dog

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Feast, The Animated Short That Plays Before Big Hero 6: Family Friendly Review

Feast, The Animated Short That Plays Before Big Hero 6: Family Friendly Review

Right before the magnificent movie Big Hero 6 begins, there is an animated short called Feast.

It was so good that I wish it was its own 90 minute movie.

Here’s a preview…

The animation style is clever and unique, as the camera points to the floor, where a man offers a stray puppy a French fry, which leads to the man adopting the dog and naming him Winston. From there, the owner makes a habit of giving Winston table scraps on top of his bowl of dry dog food.

Over the months, this lucky dog enjoys quite the daily feast. One fateful day, his owner even takes him to a restaurant to dine together!

Feast, The Animated Short That Plays Before Big Hero 6: Family Friendly Review

His owner eventually meets the woman who soon becomes his girlfriend.

All the time, the camera avoids showing the humans’ upper halves; it’s pretty much a dog’s eye view the whole time.

The plotline thickens as the new girlfriend begins consuming his owner’s attention; therefore, gone are the days on feasting off table scraps.

Not only does the dog lose his feasting privileges in the process, but he becomes lonely for the first time in his life.

Quality time and gifts (food) were how the owner showed his love for Winston; but the new girlfriend changed all that.

Until the day his owner and the girlfriend broke up.

Feast, The Animated Short That Plays Before Big Hero 6: Family Friendly Review

Back came the tables scraps, as the dog’s owner essentially becomes a glutton as he tries to get over the break up.

While Winston greatly appreciates the gourmet meals again, he can clearly see his owner his not happy.

Without a happy owner, the dog realizes he can’t truly enjoy the table scraps.

I won’t give away the ending, but Winston leads his owner back to the restaurant where the now ex-girlfriend works…

Feast, The Animated Short That Plays Before Big Hero 6: Family Friendly Review

Again, all this is done from an under the table dog’s eye view. Not to mention, few words are actually ever spoken. They are mostly unnecessary for this beautiful little romantic comedy in which the dog is the protagonist.

My wish is that Disney would make this mini-movie into a full-length 90 minute feature film. I think the concept is big enough to work.

So, Disney, what do you say?

P.S. I now invite you to read my family friendly review of Big Hero 6!

1 Comment Posted on funny, parenting, Storytelling

Jack Meets Max The Cockapoo, Nearly 3 Years Later

January 5, 2014 at 10:42 pm , by 

3 years, 1 month.

Dear Jack,

I imagine there will be a lot of confusion for you over these next several years in regards to how animals actually communicate with humans.

Considering all the kids’ movies and TV shows that feature talking animals, it seems to be evident that we humans secretly fantasize about being able to truly talk to the animals we love.

In fact, something I’ve got up my sleeve for 2014 is a 373 word childrens’ book I have written and have recently started working with an extremely talented illustrator on.

The plot line itself capitalizes on the truth that animals and humans do communicate in a language, but not a spoken one.

More on that in months to come, hopefully…

As for today, I want to tell you what happened this weekend as you were re-introduced to Max, the amazing Cockapoo (a Spaniel/Poodle mix).

On April 5th, 2011, nearly 3 years ago, I wrote Jack Meets Max The Cockapoo. Today, I write the follow-up.

We visited our friends, the Scotts, who happen to have a daughter named Parker who is close to your age, as well as a lovable dog who seems to be mutually interesting in you.

I really enjoyed following you, Parker, and Max around the Scotts’ house.

What initially started out as you sort of pestering Max, because you wanted to pet him so much, ended up being for the majority of the visit, a constant chase of Max after you.

Granted, I think some of it is that he was curious to try your organic yogurt-covered raisins.

But I could also see that Max also truly wanted to be your friend.

I loved watching him follow you around.

What I loved even more was the way you so naturally talked to Max, assuming he definitely understood you.

“Follow me, Max. Come this way with us,” I heard you tell him as you and Parker ventured over to the kitchen.

Later on in the morning, as Max was getting bored of being upstairs watching you and Parker in the “jumpy house,” as you call it, you could tell Max wasn’t being himself:

“What’s wrong, Max? Why are you sad? You want to go downstairs?”

For me, it was like watching three children, two are which were actually human. Even I could see, as you so easily did, that Max wanted your friendship and acceptance; and again, your snacks.

I don’t want to make it seem like our family members are huge animal lovers that let dogs lick our mouths. After all, our family doesn’t have a pet. As we put it, “We’re not dog people and we know this.”

However, Max is different.

We’ve known him for about five years now. He’s like the coolest dog ever. So Mommy and I have tossed around the idea… of getting a Cockapoo when you’re a bit older.

We’ll see.

Love,

Daddy

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dad from day one: Funny Faces and Baby Dreams

Week 1.

If you’re not good at winning staring contests, you should try being in one with an infant.  It’s pretty easy to win because there are no “overawareness” issues.  Baby Jack is dedicated to the game; I’ll give him that.  But typically I win because he either smiles or sneezes.  There’s nothing like staring at a baby’s face.  It’s amazing how long you can do it before you realize you’ve been doing it that long.

Of all the funny faces he currently makes, my favorite one is when raises his eyebrows like wants to be part of the 1950’s Rat Pack.  There’s also the “Elvis sneer”, the “surprised Dana Carvey”, the “Paul McCartney”, the “ancient Chinese man”, the “drowsy poet”, and the “Mac the alien” (a reference to a mostly forgotten E.T. copycat movie called Mac and Me.)

He often slips in and out of sleep when I stare at him.  I try to imagine what he is dreaming about, as his face tells the seemingly same story every time.  The dream starts out with Baby Jack petting a friendly puppy (Jack always starts his dreams smiling).  Then a mean dog comes along and scares Jack and the friendly puppy (that’s when Jack has a worried look on his face).  Lastly, the dream ends with him drinking milk or pooping (as he either starts “rooting” or grunting, accordingly).  What else would a baby dream about anyway?

“I wanna wake you from your dream.  I wanna know just who you’re talking to when you’re singing in your sleep.  I wanna find out what it means.  I’ve got marbles in my mouth.  Thousand words I wanna say but it’s impossible to spit ’em out.”

-Guster, “Do You Love Me?”


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People are the Meaning of Life, Part 4

 

The funny thing about enemies is that sometimes they end up becoming our friends later on. Once we trudge past the hurt, forgiveness, awkwardness, new beginning, and a block of time that helps wash away the instant stigma that used to come to mind when we would think of them, we can find ourselves in a situation where we almost think to ourselves, “What did we use to fight about, anyway?”

We as a nation have hated England, Germany, Italy, and Japan in past wars. But now it’s hard to imagine considering any of those countries as enemies, because in my lifetime, they have only been friends of America. Ironically, our country now depends on our relationships with them- not just in military alliances but also in trade.

I feel like I’m the only person in history who actually saw Mel Gibson’s 2006 movie Apocalypto, in which the concept is “there will always be an enemy, whether it’s within one’s self, in his village, in his nation, or outside his nation”. That idea is something I have kept in mind when I find myself brewing against a person who doesn’t see things the way I do, whether the other person is clearly wrong or not. Knowing that on any other day, it just as easily could be me that’s a hazard to myself, because I woke up that morning subconsciously deciding that day would suck because I thought it was Saturday but it was Thursday instead.

Ultimately, the lesson I have learned from dealing with “enemies” is this: It’s always a humbling experience. Being humbled is painful and uncomfortable, like be pushed into a swimming pool in the winter with my clothes on. And to be humbled is to be humiliated, to some degree. Because sometimes the only way to move past the antagonistic part of a relationship with a person is to stop trying to show them that they really are wrong and instead adopt this new branding of “we’ve both been wrong/we’ve let things get out of control/this has just been a big misunderstanding”. That goes against everything inside of me, but has proven the most effective way for me to have one less enemy and gain one more ally.

The Enemies we encounter in life, for the most part, are here to enhance our lives. As we learn to deal with them, we learn to better communicate and react to Bigger Enemies, along with treating our family and close friends better as well. People are the meaning of life, and annoyingly, even our Enemies help that to be true.

 

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Manspeak, Volume 6: Law

This is my company’s first week in our new office.  In the old office, the men’s restroom consisted of only a “one seater”.  Complete privacy, no worries about anyone using a urinal next to me only three feet away on the other side of an inch thick stall.  Those days are gone.  The men’s restroom of the new office is much nicer than the other one, but contains one stall plus two urinals.

 

Today I half-jokingly told my co-worker Mark that I am planning to make a sign to put up on the outside of the stall door whenever I am in there that would say, “Nick Shell is in here, in case you wanted to know.”  That way I could enjoy my peace without having to hear heckling comments or even just having to deal with the annoying question, “Who’s in there?”  Mark replied, “But if you make that sign then you will be interfering with Man Law.  Pestering the person in the bathroom stall is a requirement if it’s someone you know in there.”

 

It’s hard to imagine I could make it through 5 volumes of Manspeak without mentioning Man Law.  (Here’s a refresher course I found…)

http://manlawguide.wordpress.com/

 

Man Law of course was officially outted and recognized by those Miller Lite beer commercials in 2006.  Laws like “a man shall not walk a dog that is smaller than a football” and “there shall be a minimum waiting period of at least 6 months before a man is permitted to start dating his best friend’s ex”.  These laws are taken from the Book of Man Law, a book that no man has actually ever read or even seen before.  A man is just sort of born knowing it.

 

While a man is hard-wired with his own built-in instruction manual which helps him know his own kind; he is not programmed to understand a woman.  That’s where trial and error comes in.  But at least for himself and his own kind, he does have some direction.

 

At the heart of Man Law is an effort to ultimately prevent any reason for a man to ever have a Misunderstanding with another man.  Which prevents the unspeakable Hurt Feelings and the play-it-cool Apology.  A man doesn’t go around thinking about and talking about his relationships with his other guy friends.  Man Law takes care of that.  It’s set up to keep things simple in male friendships.

 

Man Law not only keeps his fellow male relationships healthy but also helps keep a man from unnecessarily embarrassing himself more than he already does on a weekly basis.  One of the many reasons I can’t stop obsessing over the movie I Love You, Man is because of how right-on it addresses the quirky rules of what it takes to be a socially acceptable man among his male peers. It does this by having a cast full of men who constantly break Man Law.  In fact, it is ironically Andy Samberg’s openly gay character, Robby Klaven, who helps his brother Peter to know what a confident straight man is supposed to act like.

 

One of the best examples of a serial offender of Man Law is Peter’s annoying self-obsessed co-worker Tevin Downey who has highlights in his hair and a fake tan, sends annoying e-mail forwards, and sneaks up behind Peter and tickles him whenever he gets the chance.  He’s the epitome of what used to be called a jerk, but in this decade has evolved into what is now called a Tool or a Douchebag. This kind of guy is not physically threatening, nor is he effeminate.  He is simply completely oblivious to the importance of Man Law.

 

Understandably, Man Law is sometimes misinterpreted as a chauvinistic list of what it takes to be macho.  Not the case.  What’s much worse than being less than manly is being compared to Dane Cook or Spencer Pratt, two “men” I constantly make references to, usually mentioning how men around the world long to punch them in the face.

 

To outsiders, Man Law may seem like a finicky, strenuous system in which a person can become overwhelmed by trying to keep up with all the rules.  It can be, for those born with out the instincts.  Because after all, it is an issue of social survival.  For the men who were unfortunately born with Man Law Deficiency, there is hope:  Watch The Office on Thursday nights.  Pay special attention to Andy Bernard and Michael Scott.  Do the exact opposite of whatever they do.

 

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com