The Talent Given Us

Matt's given talent seems to be finding obscure, little-known independent films that, despite (or perhaps because of) their no-name status, are quite thought-provoking and interesting. Last night's pick was The Talent Given Us. In a truly bizarre blending of fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, a screenwriter/director created a script about a family (seemingly based on his own) and then cast his entire family in it. The family is traveling cross-country to set things right with the frequently out-of-touch screenwriting son, and so, indeed, to create this film, the entire family traveled across the country together. The film shifted from humorous to downright painful at times (Don't we all have road trip family memories we would just as soon forget?), but when taken with the special feature "making of the movie" clips, it was all just bizarre and fun. Ultimately the family self-promoted the film (despite making it to Sundance, they were not picked up by a distributor), and I'm certainly willing to do my part. Watch it!

Following the movie we got sucked into some buzzer beater basketball games in the NCAA men's tournament. I tend not to watch on principle, as I get frustrated that the men's tournament gets so much interest in contrast to the women's, but last night's closing minutes of a couple of different games made for truly edge of your seat basketball watching. We didn't make our way to bed until 1:30am (forgetting temporarily that our lives don't accomodate these hours!), and then both kids were up and in our bed, WIDE AWAKE, at 5am. Poor Lucas was approaching his final dose of an antibiotic we once believed him to be allergic to. It was his wonderful father who last night spoke the fateful words, "Well it certainly seems like he's not allergic," before discovering at 6:30am this morning that his son was not sleeping because he was (is!) covered head to toe in hives. Apparently that conversation took place about 10 hours too soon. Time for more Benadryl....