Movie Review: VeggieTales Celery Night Fever

Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber are back in another cleverly titled VeggieTales adventure: Celery Night Fever (out August 5th)! And yes, there are vegetables in leisure suits, fringed vests, and Sgt. Pepper jackets this time around.

What I love about the faith-based VeggieTales films is that they teach kids such great lessons in a very sweet and cute way, with enough sass to entertain parents as well. You never have to worry about your little ones seeing something violent or disturbing, which is really nice. Although, I have a cried a few times during particularly touching moments.

Celery Night Fever does not disappoint! During Grandparents Day at school, we find out that Laura Carrot's grandfather was a member of a legendary 1970s group, which he refuses to discuss these days. Another child's grandfather, Bruce Onion (voiced by Terry Crews), is a wealthy veggie that wants to turn the kids' beloved Celery Park into a strip mall or motel. Laura and her pal Junior Asparagus are determined to save the park, and put a bold plan in motion...a plan that could involve getting Grandpa's band, The Groovy Brothers (who got their start in Celery Park), back together.

Can the band members find their way back to each other after years apart? Will Laura and Junior be able to mend their own broken friendship? Do not miss Celery Night Fever, which is all about friendship and forgiveness, and is full of fun new VeggieTales songs, like "Perfect Puppy." My four-year-old loved the movie so much that when it ended he pulled out our set of VeggieTales Christmas Marathon DVDs to watch next and screamed, "Mama! There's never, ever, ever, ever, ever been a show like VeggieTales!"

BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge: Review of Erin McCahan's LOVE AND OTHER FOREIGN WORDS

I liked this book right away, as I related to fifteen-year-old Josie Sheridan's passionate love for Dennis De Young; seriously, have you HEARD his version of "On the Street Where You Live?!"

This is technically a Young Adult novel, but (like the wonderful Wonder by R.J. Palacio), Erin McCahan's Love and Other Foreign Words is a great read that I would recommend to anyone and everyone. After reading some heavy stuff lately (Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust and You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz), it was a relief to dive into something light and sweet and fun where nothing terrible happened to anyone. Unless you count breaking up with someone in the middle of a high school dance.

Josie, the ponytail and glasses-clad narrator, is so cute that I wanted to squeeze her; she's smart (genius iq and in high school and college at the same time), funny, and just the right amount of gangly and awkward to keep her feeling like a real person. She is surrounded by an interesting cast of characters, consisting of her family, her best friends (Stu and Sophie) that live across the street, and her friends from high school and college. All of the characters engage in witty banter on everything from how a good-looking boy smells (like day-old pizza grease, it turns out) to when a couple will have kids, which reminds me a little of the Dawson's Creek days of rapid-fire exchanges. I will say that all the cleverness does get a wee bit exhausting if you are a little sleepy while reading, and there were moments where I just wanted someone to give a straight answer or be serious for a moment; For example, Josie's dad buys a journal, and when she asks what he will be using it for his response is, "Wouldn't you love to know?"

Life is going along just fine, and then one night Josie's beloved older sister Kate brings new fiancé Geoffrey Stephen Brill over to meet the family. Josie is horrified at Geoff for a variety of reasons (one being that he seems really into tick-borne diseases) and vows to stop Kate from making what she thinks will be the biggest mistake of her life. Kate tells Josie, who has been on three dates in her life at this point, that she needs to fall in love first, and then they can talk. Josie, who is wise beyond her years when it comes to book smarts and already studying language in college (she's working on a project on the different meanings words have), sets out to try to define and understand this mysterious feeling called love. (Note to Josie: Even most of us grownups still struggle with that.)

Will Josie find love? Will she be able to define something that poets and authors have struggled with for centuries? You will have to read Love and Other Foreign Words to find out, but you will definitely find a charming coming of age tale that had me laughing out loud on the treadmill at Equinox. If you are a younger reader, you might see shades of your life right now in Josie's story. Since I am (a few years) (okay, more than a few years) past high school, this story took me back to that innocent and complicated time in my life, and also made me yearn for the kind of close relationship with my siblings that Josie has with hers. Erin McCahan does a beautiful job of capturing the unique love and closeness between sisters, but also the ways they can wound each other.

How would I define Love and Other Foreign Words? In one word: Fantastic!

Theater Review: ONCE at Pantages Theatre

Guy meets Girl and makes her a CD in ONCE. (Photo Credit: Joan Marcus)

 After seeing the movie Once, I sat on my couch for fifteen minutes and sobbed, unable to move. Even now, years later, if I hear even a second of the big hit song from the film, "Falling Slowly," I fall apart quickly. I was so thrilled to hear that the film had been turned into a musical, and even more excited to find out that it was coming to the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, one of the best places in town to see a show. (I wrote about the Pantages in detail in my book, From the Corner of Hollywood and diVine: Your Guide to 30 Old Hollywood-Inspired Spots in Southern California, available here.)

First of all, let me say that Once the Musical has not been turned into a huge, over-the-top production. This is not Phantom of the Opera with a giant chandelier, or Miss Saigon with the helicopter, or even Ghost the Musical with the cool LED curtains. What Once is...is lovely, funny, and charming. But I think it is good to know that it is very low-key (with lots of dim lighting on stage and a set that does not really change) before going in so you can have some tea or coffee; there were lots of people yawning around me, but it was not because they were bored! I heard lots of, "This is the greatest musical EVER!" "Beautiful!" and "Fabulous!" statements at intermission. Not that I was eavesdropping on everyone around me (I was), but the general consensus seemed to be that it was nice to watch a story unfold slowly, experience the actors creating a scene, and not be blown out of your seat with a loud orchestra.

The Pantages is an Art Deco lover's dream.

There is no orchestra at all in Once, in fact; the music is provided by the actors on stage. The whole cast is fantastic, the two leads (Stuart Ward and Dani de Waal) beyond perfection, and I have to give props to the ladies who were dancing and singing while playing violin. And they start the show a little early; there is a jam session on stage before the play even officially begins, with audience members hanging out in the pub that is the center of the action! Each song is truly something special and was warmly received by the opening night audience at the Pantages. The music and lyrics were written by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (the stars of the movie), and the book by an award-winning Irish playwright and screenwriter named Enda Walsh.

Without giving anything away if you have not seen the film...Once is not your traditional love story. Boy meets girl (or, in this case, Guy meets Girl--we never get their real names) and finds in her his muse; as the tagline on the posters say, "His music needed one thing--her." Of equal importance in the story is the message of having the courage to follow your dreams, no matter what the price, that I'm sure was especially poignant to the crowd in Hollywood, a town with a well-deserved reputation for squashing artistic dreams like bugs. I have a feeling that once will not be enough for many of us who experienced Once, and that we will be back again. And again. See this immediately!

Even the bathrooms at the Pantages are glamorous!

Once is playing at the Hollywood Pantages through August 10th. Click here for ticket info.