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Hoodwinked The Movie.
Originally uploaded by Eric Nentrup.

My good friends at Blue Yonder Films have hit it big with their 3D-animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in “Hoodwinked”. It’s got an ALL-STAR cast and looks HILARIOUS.

You can watch the trailer at Apple’s QuickTime Theater.

They are TRULY dedicated artists, and have been duking it out in L.A. for over 5 years now. If you have a Hollywood Video nearby, you can find their previous live-action comedy, “Chillicothe” available exclusively there. Kim even has a credit in the film as “Girl on Bench”! Melanie (who frequents this site) is also another one of the girls on the bench. We had such a good time helping out on that film, which DID go to Sundance in 1999.

It opens this Christmas, and could be a joyous occasion for you and your family. Yes, I said joyous.

So, Congrats to Cory, Todd, Preston, Tony, Peter, and Katie at Blue Yonder. You guys ROCK, and we’re SO very proud of your commitment to the craft and the great fun you’re creating for the rest of us! I hope it breaks the box office!

I’m watching TV, and just before “My Name Is Earl” starts at 9:30 there’s a John Hancock Financial commercial. And the concept of the ad is “Think of your family as a company with assets to build, develop, and protect.” That voiceover accompanies scenes all to familiar with our finance-obsessed culture: soundbytes from CNBC style finance shows where the reporter gives a byte such as, “The Peterson family ended on a positive note today, up this quarter a full 15% over last quarter.” Over and over they use that example, with the narrator cutting in and continuing the metaphor. And YES, it’s a metaphor. Problem is, a LOT of folks live as though it isn’t. And you don’t have to SEE the commercial to realize this.

If this were true, I could fire my wife for not pulling her weight, or I could promote a cousin to the prestigious position of first born son for doing such a remarkable job cleaning his bedroom.

And I feel just a bit like a tail-wagged dog if I buy into that. I’m not too keen about using business rhetoric in places where it doesn’t belong, and this certainly qualifies. Granted, advertisers wrote that commercial, and being a hack-advertising writer of sorts, I know how easy it is to toss around phrases, metaphors, and imagery to connect with an audience.

On a slight tangent, if you TRULY listen to the advertising that’s in current rotation, you’ll begin to seed a deep skepticism that can very quickly sprout and sprawl. My skepticism in general is both my blessing and curse.

So. Can families be run like a business? Can ministry? Can my personal life? How about art? Not to say that there isn’t overlap, or that due to the fact that a good many of us spend at LEAST 33% of our lives in “business mode” it’s an easy shift to applying it to other interactions and activities.

Maybe it’s just semantics, and my sensitivity towards such things. Maybe not.

I’m not really sure what factors help constitute this, but perhaps at my next financially related sit-down, I can plunk this figure in front of my loan officer.