One film I am really looking forward to is Kyle Prohaska's upcoming feature Standing Firm. Kyle has been living the life of the indy low budget film maker, for a month or more lasy year it looked as if the film might not even get finished as the money had run out. But things are moving again, and I confident they will succeed, not only in finishing the film, but if the film is as good as the trailer and BTS look, this film will be going places.


Become a fan of Standing Firm on FB: http://www.facebook.com/standingfirm

2 fantastic documentaries came out last year on Darwin, both are top notch worth the watch and extremely well done. However they differ very much in their approaches.



The Mysterious Islands is an adventure to Darwin's Eden, a modern day expedition to he Galapagos Islands, the expedition explores whether Darwin's interpretation of Galapagos hold water. The film is shot on the Red One camera, and the film is a visual and audio feast to behold. The imagery and music are simply breathtaking.



The Voyage that Shook the World is a more traditional documentary style film, it tracks not only Darwin's original voyage but also from Darwin's childhood to his death. It interviews many experts around the world and has a lot of reenactments.

To learn more about these films visit their web sites:
http://www.TheMysteriousIslands.com/
http://www.TheVoyage.tv/

Technical thoughts:
The production values are high, though not quite as high as Return of the Daughters. There are a few time where I though “they should have taken that again, or split it up to cover that fumble. The segway bits sometimes felt like they shot it multi cam like a live event.

It also felt to me like the end of production might have been rushed to get the DVD out. The DVD menus don’t work as smoothly as they should (like they didn’t test it more than once), and there were few times where I thin they through in a cross fade on a splice of voice over and it messed up the sound a bit. Kinda strange. It just felt like the were 90% done and had it all very good to that point and then had to throw it in to a package in a hurry. Also after the film was done, the dvd kept playing black for about 3 more minutes before returning to the DVD menu, like they forgot to adjust the out point for for export. Just little things, I found slightly strange.

Pulmonary content thoughts.
The material was, as always excellent, well thought out, organized and presented. The problem they identify is one that sure resonates with me, I don’t expect 99% of my home school friends to home school there kids, many home schools near grads are even hostile toward home-schooling. It is rather unsettling.

The mid section felt like it followed some posts on Anna Sofia and Elizabeth’s blog “Childish Homeschooler Syndrome”, which makes sense.

The first 3/4ths of the film I mostly felt depressed, as they covered the problems, I kept thinking “yup seen that one first hand”, identifying each one in myself and in my friends. They never said “we are in a dire situation here” but it sure felt like one to me. The last 1/4th was them saying that they felt there was hope, but I didn’t feel to encouraged. I felt more convinced and convicted of the deep importance of home education, but not all to hopeful.

I wont say to much right now, maybe later. Here is our entry:

Mary Christmas!