Graham Sedam Writes

Ready Player One For those of you familiar with my Notes, which I’ll get to in the next section, you’ll know that in the somewhat distant past, my family and I watched a movie called Ready Player One . We all, except The Toddler, really liked this flick. The Toddler had plenty of moments where he stared at the TV like the rest of us, but he can be a pain once he’s determined that he wants to watch something else. From start to finish, it took us three nights spread out over a week. That is NOT my ideal way of watching a movie, but hey, family life. If you don’t already know, this film takes place in a fictional dystopian-like future where escapism into a virtual reality-style video game is the norm. Here, people would rather spend most of their lives as an avatar than to live their lives in the flesh. Things happen, bad people need to be stopped, and the good guys win. Escapism comes in many forms in our world, and this film does a good job touching upon its benefits and its dow

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betel… Almost a month ago, last night if you take into consideration when I wrote this particular section of 'The Dump,' my family and I watched the movie, Beetlejuice . It was one of the Halloween gifts we gave to our kids, and being only a few days after Halloween, we felt it was appropriate to watch sooner as opposed to later. I had seen the movie many years ago when I was a kid, but it had been so long that I was basically watching it for the first time. It was so fresh to me that I'm still debating whether I actually had seen it before or not. My first thought after finishing the movie was that I had remembered the character, Beetlejuice, being in more of the movie. The beginning of the movie was completely foreign. It's amazing how much we forget. I thought the idea of the Maitlands having to stay in the house for 125 years was odd. Why 125 years? It seemed meaningless; maybe I missed something. I also ended up having a lot of question

Arrested, Again In TNSDD #8 , I featured the show, Arrested Development . I wrote up a very small bit about my feelings on Season 4. I included a video, of course. In this issue, I’ve decided to bring this show up again as my wife and I watched Season 5 in the latter half of this past summer. To start off with, in general, I liked Season 5 more than I liked 4. It felt more akin to the first three seasons. I know that there were issues getting the whole cast together to film during Season 4, and that seemed to have had a greater affect on how the show turned out, greater than they probably expected. Maybe it was in part due to writing that didn’t live up to prior seasons. I’m sure it’s an all-of-the-above type of explanation. Season 4 was still good but as in the same way that there’s no such thing as bad pizza, as the saying goes. Having Arrested Development is better than NOT having it, mostly. I would’ve liked to have watched Season 5 more binge-fully. Now that most people, i

Trollhunters Last year, my family and I got into a show called Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia . It's a Netflix show by Guillermo del Toro. I have gotten the impression that his name means something, so maybe that alone would sway you into checking it out? (Among many others, he did write, direct, and produce Pan’s Labyrinth —a great movie, if you ask me.) If you don't have kids, I could certainly see this NOT being on your bucket list. Maybe I'm wrong. If you have kids, I think this is a fun show to watch together; it was a great way for my wife and I to connect/share an interest with the kids. We watched season three shortly after it came out this past spring/summer, and it didn't disappoint. However, with the way the story was progressing, it did leave me wondering what fuel they would have left for the story afterward. I got my answer after finding out there would be only three seasons—makes sense. It made me wonder how much of the show's length was intended

Coco I have a very short list of TV shows and movies that I keep for future inspiration in this spot. I never feel obliged to pull from this list, but it can serve as a great launching point if one of them happens to tickle the meat in my skull. Perhaps I'll feel inspired to share one of those with you because it's something I think you should watch. Maybe there's something I find amusing or it has a greater meaning in my life. Maybe what applies today will not apply tomorrow. That is highly unlikely, though. I was hesitant to share this movie, Coco , here. My wife will vouch for that. I do think it's a good movie and our whole family enjoyed it. The movie even did a good job of throwing us all off on one important detail. (My wife did ponder the possibility out loud, but I’m not sure if it was a case of confusion or sleuthing.) I'm usually pretty good at seeing through most twists, considering most movies and TV shows have twists nowadays, so I'm always on

Temple Grandin About a couple of months ago, the subject of autism came up between my wife and kids and me. It reminded me of an HBO movie, Temple Grandin , I had watched several years prior. The movie came out in 2010, so it was around then that I saw it. I thought this movie was well done, and it also introduced me to autism in a way that I had never experienced. That I knew of, I had never known or had been around an autistic person. The best part about this movie is that its main character and story are based upon a real person with autism who has accomplished great things. The movie is both informative and inspiring. We watched it that same afternoon, not terribly long after our discussion began. About a month later, my daughter, age nine, asked if she could watch TV. She stated that she'd like to watch Temple Grandin . I don't know that I would have let her watch any TV at that time, but her mentioning she was interested in watching Temple Grandin certainly made me