I have no idea what the real story behind this photo is. Zooey Deschanel posted it on Facebook without commenting on it. It’s got Zooey, the most adorkable woman on earth looking beautiful as always. Taking a look away from Zooey … I know, it’s hard to do … there is something very familiar about this scene! This isn’t the first time we’ve seen her looking much bigger than surrounding furniture, is it? At the end of Elf, she and Buddy are visiting the North Pole where the furniture is also tiny.

The story I’ve made up in my head about this photo wouldn’t be a bad idea for Elf 2. Imagine Buddy’s adoptive father taking a road trip down from the North Pole in a tiny, elfin motorhome to pick up Buddy, Zooey and the grandson for a cross country trip. Elf 2: Road Trip. In this scene, Zooey has had all the camper living she can handle, and she wants to get on a plane back to New York NOW!

My Girl made me laugh and made me cry. It has so many great moments like the ones with the senile grandmother and this scene where Anna and Macaulay Culkin kiss and not know what to do after, stand up and pledge allegiance to the flag.

She took a break from acting. Now she’s 32 and she was at the premiere the new movie about Lady Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady. The photo on the left is Anna Chlumsky at the premier of the film. The photo on the right is Anna like I remember her from My Girl.

If you’re feeling nostalgic like I am, don’t bother checking Netflix Instant Streaming. I did. It isn’t there.

Your Guide to Holiday Movies

Think is produced in Dallas and this episode features DFW film critics, Stephen Becker of KERA’s Art&Seek, Christopher Kelly of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Chris Vognar of The Dallas Morning News. I’m not familiar any of these guys, but two of them came across as much too film illiterate to have jobs as film critics. One guy fell asleep in Hugo. A couple of them consider National Lampoon’s A Christmas Vacation a great Christmas film. They suggested Home Alone and It’s a Wonderful Life are not Christmas movies. One or more of them hasn’t seen Love Actually and still criticized it!?!?! The number of films these professional film critics admitted they haven’t seen was embarrassingly astounding.

Dear Krys Boyd,

Think is the best show produced by KERA and one of the best shows on public radio. Please skip these guys next time you want to talk about film. It’s like they decided because they like going to movies they would get jobs as movie critics without understanding that they’d be no go at it until they had seen everything. The take away from this episode of Think is the guests you had on haven’t taken the time to watch enough films to know what to Think.

Love the show, though!

Neal

The film is about Josh Harris. Harris made a lot of money in the early .com days. He had a vision for Internet TV back when most of us were still on dial-up. He started a company called Pseudo.com and when his personality made investors uncomfortable, he moved on to invent lifecasting. He and his girlfriend lived in a loft with cameras and microphones everywhere until the experiment cost them his money, their relationship, and maybe some sanity.

For about a year before we launched GeekBrief.TV, I studied attention economics in an effort to understand how to share information people can get from a wide variety of sources in a way that is special enough that they would want to get it from us. As a shy, retreating, bookish couple, we had to stretch outside our comfort zone in order to accomplish our goal. It helped immensely that Luria has that special something when she’s on camera. Stretching beyond what felt comfortable enabled us to accomplish what I thought we could.

Tools of social media give us all access to the world any time we want it. It’s then up to us to choose how much we live in public. As Luria and I walk through the pain of ending our marriage, it feels improper to talk about the personal stuff and disingenuous to say nothing at all. Our goal is to make it through this gracefully. I’m inclined to share my personal pain because it has helped me to read other people’s stories. Anytime I do that though, I have to do it in a way that is respectful of Luria’s desire for privacy. It’s tricky so my default is now set to Not Share.

Everything we’re going through is new. I’m sure we’ll both make mistakes. I’m more sure I’ll make more mistakes than she will. I’m not convinced it was the right thing to announce this on our blogs. I just don’t know, but one thing she and I both believe is that the geek world is better than the cool world because geeks are concerned about perfecting our tech while accepting one another just as we are. Beyond that, living in public is a tricky proposition, so if you choose to do it, it’s probably best to proceed with caution.

1. Shows the App on the second page of my iPad (click image to see full size shot)

2. Shows the Netflix opening logo.

3. Shows the Netflix iPad App page for titles available to “Watch Instantly.”

4. Shows a landscape screencap from The September Issue, a documentary about Anna Wintour

5. Shows a portrait screencap from the same film.

Last night I was flipping through channels and landed on a biopic about a woman named Temple Grandin. Claire Danes played the leading role. I’ve loved Claire Danes since My So Called Life so I started watching even though the movie was already half over. Now I can’t wait to go back and see the whole thing.

From my perspective, movies hardly get any better than when they tell a real life story about a person who struggled through life to make a difference. Temple Grandin is now a Doctor of Animal Science and professor at Colorado State University. She also has autism.

Because of the way she was rased, she pushed through limited expectations to do something that changed the way we treat the animals we eat. Autism gave Grandin the gift of thinking different. As a grad student, she had to visit a stockyard where cows were being prepared for slaughter. She reacted to the stress the cows were going through and went to work figuring out how to alleviate the stress. She says, “I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.” She designed a system that not only got cows from stockyards to slaughter peacefully, it also saved money.

In addition to her work with animals, Temple Grandin is also an advocate for autistic children. She’s been able to explain to worried and confused parents of autistic kids what the kids are experiencing when they spin in circles, put their hands over their ears or rock back and forth.

I’ve never heard of Temple Grandin before last night so I figure I’m not alone. The movie I watched is in rotation on HBO, but if you care about animals, you might want to order it from Amazon. She wrote a book called, Thinking in Pictures, one called, The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s and another one called, Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals. I can’t wait to learn more.

Here is a video of Temple Grandin speaking at TED. Tech people need to see this!

1. Spanglish
2. Junebug
3. Elizabethtown
4. In Her Shoes
5. About a Boy

I skimmed through so much of the partying stuff, I may have missed what should be a necessary reference to The Thin Man series of movies. I don’t buy anyone’s appreciation for alcohol if they don’t have some allegiance to The Thin Man.

We got home, Cali took medicine to help with the itching, and we put in the movie 300 based on a Frank Miller graphic novel. This genre isn’t our taste, but we LOVE Sin City.

That we love the movie Sin City surprises us to no end because we hate violence in movies. We don’t oppose it, we just don’t want to see it. The violence in Sin City rises to the level of art, and somehow, it’s beautiful.

300 didn’t quite work for me on that level. It succeeds in looking different than any other movie I’ve ever seen. Some of the erotic black and white scenes are as beautiful as scenes from Sin City, but I still found myself wanting to fast-forward through the battle scenes.

If it hadn’t been for Sin City, I wouldn’t have watched this movie at all, and I’m certain I would have enjoyed it more if I was more interested in that period of history or war movies in general. It just wasn’t my thing.

Tonight we’re going to watch Brick. I’m extremely excited about this movie. It’s a modern film noir set on a high school campus. I can’t wait!