Safe As Milk

NO MAPS ON MY TAPS Trailer #1 from Milestone Film & Video on Vimeo.

featuring music by Lionel Hampton and the dance artistry of Bunny Briggs, Chuck Green, and Harold “Sandman” Sims. Nierenberg’s real love for the dancers and their art made this joyous documentary a hit with audiences and critics. The thrilling talent and ebullient charisma of the three dancers shines through in every fame. No Maps on My Taps showed on multiple television outlets in the US and abroad and screened in theaters and college campuses.

I am a sucker for good tap dancing, much to the chagrin of the rest of my family. No Maps On My Taps is a cool artifact from the late 70’s that has a lot of good tap dancing in it.

Had a lot of laughs with this one. The kids seem to really enjoy a costume-heavy production.

Did Disney pull a “A New Hope” and add a subtitle to this after the sequels came out? I don’t remember the “The Curse of the Black Pearl” bit from when we saw it in the movies.

Saturday morning movies are great because it’s a dedicated coffee/family time alongside a solid movie with the whole rest of the day to do whatever.

What If is a rom-com that none of us had seen.
It was decent.
We liked the people in it (Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis) so the some of the more random plot/character/vfx choices were easier to swallow.

Since this wasn’t the lesson-in-film of the last few weeks, it was a much more casual viewing experience. The kids like it well enough. Probably because it was under three hours.

It was a hard sell getting the kids to watch this one, not because of the content but because of the length. It’s almost 3 1/2 hours long. There was an intermission.

We did it, though, and it was fun.

It was a bigger hit with the kids than we expected. While it may be an all-time great American Film, it is definitely in the 70’s cinema style and we weren’t sure how it would play with the Zoomers.

The only real gripe the kids had was that it was too long. They’re not wrong.

We’re going to try to tackle Part 2 tomorrow.

It’s been about 200 years since I was current on Spider-Man’s happenings but I love the look of this trailer.

I don’t know if this is supposed to be in 3-D or not. There is a lot of RGB channel shifting, but it isn’t there all the time so I’m not sure.

Even with that nit-pick, I love-love the imagery and it’s got the fun dialogue that the Marvel hero movies have done so well.

I want to see this in a theater.

I went to the movies by myself over the holiday and saw Baby Driver, the new bank heist/car chase movie from Edgar Wright. I loved it and, without any spoilers, these are some the reasons why:

• The Music – Have Mercy! The soundtrack for this movie is so great. There is a Spotify playlist of the songs that I’ve been listening to non-stop. The way it is used in the movie is smart, too. I stuck around through the credits and saw that Kid Koala made all of Baby’s tape remixes. He’s an excellent DJ you should check out if you haven’t heard of him.
• The Driving – I’m a big fan of the Ken Block-style Gymkhana stunt driving videos and the car chases in Baby Driver are directly influenced by them. All of that crazy drifting and hand brake skidding is fun to watch.
• The Edgar Wright Stuff – Edgar Wright makes cool-looking movies that have lots of little treats for attentive viewers. His Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy is stuffed with signature scenes and moments that tie the whole thing together. It’s clever film making and I was ready to see what would be in Baby Driver. I noticed:
  1. the lyrics to the opening song show up as graffiti and on pasted-flyers in the background as Baby is walking to work
  2. the gunshots in the numerous firefights all seemed to be on the beat of the song that was playing at the time (this made a neat effect)
  3. the music in the film is just a little bit louder than you normally hear soundtracks in other movies (which I think is a nod to Baby’s tinnitus)

I’m recommending this movie to everyone who will listen. It’s a near-perfect summer movie.