Tag Archives: Let It Go

Mar 21 2014
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GrabBag – The Positive Effect of YouTube; also… Game of Thrones Movies?

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Yet another Friday, yet another GrabBag…

  • …And yet another “Let It Go” cover, this one with impressions of various Disney and Pixar characters…
  • Every now and again, it’s nice to be reminded that YouTube can be a very useful and valuable resource for people who actually really need it. This street musician was filmed by a YouTuber, who made ad revenue from the video. In return, he not only gave the revenue back to the musician, but helped him set up and use his own account so he can continue to make revenue.
  • The Cleveland Cavaliers take some technology from the Sochi Olympics ceremony and turns their court into a screen with some pretty impressive graphics.
  • And finally, well… there’s really nothing that needs to be said about this one. Just bask in the glory…
avengers cats

Source: Imgur

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend!

(GrabBag is a weekly column published every Friday.)

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Mar 07 2014
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GrabBag – The Twitter Conference Call

The Oscars are over. They’ve been analyzed, re-analyzed, interpreted, and meme-ified. It’s time for a final wave goodbye in our rearview mirror. Today’s GrabBag has just a few last Oscar-related videos, and then moves on. What will we do with our time now?

  • The Impression Guys’ Academy Awards Special. Damn these guys are good!
  • Here’s a montage of every Academy Award Best Picture winner since Wings.
  • Apparently Captain Phillips’ Barkhad Abdi is broke. Here’s hoping his Oscar nomination (and BAFTA win) means more amazing roles to change that.
  • And of course, it seems I can’t have a GrabBag lately without another version of “Let It Go.” This time Idina Menzel joins Jimmy Fallon and The Roots on kids’ classroom instruments for a seriously awesome rendition.

Dane DeHaan as James Dean

  • Nicole Kidman plays actress-turned-Princess Grace Kelly in the new trailer for Grace of Monaco.
  • I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not very active on Twitter. I just haven’t found a lot of uses for it, personally, aside from sharing my blog posts. But it does have its purposes…

twitter conference call 1

twitter conference call 2

twitter conference call 3

  • Finally… It’s not at all “screen” related, but my beautiful fiancé defends her PhD dissertation this afternoon, and by tonight it’ll be official. Everybody wish her luck!!!

zoidberg - rich doctor

That’s it for today. Remember to join us every Friday for more GrabBag goodness!

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Feb 21 2014
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GrabBag – Beetlejuice 2, ‘R’ Movies for Kids, and the Problem With ‘Let It Go’

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It’s Friday! Boy, are you ever ready for this weekend. Starved for non-work-related internet surfing. The only thing you need is a bunch of links to check out. Well bully for you, because today’s GrabBag is a SUPER-SIZED barrel of web content, with 10 different links and videos. Time to pull up a seat, get your finger on that mouse, and GORGE!!!

  • It looks like Tim Burton and Michael Keaton are seriously considering doing Beetlejuice 2.
  • Christina Bianco does impressions of several famous divas singing “Let It Go”. These are hilarious, but she’s pretty terrific herself.
  • Speaking of “Let It Go”, Slate’s Dana Stevens has a problem with a small part of the sequence that she says contradicts Frozen‘s otherwise pro-feminist messages. I totally get her point, but honestly, if that’s your only problem with a movie that’s otherwise so much better an influence for young girls (and boys!) than 99.999% of the rest of pop culture? Let it go, Dana. (heh. heh. heh.)
  • Take a look at Rush‘s CGI effects side-by-side with real footage of Niki Lauda’s crash.
  • Dallas Buyers Club‘s Oscar-nominated (and likely winning) make-up work was all done on a budget of only $250. Wow. Just… wow.
  • Still confused by that “preferential ballot” the Oscars use for their Best Picture category? Still care? (Did you ever?) Here’s another really good explaination, courtesy of The Wrap’s Steve Pond…
  • Has The LEGO Movie (review coming soon) left you wanting more? Here are some great LEGO-ized posters for this year’s Best Picture nominees.
  • The always hilarious Onion reviews the new RoboCop movie…

Okay, okay, OKAY!!! That’s enough surfing for now, big clicker. Breathe. Save some room for next week. There’ll always be more…

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Feb 13 2014
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All 4 Song Nominees to Perform at the Oscars

It has just been confirmed: Karen O will perform her Oscar nominated “The Moon Song” from Her at this years awards. She marks the final piece of the puzzle, after recent announcements that her fellow nominees – U2 (“Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom), Pharrell Williams (“Happy” from Despicable Me 2), and Idina Menzel (“Let It Go” from Frozen) – will all perform live at the show.

(Scroll down for embedded videos of all 4 songs.)

In recent years, The Oscars have been a bit wishy-washy when it comes to performing the songs during the ceremony. This year will mark the first time all the song nominees have been performed live at the show since 2011.

Of course it helps that the worst, most embarrassing nominee was disqualified. And there are only four remaining to eat into the runtime. And those four are all excellent songs by popular performers.

“Let It Go” is still the prohibitive frontrunner, but it’s win is by no means as assured as it seemed a few months, or even weeks, ago. U2 picked up the Golden Globe, and they have the power of Bono and expert campaigner Harvey Weinstein behind them. Meanwhile, Pharrell Williams just picked up a handful of Grammys and has been campaigning super hard. “Happy” is practically everywhere these days.

Even Karen O has a few angles on the race: Voters could easily opt to show the movie some love in this category where competition might be stiffer elsewhere. As frontwoman for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, she carries the full weight of the quirky/indie/hipster demographic. And if the more obvious choices split the vote, “The Moon Song” could easily slip in.

Still, “Let It Go” is the most likely. Not only is it actually the best of the nominees, it’s the kind of song the category was meant for: integral to both the film’s story and overall theme. Not to mention, it marks a triumphant return to form for Disney.

Here, for your listening pleasure, are all the songs…

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Jan 25 2014
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GrabBag – Star Wars, Shorts, and Preferential Balloting Explained

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Tonight the DGA awards may finally give us a frontrunner in one of the tightest Oscar races ever. Tomorrow the Grammy Awards will be resoundingly ignored by yours truly. It’s too cold to go outside, so here’s a handful of distractions for your weekend…

  • Apparently the new Star Wars VII will NOT be shot in IMAX. Maybe the use of standard (can we say “old-school” yet?) film will help give it that warm, lived-in, epic feel of the old ones that the prequels so sorely lacked. Either way it’s fun to hear the script is complete.
  • The Oscar for Best Picture and Producer’s Guild Award both use a complicated preferential ballot, or “instant run-off,” to determine their winners. Basically the ballots are organized according to the first place votes, and then the one with the fewest… OK, there’s no way I can explain it, myself. Here, watch this 4-minute video instead. It seems crazy and unbelievably impossible to me that with 10 films and 4,700 votes that system somehow ended up in a tie. 
  • The Onion “reports” that all 10 of this year’s Oscar nominated screenplays were written during the same continuing education screenwriting class. I want to take that class!!!!
  • “Let It Go” from Frozen, sung in 25 different languages, and it’s still gorgeous. 
  • “100 Films / 100 Behind the Scenes Photos” is exactly what it sounds like. Except it’s a 3-part series, so that’s actually 300 photos. Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Ok, that’s all for this week. If you have any suggestions for future editions of GrabBag, please email me or post them in the comments. And once again, here’s my plea for any designer willing to donate their skills to help create an original GrabBag logo. Any takers?

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