MOVIE: Elemental (2023)

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Elemental Year: 2023 Rating: PG Length: 101 minutes / 1.68 hours I initially wasn’t too sold on the concept of Elemental (2023). The idea that elements live together in a city felt a bit too close to Zootopia (2016) to be truly original. However, Pixar (generally) has a good handle on stories, and I eventually gave this one a shot. I was surprised to find not only an approachable love story—which is rare for Pixar—but a touching look at expectations from immigrant parents and what it’s like to integrate into a society that isn’t made for you. As always, the visuals were striking, and the emotions were heartfelt. While the movie poked fun at certain human-based design decisions for the city (like when both main characters easily pass through a chain-link fence), the overall concept felt thought out enough to truly invoke the ethnic boroughs that many cities have for immigrants of similar ethnic backgrounds. Choosing the fire people to be the “odd element out”...
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BOOK: The Baby Owner’s Manual (2003)

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The Baby Owner’s Manual Year: 2003 Authors: Louis and Joe Borgenicht Length: 226 pages You might be shocked to learn that some men do read the instructions. There have been numerous products that I have purchased over the years which necessitated a read-through of the instructions provided. Usually, these were items of extreme complexity or of thorough interest to me to require fully understanding the items before beginning to use them. The Baby Owner’s Manual might seem like a humorous fusion of a parenting book with a repair manual for a vehicle, but somehow the fusion of these two works better than I would have ever expected. Published by Quirk Books (who have created other genius mash-ups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Shakespeare’s Star Wars), The Baby Owner’s Manual takes the complicated and frightening task of keeping a newborn alive and presents the necessary information in a format that any guy can understand. In fact, aside from a few choice substitutions that make...
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BOOK: Smothered (2018)

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Smothered Year: 2018 Author: Autumn Chiklis Length: 288 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** Even though I'm a Millennial, I never experienced the embarrassing situation of having to move back in with my parents after college. Of course, my degree was in Mechanical Engineering and not the degree the main character received from Columbia University that left her with no job prospects. If I were to describe the style of awkward comedy presented here, it would be "schadenfreude-esque." I suppose it's funny to watch someone fail in the ways presented here, but it's more of an amusing chuckle than a laugh-out-loud series of situations. In the end, this is still your basic "romantic comedy" where the main character can't communicate worth a darn and leads her to learn hard lessons about life. While I did like the interweaving of social media and technology into the narrative, I don't think it went far enough. Who were the journal entries for? If they were for the main character to...
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