This is Aleo's freshman year final project. Not much to say from me other than, wow! My favorite comment overheard from another is, "Who knew how photogenic the DeArmitt/Walter house could be?"

I'm also supposed to say that this is not the final-final version and there is still some fine-tuning and color-correction that is necessary. I'm confident none of us civilians will ever know the ...

Above is Alex’s second film school assignment—make a two minute silent film.

Since first seeing it, I've had multiple recurring thoughts about this 150 second video:

• I'm struck by the conciseness of the storytelling. I won't say I thougth it an impossible ask but would have surely thought it an unreasonable ask were it put before me. Two minutes? What the heck am I suppposed ...
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It is rare to see Alex look unsettled.

When he was in a middle school robotics competition, if someone was struggling with a challenge, they were allowed to have a teammate step in to help them. In many cases, the person called in was Alex, and when he took the controls from the rattled contestant, he would begin methodically stepping through the problem, the world around seemingly disso...

Bella and Abdi (her multi-year boyfriend) were in Chicago for a long weekend. After parking their car on a congested neighborhood street, they stood back, assessing if their park job was okay given the signs and curb paint. They stopped two guys passing by and told them they were visiting town and asked if they, the guys, thought their parking was alright. The two fellows gave it a thumbs up. Afte ...

I think Anthony...

The Secret Cajun Band (SCB) is a St. Louis ska-band I became obsessed with in the 90s. Marty knew the guitar player from her high school days and asked me to go with her to a small concert they were doing. I said I didn't want to go. She said she didn't want to go alone and asked me to go as a favor. So I went, but under protest. After the first five notes from the first-ever song I heard from the ...

Aleo began his college career this Fall. Like Bella, he elected to stay local. I already talked about his unsolicited scholarship, which made his attendance in a film program at this private university possible.

Alex has been interested in video production for years. He's watched hundreds, possibly thousands, of hours of videos on the subject...

a new (and super-young) friend of mine recently convinced me to watch a fast and furious movie. she named it one of her best guilty pleasures.

one night when i had some free time i watched the first show in the series.

less than two hours after that, got a speeding ticket while running an errand.

and i wasn't going just a tad over the speed limit. i might have been going quite a bit over the speed limit.

my friend laughed when i told her this happened. i asked her if there was some sort of "fast-and-furious" related defense available to me. she said i might be able to get the judge to see the humor in the series of events and take mercy on me in that regard.

i doubt marty will be laughing when she learns of this. the reason i'm not certain is she is going to learn of this when she reads it here on the website. it's not that i was hiding the ticket from her, our conversations just never wended themselves that way.

i have a friend who is a work addict. how addicted? he lives in colorado. i live in the mid-west. he lives a few hours from some of the best skiing in the world. i live a twelve hours from that same skiing. yet, i ski more every year than he does. that's how addicted he is to work. (and yes, he does like skiiing).

now i am not faulting him for being addicted to something. we all have our proclivities. i only faulted him for what he was addicted to—a corporate job. and every time we would get together, this would inevitably become part of the conversation, as uncomfortable and futile as we all knew it was.

but after better than twenty years, my friend recently broke his bonds of addiction and left the company that transfixed him all of these years. he was a different man overnight. and not only did he go skiing with bookguy and i last winter, he also took us to a college football game last fall.

while on my spring break vacation this year, he left me a voice mail. he said he need to talk with me. his voice was serious and he didn't give any additional details. i feared that something happened to one of his parents. i excused myself from our company, went outside and returned his call. the family was fine but his addiction was being tested. a new company had approached him with a very appealing executive job offer. the downside would be he would surely fall into his old ways of seventy hour work weeks and no off days. he confessed to seeing the peril at hand but explained that it was a very good job offer, one that lots of people would want and even more people would question his turning down.

we talked it through and found a position that showed how passing on it would in the end prove to be better career capital than taking it AND that it would allow him to continue enjoying his current life that offered more balance and leisure. we ended the call but just as you might worry about a more conventional addiction problem, i worried for my friend.

he was to deliver his decision the next day. i wrote him the following night and asked him how it went.

DISCLAIMER:
admittedly, this following exchange will only mean something for people who are RABID fans of the cohen brothers' film Raising Arizona. if you are not a huge fan of that movie, this may not mean much to you but if you revered it like me and many of mine did, you will find the close of this email exchange to be a great homage to the film and mighty clever response to the situation.
and marty mocked me and my friends who could and would perform whole swaths of that movie back and forth during long drives in the car ("nobody sleeps naked in this house!") or even over dinner ("what now little brother?"). she said that memorizing the lines from that movie would never come in handy. with such a bad eye for future value, it is lucky for marty that "she's a flower ... just a little desert flower."

i'm not sure how i was completely numb and dumb to this documentary for the last seven years but as the kids would say, OMG.

sometimes these gritty documentaries can move you to tears at the end when their masterful storytelling comes to a well architected culmination. but in this case, my thirteen year old alex, who drifted in and out of my office as i watched the show, put it most accurately when he told his mother, "dad cried lots through that whole movie". as nick cannon said after first hearing grace vanderwahl sing, "i wasn't expecting that". what an unassuming masterpiece.

i am not a believer in trailers but know most are (i previewed this one and it will not wreck the experience too much). that said, i very much enjoyed stumbling into this one blind for it was a most lovely surprise.

below is the musical piece i'm trying to learn right now (right now in this case equalling the last year). and no, i don't know how to play the piano. this is the first song i'm learning. presently i'm up to the 45 second mark, but as you'll see that's where things get interesting.

i went to see american sniper but it was sold out. in fact, the next two shows were sold out. in scanning the wall of options i felt lucky to find blackhat still open. a michael mann movie about hacking and espionage. when the movie began, there was a light smattering of other viewers. i remember scanning the room with surprise and wondering where everyone was. then the movie began and i knew. they were intelligently and enviably somewhere else. it would be the second film i walked out of before it concluded (for the life of me i can't recall the last one, but i think it might have been heat).

since escaping that torment i've done some thinking and digging about this movie. there are a lot of folks speculating about why this movie did so poorly. they say that on paper it should have been a slam-dunk. people are pointing at directing, marketing, weekend competition. all of this is pointless and remarkably off the mark. this movie failed for one reason and one reason only: casting.

chris hemsworth is as believable in the role of a world-renowned hacker as i would be in the role of THOR. how social-media rich he is could not be less relevant to his ability to play this part. he is a handsome, muscle-bound guy. not only are neither of these assets helpful in this case, but by and large, they probably hurt any convincing arguments that of all the actors out there, known or not, he is the best suited for this particular character. if this highly obvious factor isn't in the math of the people charged with this decision, then those movie pundits could be replaced, professionally, by either of my elementary aged sons. hell, i would have found a present day sylvester stallone equally suited for the role if that helps paint a proper picture.

hence, this lack of insight makes the movie completely unwatchable. i just wish i was as quick at spotting this disconnect as others. admittedly, the fact that i don't watch trailers bit me here. but not enough for me to change my practice of avoiding plot-destroying, entertainment-stealing trailers. you just have to accept that you win most but will have to walk out of some.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. rockwell christmas

marty missed our last movie night. she doesn't like to do this but i sent her away. since returning to work marty's friend time went from semi-regular chats at parks and kids events to comments made in passing while porting the children to and fro. of course with her being marty, she pushed back from being sent away, saying, spending what little free time she has with her family is the right thing...

late in the summer bella and i began a new father-daughter ritual. on saturday nights she and i, after the boys go to bed, stay up late and watch a movie. the original vision was to have them all be horror/suspense films, something bella holds ravenous interest in given her passion for writing scary stories. i'm sure i've previously commented on the great boon and surprise awaiting parents when their children get old enough to engage in more mature, globally entertaining activities. i sometimes had the sense i'd be stuck watching the buddies dog-movie franchise forever and ever. in a semi-related aside, a friend told me of a time he was parked on the couch watching tosh.0, a show that definitely falls outside of the sunday disney movie realm if you're not familiar, when his twelve year old daughter came in and asked if she could watch with him. he looked at her, then at the screen, then back at her and said, "you can watch until i get uncomfortable that you're watching, then you have to leave." there's a special beauty to honest answers that dancing around a reply can never match. but back to father-daughter movie night. thus far, we've watched:

• poltergiest
• the lost boys
• the house at the end of the street
• sixth sense
• the others
• getaway (seen in theater on our ms150 weekend)
• in time
• the little girl who lives down the lane

when bella was pushing for horror/suspense films, i agreed but said i got to set the initial tone as i didn't intend to dive directly into Saw or Paranormal Activity and wanted more of a natural buildup. so i chose what i thought was a safe but entertaining selection with poltergiest. bella did not like it pretty much from the moment the tree attacked the boy. it seems kids don't give much merciful latitude to dated-looking special effects. in my next pick i hedged with the 80's-boy-candy flick Lost Boys. it proved to not be much of a hedge because within minutes bella said, "vampires? really dad?". how exactly was i to know that vampires were so last generation? the cute boys bought me a bit of slack but not enough to save me from getting benched from picking our third movie.

bella chose one she had watched with a girlfriend at a sleepover. my faith in a movie two sleep-deprived twelve year olds were giddy about was not high and i expected a totally re-done, predictable and second-rate tale. not only were my few "let me guess" predictions dead wrong, the movie had me tense and squirming like a tittering twelve year old at a sleepover. so in the end the score stood bella one, dad none. to restore my daughter's faith in my ability to select a movie i had to go to the big guns and pull out The Sixth Sense which, of course, completely blew her away (man is that movie masterfully done!).

the next ones were nothing special until i stumbled upon this seventies film called the little girl who lives down the lane staring a thirteen year old jodie foster and youthful martin sheen. it was quite good but both bella and i had dropped jaws when jodie foster's character stripped naked and climbed into bed with her co-star. to bella's shocked face, i confessed i didn't know (1) there would be nudity from a child not much older than bella or (2) that it was even legal to show a child not much older than bella naked in a film in the first place. i believe bella's exact words were, "dad, i could see her little boobies bouncing when she walked. you made me watch that." re-benched.

obviously, if you know of any good, father-daughter (nudity-free!!!) suspense films we'd love the recommendations.

a neighbor sent me an email with a link to a movie trailer for enders game. i guess he and i talked about the book at one of our neighborhood gatherings. those who know me know i did not click on the link. instead i sent him the following reply: to which he replied: no matter how good they make this film, and i'd wager it will not be good at all, their effort could not possibly be better than the millions of versions that won't be imagined in the young minds that will not read the book because they saw this film. most unfortunate.

last week our family watched a film called babysitter beware for our friday night movie. there was a scene at the beginning of the film where these kids put a dog's shock collar around an evil neighbor's neck and then repeatedly tricked him into shocking himself. on the following tuesday at breakfast, anthony said the following in regard to that film. i stopped making my lunches contemplating his notion, shook my head in agreement and told him i thought that he was right and that would have been a smart and funny add. i finished lunches marveling at the human brain, and the young mind sitting in my kitchen presently, that conjured that specific thought days after the initial experience.

for any envious of me getting to be entertained by my witty six year old so, let me share what came out of my cerebral cherub's mouth seventeen minutes later after i pissed him off for goofing around in the backyard when he was supposed to be getting in the car. after finally sliding into the backseat and slamming the door in a huff, he proceeded to light me up.

ANTHONY
i wish i came out of someone else's stomach.

TROY
what? why would you say that? we're going to school, we're not playing in the backyard.

ANTHONY
i wasn't playing. i was trying to walk to the garage without getting mud on my shoes.

TROY
well, i'm sorry. i didn't know that was what you're doing.

ANTHONY
i didn't want to track mud into my school. what kind of parent yells at their child for trying to be respectful of their school?

welcome to another glorious day in the corps of parenthood.

during alex's dad day this year, i planned for one of his events to be a movie. the day before i glanced at the movie listings and saw the film Pirates. every time we'd seen previews for this one made by the chicken run people, alex chuckled and tittered throughout so i knew he'd be glad to see it. after go-karting i looked for nearby theaters and showtimes on my iphone. i found there were no late afternoon or evening showings of that film (i even looked in neighboring cities - no dice). as i scrolled up and down the listings looking for a replacement alex, peering over my shoulder, told me to stop.

ALEO
what's that one?

TROY
that's the avengers.

ALEO
oh! can we go to that? morgan saw it and said it is awesome.

TROY
well, i'm afraid it may be a little old for you. and you haven't seen some of the earlier films that led up to this.

ALEO
well morgan saw it. and you can tell me about the other films.

TROY
i could but the problem is i haven't seen all the earlier films either.

ALEO
that's ok. i bet it will still be good.

TROY
what if you get freaked out?

ALEO
just blood freaks me out and i can close my eyes if there is blood.

TROY
ok, i guess we can try it. if you get freaked out, we'll just leave.

part of the reason i was so easily sold on taking my nine year old to a pg-13 film was, well, because i had been trying to see it on a six day break from work and hadn't fit it in. and this was the last day of my break. so now i'm sure you're seeing why it was the right and mature choice. the other good side to deciding to see it were there were lots of showtimes to choose from. this allowed us to go out to dinner (lions choice) and look up the characters of the film while we ate. it even allowed us to sneak in our book store visit (where he gets a $20 credit for books) beforehand.

as for how the experience went, halfway through the movie, alex leaned over towards me and whispered, without taking his eyes of the screen, "dad. this movie is really good ... and there's no blood." win-win.

marty and the kids were out of town for the weekend. a co-worker asked what i was going to do. i said i wasn't sure but might take in a movie. he mentioned this one he thought i might like called tree of life. he said he didn't know much about it other than it was about a generation or two of fathers and had brad pitt and sean penn in it. i held up my hand, told him i was sold and he shouldn't say anything else. i've hit that age where i'm actually open and interested in hearing what older, more experienced folks have to say about things, especially when it comes to parenting.

the movie was playing in my favorite theater which is about a ten minute walk from my house. i arrived well on time, got some corn and a drink and settled into an out of the way seat. being saturday night and a talked about film the small theater filled in quickly. then the movie started. twenty minutes in i feared i'd made a tragic choice. i looked to my right. there was an older couple pinning my in (i had a wall to my left). i studied the couple. it looked like it would take them seven minutes to stand up if i tried to pass. there were people in the rows in front of and behind me so i was stuck there as well. i glanced back to the screen. it confirmed how screwed i was. it turns out i wasn't alone in my sentiment. when the credits finally rolled, a woman a few rows behind me exclaimed "thank god" in a most relieved tone.

since escaping that dark auditorium, my sense for the film has changed, dramatically. it has changed so remarkably that now, now i think it may be one of the best films i've ever seen. like ever. this re-consideration began as soon as my walk home from the theater. and since then, some five months later, images and thoughts from the film continue to roll through the projector in my head with great regularity. and the thoughts and emotions i'm left with are not just whimsical remembrances--they are powerful and moving. in hindsight i would call it an extraordinary work. and when the writing and directing and editing is done, is the resultant experience not the fundamental point of the medium, especially in this "entertain me" commanding society.

i won't tell you why or how this film proved so meaningful for me, unless you come and ask, but will say if you do give it a go, you need to give yourself to it. commit the ninety minutes. and i mean really commit. no checking your mail or answering the phone or watching some today and some tomorrow. you need to let it wash over you in one sitting. that's what was intended and the only way it will work. i think knowing that beforehand would have helped me as going in blind does not work so well in this instance.

and if you don't trust my sense (which would be quite wise) roger ebert just added it to his top ten films of all time (essay here) which is what reminded me to share my experience with this moving picture.

my three all-time favorite-ever movie lines:

---

john candy is driving the car the wrong way on the highway. steve martin just woke up form a nap. martin straightens around trying to orient where he is and notices people on the other side of the highway median yelling and waving at them. martin rolls down his window to see what they're saying. he turns to john candy and tells him that the people over there are saying we're going the wrong way. john candy casually dismisses the accusation with a shrug saying, "how do they know where we're going." you see martin think on this for a moment and then you see candy's logic wash over his groggy face. he then turns and waves a polite thank you in the other cars direction while john candy is in the background making wild drinking gestures their way.

---

a major thread of this movie chronicles a crush jason schwartzman (lead role, student) has on one of his young female prep school teachers. in this scene he is having dinner with the teacher and her boyfriend. miffed at his presence schwartzman works to insult the boyfriend. in one swipe he mocks the man's hospital scrubs (and i'm working from memory here):

SCHWARTZMAN
i like your nurse's uniform.

BOYFRIEND
these are O.R. scrubs

SCHWARTZMAN (sarcastically and slowly)
OH ARE they? [spoken "O.R. they?]

---

when arnold schwarzenegger learns that bill paxton is having an affair with his wife, jaime lee curtis, schwarzenegger goes to the car dealership where paxton works. while test driving a car, schwarzenegger gets paxton to talk about having affairs with women and specifically his wife. paxton is more than eager to talk about his exaggerated skills at wooing the lonely wives of over-working men. paxton then lights into a long-winded description of how beautiful the woman he was currently working on was. in the midst of his long description on her features, one of the lines slipped in the middle was, "she's got an ass like a ten year old boy."

i to this day still remember sitting dumbfounded in the audience at this unorthodox, unconventional, and unexpected description of a beautiful woman.

---

i almost added a line from zombieland to the list but i just watched it for the first time while in chicago and i need to let it steep awhile to see if it sticks in my head as much as the above lines do.

friday is movie night in our house. first the family watches a kid-friendly show ** . after our family movie and putting the kids down, i watch a troy movie. if marty doesn't fall asleep with the kids she'll usually stop by to see what i'm watching, contemplate it for a moment, and then either join me or move on. last week she joined me. the pick was called The Last Picture Show. i'm not sure who referred it to me. it just showed up the netflix sleeve (i'm a tragically horrible netflix queue manager ****). the movie was odd and not too long in you got to see a young cybil sheppard topless. quite certain that would be the movie's crowning achievement for me, i went to sleep with my head in marty's lap. marty stuck it out. when it was done she was intrigued by the male lead and looked him up on imdb. his portfolio led her to watch an episode of 21 jump street and melrose place. this translated to her being awake well into the 2am hour.

the next day, around 4pm marty cautioned the kids that she was tired and not in a good mood. bella asked what was wrong. marty said she stayed up too late the night before. bella asked why she stayed up. marty confessed that she was watching shows. bella ruminated on this for a moment and marty actually saw the realization settle into the girl that there is no one to tell moms and dads when enough is enough and it's time to go to bed (like it or not!). bella then turned to her brothers and said, "alex! anthony! do you hear that? when you grow up it's important that you make good choices because no one will be there to tell you what to do. nothing is for free!"

i would pay a whole lot of money to know where that "nothing is for free" closing stems from. it's strong. i've already used it four times in just the last week. when you get the inflection just right, it gives everyone pause. in fact, it's almost as effective as swearing to people you believe johnny depp's best work happened in 21 jump street.

** right now we're doing a special movie night project where we're going through the alphabet. this means the week's letter defines both the movie and our meal. last week, E, was E.T. (which anthony keeps calling E.T.A. for some reason) and we ate enchiladas.

**** i read or hear about a movie and then add it to my netflix queue. the movie can show up more than a year later and i have no idea what drew me to it. sometimes you get a pleasant surprise in this lackadaisical approach to life, but most times you just get stuck with kooky movies you're not in the mood for. this proclivity is also why i don't play fantasy football. i once had a week where two of my rostered players were on a bye week. i lost in that case too.

p.s. apologies for all the errors and typos in yesterdays gallery posting. i took ill that evening and was working through the haze of a robitussen induced coma. i don't really have a good excuse for the rest of the days.

anthony replaces SH sounds with an F sound. it's no kinda problem, cute even, until he starts talking about the honey i shrunk the kids franchise. things get a little dicey in those waters. especially in front of strangers. but even with the confusion, he's still pretty dang cute.

list of about two straight weeks worth of hannah Montana movies found in my daughter's bedroom which bodes about seven sorts of evil for me.

click to enlarge

it's easter sunday. the whole lot of us are lazing on a fully-reclined, double-futon watching flipper, the original, on a 17 inch computer screen that's sitting across the room. we are laying on pillows and each other and under covers and watching with varying levels of attention and interest when anthony broke our collective stupor by calling out something that he calls out every time we watch a ...