Blade Runner. (Wikipedia) It’s been hailed as the greatest science fiction movie of the last 30 years, possibly the best ever. Admittedly it’s a great piece of filmmaking on a number of levels. Ridley Scott has called it his most complete movie. Instead of debating the greatness or expounding upon the influence it’s had within the genre, I thought I’d point out some of what I found most interesting about the movie.

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Yankee Doodle Dandy. (Wikipedia)I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to this movie as I’m not a big fan of musicals. I don’t mind the occasional song and dance number mind you, but traditional musicals in the vein of Oklahoma aren’t exactly my preferred cinematic experience. I was a little surprised at how engaging this movie is since it held my attention.

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Long term goals can make you feel like there's an endless path ahead.

So I’m back to blogging about my efforts to lose weight after a month of silence. November turned into a busy month and left little time for blogging. I gave myself a few days off of the scale around Thanksgiving but found that I still lost a pound without trying which was nice since I expected a slight weight gain. That was a very satisfying pound.

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Toy Story (IMDB), #99 on AFI’s Top 100 movies, is a great example of what animated movies should consistently strive for. It hit’s home runs in animation, story and talent performance.

Toy Story’s animation did a great job bringing toys to life, especially the small details that really make it hit home. While watching the movie for this post I noticed that the army men had small plastic circles on their backs, a result of the molding process evident on the real life version. This level of attention to detail lends itself to the stylized realism that Pixar employed in this and other releases.

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I started my plan to watch all of AFI’s Top 100 movies tonight with #100: Ben Hur. While I’ve seen the movie before, it’s been a long time and I don’t remember too much about the plot. My first thought at the midway point was: Holy cow this thing is long!

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