Nothing New

No word today from either tutor.com or the East Harlem school. I did tutor a few hours ago for my mom's friend's son. He's a 9th grader at Bourne High School. We worked on some geometry problems and I helped him with his English essay on The Gift of he Magi. We also went over some basic studying and note-taking tips. It only took a little more than an hour and I'm working with him again on Saturday. I probably have to get up early though, probably around 10am.

I worked on the Rubik's cube a little more today. I matched my previous best time of 2 min 20 secs once today. I think I'm going to watch Princess Mononoke again tonight. I need to get my hands on Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, created by the same animator, Hayao Miyazaki. Did you know that Princess Mononoke was released in 1997 and became the highest grossing film in Japan until Titanic reared its ugly head? Spirited Away won an Academy Award and Howl's Moving Castle was nominated but did not win. I'm really excited about seeing the two movies I mentioned. Nothing against computer animated feature films, but I have a lot of respect and admiration for 2-dimensional feature films that are largely if not completely hand drawn. Think about it. Before Pixar, I can't think of a 3-D, computer animation film. You have great films like Aladdin, The Sword in the Stone, and The Lion King just to mention a few. What happened to hand-drawn 2-D films? Is there no room in this technologically advancing world for a simpler film format. Don't get me wrong, I think what they're doing with computer animation is pretty amazing. Toy Story is one of my favorites, and it set the table for Pixar to go on making millions. The animation in Finding Nemo was incredible. The thing I really appreciate most about those Pixar films is that it's not all about the animation; they take the time to tell a quality story. Anyway, just wanted to rant a little bit about the forgotten art of good story telling and 2-D animated feature films.

If anyone has a movie recommendation, please let me know whether it be animated or otherwise. I want to go see Choke this weekend, so I will.