paintbrush_2003

Wow. I caught this show by chance one day and was so impressed I had to look it up to watch it again. What a wonderful and fun way to teach spelling! In this computed-animated show, all of the animal friends, main scenery, and "props" are made out of the letters of their word. You have to see it to truly appreciate it. There is a dog made out of the letters d-o-g, a house formed from the letters for house, etc. Heck, during a camping episode if you look closely you will see that the flames of the fire are made out of f-i-r-e. The adventures of these animal friends center around building items from the letters that form their word. For example, when the pig is "baking" a birthday cake, he grabs the letters c, a, k and e then when he puts them together, the word animates to form a cake (with frosting!) out of the letters. In another episode, the frog and dog are building a tent, and the tent won't go up until, after several tries, they finally sound out the word and put the letters in the correct order. The animated adventures are split into roughly 10 minute segments, perfect for the very young age group that is obviously targeted.

If the quality of the show stays the same as the few episodes I've seen, I'd buy this series on DVD in a second.

I didn't like this movie. While slapstick comedies involving embarrassing situations and bodily fluids do work (see American Pie,) this one just falls flat. What really made it not work for me from the very beginning was that Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are just way too old to be crashing weddings. Maybe that's the point, and there is a moment when a character comments that Owen Wilson's character is "not that young" - an understatement in this particular situation. Anyone over the age of 25 should not be behaving in this manner, never mind men pushing 40. They're too old for their behavior; they're too old for the women they end up with (well, maybe not by Hollywood standards... ick!); they're too old to be funny with this premise. Too, too much.