One Liners Formulate Elf's Comedy

DAY 14: FAVORITE MOVIE QUOTES

"Elf" is composed of one-liners throughout the movie.  These unique and hilarious phrases differentiate "Elf" from other holiday movies (and comedies) because it makes the movie memorable.  There's not one line that's funny; every one line is funny.  The fish-out-of-water situations that place Buddy the Elf in New York City are heightened by lines such as:

• Believing the "world's best coffee sign" on a coffee shop window: You did it! Congratulations! World's best cup of coffee! Great job, everybody! It's great to be here.
•  I'm a cotton-headed ninny-muggins. 
• "I'm sorry I ruined your lives, and crammed eleven cookies into the VCR." 
• First we'll make snow angels for two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie-dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle.

Find more "Elf" quotes here.

Why Sweet Home Alabama Works

DAY 13: A Favorite Love Story

The complex love story in “Sweet Home Alabama” represents not only Melanie Carmichael/Smooter’s choice between her current beau and her childhood sweetheart, but her choice between her Greenville, Alabama hometown and New York. 

The comparisons between the two places and people drive the movie forward.  Will she stay with her current lifestyle or will a trip back home change everything for her?

What would you do if you had to choose between your current life and your past?  Would you combine them or keep them separate? 

The large cast works extremely well – and everyone has a unique personality.  No two people are the same.  The country characters are living in their high school football glory days, but also realistic about the future.  Her new New York friends are willing to help Melanie find happiness, even if it could mean her moving back home.

Melanie escaped her past to discover her own path and became a fashion designer.  She’s successful; much more so than any of her high school friends.  Jake Perry, her childhood sweetheart, is the only person to almost reach her success and that was only after realizing that if he wanted to win her back, he needed to be more than a simple country boy.

 “Sweet Home Alabama” is a movie about second chances, love, the combination of two contrasting worlds.  A must see.

The Skeleton Dance: Skeletons can Dance!

Day 12: A Favorite Animated Movie

There are many great animated movies out there – for example, “Finding Nemo,” “Cinderella,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” and most Pixar movies.  I chose to write about “The Skeleton Dance” because I recently saw it’s a precursor to these animated movies.  It’s the beginning of animation and the short film is still relevant and amusing today.

“The Skeleton Dance” features skeletons that are nicer than cats (two cats hiss and spit at each other) but keep the creepy graveyard atmosphere.

Repetition is a key element in this short.  Once character would do something and the other character would mirror it and repeat it.  Everything happened in twos (an action and then the action repeated). 

The skeleton dance itself was innovative and used choreography staging techniques like varied heights, skeletons in the foreground and background, and focusing on two skeletons and then bringing the rest of the skeletons back for a group ensemble routine.  One skeleton used another as a xylophone and another used a cat as a violin, connecting the musicality to the screen.

As a short in “A Silly Symphony,” it was silly and entertaining.  Who knew skeletons were so talented at dancing?

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03QBNVwX8Q