, the scoring felt a little too movie of the week-ish to me and was often overly sentimental and somewhat insipid. It was overly pronounced and I feel a good musical score should support, not manipulate above and beyond the actors’ performances. But maybe you love sap and you’ll love the score. Me, not so much.
However, the use of other music throughout the film was very good (the deceased father was an old school rock music producer) and songs by Bob Dylan, The Clash, Foghat, Loose Fur, James Gang, Charles Mingus and more are strategically placed and appreciated.
I wouldn’t categorize this as a total “chick flick” but it’s a drama and it’s not a good date movie. Go with someone you don’t mind crying in front of and maybe even see it with your brother or sister and have a feel good family date. From a professional point of view, it’s refreshing to see actors acting, writers writing and directors directing in something original again. Remember? That’s what movies used to be. For this reason alone, it is worth seeing.
People Like Us opens nationwide June 29, 2012.
Tags: Alan Kurtzman • Chris Pine • Dreamworks • Elizabeth Banks • Michelle Pfeiffer • movie review • movies • People Like Us
