Honea Express

Posts Tagged ‘film’

The Avengers opens this week, and it is awesome. You may have seen the giveaway I’m running at the Disney Blog for some cool Avengers swag, but if you haven’t, go enter, I’ll wait.

I’ve also got something very special to give away here, and it too involves The Avengers. And Stan Lee. It’s a great power, great responsibility sort of thing, but with less spiders.

I’ve got two(2) weekend festival passes to the 2012 Catalina Film Festival, which includes a presentation by, and the honoring of, Mr. Stan Lee. Also, a special screening of Marvel’s The Avengers.

The catch? The winner needs to be in Southern California because travel to Catalina Island and other accommodations are not included in the prize.

Still, seeing Stan Lee and The Avengers is pretty cool, and Catalina Island is a great getaway. I’ve seen worse giveaways.

How to enter: If you are in SoCal and able to attend the Catalina Film Festival this coming weekend (May 4-6) then leave a comment below stating which Avenger is your favorite and why. It’s that easy!

Comments will close at 11:59 p.m. PST on Wednesday, May 2. Winner will be picked at random and contacted via email. Due to the sensitive timing of this giveaway winner must respond ASAP. If I do not hear back within 3 (three hours) I will contact another winner. I know, it’s not a lot of time, but hey, it’s my giveaway.

Excelsior!

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See the video of Mark Ruffalo on his inspiration for the Hulk!

Read my review of The Avengers at DadCentric!

Photo: Disney/Marvel

Get it? Avengers assemble. You assemble LEGO bricks. That’s pure gold, people. Pure gold. (No gold bricks are included.)

I’ll be interviewing these guys (the cast of Disney/Marvel’s The Avengers, not the actual LEGO figures) in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Look here for a first look at the new line of Avengers LEGO bricks!

Also, the Avengers are on Twitter and Facebook for all your superhero social media needs.

You started the music. You lit the lights. Some of you even dressed up right (I’m not judging). And now you want Muppets. I get it.

You came to the right place.

I’m giving away two (2) copies of The Muppets, the hit movie from Disney, in a fancy combo pack (the Wocka Wocka Value Pack) that has DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital copies, as well as the very awesome (not counting Jefferson Starship) soundtrack. All you have to do is enter (more on that below).

Disney sent me a copy for review, which became the centerpiece of our Friday Family Movie Night. The boys had seen the film, and loved it, so they were very excited to watch the Blu-ray. They really loved the special features (listed below) and we spent a very long time watching all of them.

The combo pack has a number of bonus features (depending on which copy you are using, Blu-ray has the most), including:

Some of you may know that I really did meet the Muppets (below, I’m the one on the left), and yes, it was as cool as you think it is.

Here’s how you enter the contest: Leave a comment below stating which Muppet you would most like to meet and why (Note, this contest in no way suggests that such a meeting will ever occur, in fact, it probably won’t. Honea Express, crushing dreams since 2005!). Make sure to provide your email address in the box provided (NOT THE COMMENT BOX). Comments will close on Thursday, March 29, at 11:59 p.m. PST. I will draw two (2) winners at random from the comments left below. I will then email said winners instructing them to claim their prize (and asking for mailing addresses – no P.O. boxes). Winners will have 24 hours to respond to the email or their prize will become forfeit and another winner will be drawn. Open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only. The review combo pack described above and both of the prizes mentioned in this contest are courtesy of Disney, they’re cool like that.

Wocka, wocka!

CLOSED: Congrats to Cody & Erica. The movie is in the mail (or other delivery service)!

Blogging hasn’t made me rich, unless you’re one of those saps that thinks friends make you rich, then sure, I’ve made a few bucks. But here’s the thing, friends don’t pay the rent, unless they are really great friends, which I’m sure some of them are. Call me!

What blogging has done, in addition to the many friends I’ve met (especially the great ones), is allow me opportunities that I never would have had with a regular job like a job. For instance, in the past year I’ve drank too much whiskey while talking to Bog Iger in Hawai’i, chatted with Steve Whitmire (Kermit the Frog) while hanging out at Jim Henson Studios (get The Muppets on DVD/Blu-ray tomorrow!), and watched my oldest son get his Jedi on at Skywalker Ranch. All of these experiences (and more!) have been incredible opportunities and I am thankful for them. Sure, they were the result of lots of hard work, and they themselves resulted in even more hard work, but every single one of them has been worth it. And then some.

Which leads me to my next great adventure: Next month I will be Disney’s guest at Pixar Studios in Emeryville, CA, and all will be right with the world. Well, my world anyway. I don’t know what you’re into.

I’m fully aware that you probably hate me a little bit right now, and I can say, with all honesty, I’m okay with that.

The trip includes a tour of Pixar Studios, a screening of Disneynature’s Chimpanzee (in theaters on Earth Day), a sneak peak of Pixar’s Brave and La Luna (the Oscar-nominated short to be shown before Brave), and a day at the wonderful Walt Disney Family Museum, which I just took my son to for his report on Walt Disney because I’m THE. BEST. DAD. EVER. True story.

You still hate me. I can feel it.

Here’s where you, the reader, come in. If you have any questions for Mark Andrews, the director of Brave, or any of the film’s animators, then please leave them in the comments below and I will ask them (unless your question sucks) during the interview process. It’s just like being there! Especially for me.

Hey kids, do you have the Facebook? Then you can “Like” Brave, Pixar, and Disneynature at your leisure. You can also like me. You can really like me. But I totally understand if you don’t.

Disclosure: This trip is on Disney’s very kind dime, but the opinions will be mine (something they know quite well).

There’s something about penguins that just feels right. Like all things it starts with fashion, which, in their case, is fabulous. Their look is equal parts pious nunwear and twinkle in their eye, dapper man about town. They are full of innocence and mischief, have terrible table manners and bladders the size of, well, penguins. They’re like well-dressed children.

Except they are not children. They are wild beasts that look great in a bow tie. No matter how easy they make it look in the movies, caring for wild animals is a lot of hard work. Also like children.

And then there are the conspiracies.

Do you have your tinfoil hats on? Good. Here are some theories that I have about penguins:

Penguins like people that pop. What does that mean? It means that the two greatest penguin movie moments to date, with all apologies to Morgan Freeman, involve central characters with those letters, “popp” to be exact, in their name: Mr. Popper and Mary Poppins, respectively. (Sorry, Happy Feet, you’re too preachy, even for a liberal elitist like me. You’re like the Michael Moore of animated family films. Honorable mention to Madagascar.)

Coincidence? I think not.

Penguins like to dance. Let’s look even closer at the two films in question. In Disney’s classic Mary Poppins we are treated to one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever, when Bert, played by Dick Van Dyke, dances with animated penguins.

In Mr. Popper’s Penguins we are treated to a scene, albeit too brief, where the title character, played by Jim Carrey, does a similar soft-shoe with CGI penguins.

Thanks to 20th Century Fox I was able to sit down with Carrey, so I pressed him on the issue (because that’s what conspiracy theorists do).

Whit: I thought there was a little nod, in Mr. Popper, where you were dancing with the penguins, that was very Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Jim Carrey:   Well, exactly. That’s not a mistake.  That comes from my love for him.  And I invited him to the premier and he’s coming to the premier.

Whit:  Cool.

Jim Carrey:  Pretty cool.

And then I got to dance with the penguins. Where dancing is kind of a strong word. Yet it was a moment for me because of the moments above, and I was a little nervous and a little hungover, and the one penguin kept falling on his ass, but it happened.

The boys, especially the youngest who loves penguins and Mary Poppins like other kids love penguins and South Park, are beside themselves. They don’t know the difference between a Dick Van Dyke, a Jim Carrey or their dad. They only know what they like, and they like penguins.

The other suspicious thing I was going to discuss about penguins is the similarities between Mr. Popper’s Penguins and Mr. Holland’s Opus, because Opus, obviously, is a penguin. But I think that’s the only similarity, so I’ll stop there.

And I won’t even go into this:

Bottom line, I go for penguins. I bet you do, too.

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Want to know more about Mr. Popper’s Penguins? Please see these posts that I have written elsewhere because that’s where I get paid:

How to Raise Penguins in the City at JoeShopping.com

Mr. Popper’s Penguins Giveaway at BabyCenter

Mr. Popper’s Penguins: A Review at BabyCenter

Meet the Cast of Mr. Popper’s Penguins at BabyCenter

Know Your Pole From a Hole in the Ground at UpTake (coming soon)

In Which Jim Carrey and I Talk Parenting at DadCentric (coming soon)

I was a guest of 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles for an overnight trip which featured a screening of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, a copy of the book and quality time with the cast. No penguins were hurt in the making of this post.