Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse flew under my radar until I saw the trailer. It looks like no other film I’ve seen. At times it looks anime-ish, sometimes like a moving painting, motion capture and at other times like a traditional animated movie. An outstanding aside to its technical visuals is that kids really want to see it. Our 9 year old has been clamoring about it for the past couple of week. The prescient youth was correct and people are calling Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse the best animated film of the year. We’re giving away passes to the Atlanta sneak preview of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s Saturday, December 8 at 11:00AM.
What to do after Lord of the Rings? That was the question that Peter Jackson. His answer came a couple years after what fans would’ve liked-and it’s not in the form that they expect, but it’s here. Mortal Engines is the first book in a quartet that was written by Phillip Reeve. This is steam punk post-apocalypse, where the cities are now built on machines that crawl on land and devour other cities. Sign us up.
We’ve always been down with steam punk. On the way the Dragon Con last year our youngest sat beside a steam punk Colonel Sanders. To him (and us) it was one of the highlights of the con and produced some of the most memorable photos. I state that to say that my admiration of steam punk has somehow traveled down the gene chain to the kids.
The Atlanta sneak preview of Mortal Engines is Tuesday, December 11 at Atlantic Station. We’ve got 35 pairs of tickets to this sneak preview. Do want to see the sneak preview of Mortal Engines in Atlanta? Just RT the tweet, leave a comment or shoot us an email to trey@daddymojo.net. We’re pumped about seeing this film and want you to see it also.
Mortal Engines is a new epic directed by Oscar winning visual-effects artists Christian Rivers. Peter Jackson penned the screenplay, along with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Producing the film are Zane Weiner and Amanda Walker from The Hobbit trilogy, Deborah Forte from Goosebumps, as well as, Walsh and Jackson. Even watching the trailer for Mortal Engines you can sense the undercurrent of the passion and style that made Lord of the Ring so epic.
Mortal Engines takes place hundreds of years after civilization was destroyed by cataclysmic events. Now the predator cities take down anything in its path and London is the top dog. Toss in some mysterious characters, Hugo Weaving and we’re there. Win passes to the Atlanta sneak preview of Mortal Engines. It’s Tuesday, December 11 at night, we’ll email you the exact time and details. To enter, just RT the tweet, leave a comment or shoot us an email. We’re pumped about seeing this film and want you to see it also.
It’s been three weeks since we saw the film and my family is still talking about the butterflies. It’s fascinating to know that all of the Monarch Butterflies in the world do the same thing. Flight of the Butterfles is in IMAX 3D at Fernbank through January 10 and is 45 minutes of winged perfection.
I hesitantly agreed to take the boys (9 and 7) to Flight of the Butterflies because they quite simply do not do well with documentaries. Sometimes it’s challenging to have them watch anything that’s not animated or features a fart joke. However, I know that they love Fernbank Museum of Natural History so with caution to the wind we entered the IMAX theatre.
When is a Con not a Con? That sounds like a trick question, but note the capitalization of ‘Con’. In this instance we’re colloquially speaking about the pop-culture gatherings that happen around the world, specifically, we’re talking about Dragon Con. Dragon Con is the annual tradition that’s held in Atlanta each Labor Day weekend. Tens of thousands of people gather in seemingly every hotel in downtown Atlanta and do something that’s close to their Con passion. Dragon Con also has a very large, passionate and entertaining track of break out meetings for children. I took the kids to some presentations and they were blown away, moved and some of them literally took the Oxygen out of a (small) room.
It’s worth noting that some families know Dragon Con because of the parade. And wow, what a parade it is. It’s a 45 minute parade with some of the best and most realistic cosplay you will ever see. Tens of thousands of people line the parade route early each Saturday over Labor Day weekend to see it. The Dragon Con Parade is amazing. The Dragon Con Parade is also just the tip of a massive entertainment iceberg that is entirely family friendly.
This year our kids were six and eight. They like pop culture, but haven’t latched onto a specific property that really lights their fire yet. Before going to Dragon Con I prepped them for what it was and what they might see. “Will they throw candy out during the parade”, the young one asked. No, it’s not that type of parade. While he was initially bummed out, he was curious about it all based on my photos from previous years.
Late summer and fall is a fabulous time. There are cons (as in Conventions) happening, the weather is cooling down and JapanFest Atlanta is nigh. This festival is great fun and one that our family looks forward to every year for different reasons. There really is something for every member of your family, regardless of your knowledge or experience with Japanese culture. JapanFest is September 15 and 16 at Infinite Energy Arena in Norcross. To win this family 4-pack of tickets just leave a comment in the blog post and we’ll randomly pick the winner on September 11 at 9PM.
I’ve been looking forward to seeing Mile 22 since the casting of Iko Uwais as announced. For action film aficionados 2011’s The Raid was a blast of fresh, manic, violent air from Indonesia. Think Die Hard in a building, full of hyper violent drug dealers and gangsters, with an elite SWAT team trapped on the seventh floor. Iko Uwais was the star of The Raid and made that film an action classic and a truly great film, even if you don’t like action-assuming you could stomach the violence.
How to Trick the Tooth Fairy is a prime example of not judging a book by its cover. If you look at the cover it appears to be a book that is squarely, 100% aimed at girls. It has glitter on it, the tooth fairy and a mischievous looking young girl with a pink comforter and a heart shaped tooth box on the bed. Upon receiving the book I had its chance of winning over our 6YO at 20%. Don’t take me to Vegas because I lost that bet and out 6YO loved How to Trick the Tooth Fairy, laughed out loud and could relate to the antics that the lead character Kayleee puts on.
It’s not that I need our children’s books to have the scent of Steven Segal on them to be immediately appreciated by our youngest. He is in a phase where I’m not sure what type of books will appeal to him. Normally he’s driven by fart jokes, kid friendly aliens or talking animals. In my mind having him like a book about a prankster youth and an even more prankster tooth fairy wasn’t on the radar. Continue reading How to Trick the Tooth Fairy delivers the treats for kids 4-8
Our kids are pumped to see Hotel Transylvania 3-have you heard? We’re also quite excited to be giving away 4 family 4-packs of tickets to the Atlanta sneak preview of Hotel Transylvania on Saturday, July 7. The screening is at 11:00 AM and we’ll email the winner links to where they can get their tickets.
The plot to Hotel Transylvania 3 finds Drac in dire need of a vacation. They find a cruise that’s tailored to the monster set and the Drac Pack take part in all sorts of cruise ship shenanigans. Think of a parlor contest, ship-going on game and one of the monsters that you or your kids have loved in the first two movies are in there having fun. Everything seems to be going too well and sure enough there just might be a dark, hidden agenda for the cruise that they don’t know about yet.
Hotel Transylvania 3 comes out in movie theaters on July 13. This giveaway is for a 4-pack of tickets to the Atlanta sneak preview on 11:00 AM. It’s at a theater in Roswell, about 15 minutes north of Atlanta. The winners will be emailed links to the tickets so that they can claim them, as well as, more specific information.
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