Turn Any Moment Into Movie Magic! #MagistoMoms

May 17, 2013 By 5 Comments

Note: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Magisto. I received a promotional code for premium features to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.

I’m lucky enough that all of Shane’s grandparents live in town & get to see him fairly often. That said, we have several family members who live all across the country & it’s harder for them to keep up with what’s going on with Shane. Even the people who do live here don’t get to see him much- my Mom’s in college & the rest of our parents all work, so it’s a bi-weekly thing at best. I don’t have a lot of time to upload pictures & videos to Facebook, so other than the blog, I don’t do a lot of sharing. But I just discovered the Magisto app that makes it SO much easier!

magisto

Magisto is a video creation app that lets you pick the videos & photos you want to include and then uses artificial intelligence to pick which moments are the highlights, and then makes the video around that. It will crop videos, add special effects, and even add music! I played around with the app for a bit, and then was able to make a video in under three minutes. It took a few more minutes to create & process the video before I could watch it, but it was so easy to make! &When I saw the video, I was really impressed at how high-quality the editing was. &I got to personalize it with a theme & music so I’m going to have a lot of fun playing with that.

Magisto just held a contest for Mother’s Day where they gave away several awesome prizes. Users had the option of adding the #MagistoMoms hashtag to their video to enter the contest, where the videos with the most likes won prizes like tablets & Joan Osborne’s new CD. You can view the featured Mother’s Day videos here!

Speaking of Joan Osborne, she just did a benefit concert this week where Magisto was on hand to create videos of the performance! The company also made a donation to the two charities the benefit was for: Somaly Mam Foundation & Save the Children. Joan performed her new song “Born to See You Through” at the show, which is also available for listening on the Magisto app.

Download it: You can download the Magisto app in the App Store, Google Play Store, or view it on the web. As a bonus, you can use the code MomsRule through the end of May to get 3 free downloads!

Who will you make a video for?

Filed Under: apps, Entertainment, technology Tagged With: , ,

Entertaining & Educating with the Playaway View!

May 8, 2013 By 6 Comments

We like to travel. We only usually get to a few times a year, but since we live in the middle of a desert, it’s a minimum of four hours to anywhere that we want to go. Shane does really well with road trips, but he’s three, so he definitely gets bored. Whenever we go, he spends a good chunk of time on my phone watching movies.

The problem is, that means that I don’t have my phone! While I love talking to Justin, it’s still nice to have my phone to take photos of the scenery, to check my email, or to play games to pass the long drive. Not to mention that it totally kills my battery. So when I heard about the Playaway View, I knew it was a genius idea!

Playaway View

The Playaway View is a pre-loaded digital media player. It’s a little gadget roughly the size of a GPS that comes loaded with videos like Sesame Street, Little Pim, Shakespeare & even National Geographic! The Playaway View is crazy durable- I don’t even worry about the screen when Shane uses it. You can plug in headphones so that you can take it on a plane or to the grocery store without bothering anyone else, and the rechargeable battery lasts hours.

Playaway View Charger

&The best part of all? The Playaway View is FREE to use! Playaway Views are available exclusively at your public library & can be checked out like a book.

Playaway View

Shane loved watching Sesame Street on the Playaway View & he was so excited to go to the grocery store when our unit arrived because he wanted to test it out! The video quality is really, really good on the viewer, which was something I wondered about when I first heard of it. It looks crisp & sounds just as good. There are only a few buttons, so Shane mastered how to use it very quickly, which was nice since I didn’t have to stop every two seconds to fix stuff for him like I do with my phone sometimes.

We’ll be taking our Playaway View on our road trip next month! {So if you’re looking for someone to play What’s the Phrase with on June 7th, I’ll totally have my phone on me. Just saying.}

Playaway is also holding a contest right now that can help your school win their own $1,000 Playaway starter collection! Teachers & school librarians can enter the contest- one lucky school will be awarded a starter collection.

How do you entertain little ones on road trips?

Note: I received a Playaway View to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own.

Filed Under: Entertainment, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Finding Dory To Dive Into Theaters In 2015!

April 4, 2013 By 7 Comments

2015 is going to be an amazing year. Three of my favorite movies of all time are getting sequels. The Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean and now Finding Nemo are all releasing sequels in what I’m sure will be Disney’s biggest box-office year ever- primarily because I intend to see each movie about a million times.

finding dory

On Tuesday, plans for Finding Dory were announced &while the movie won’t be released until Thanksgiving weekend 2015, I’m already having fun stalking social media for updates. Here’s the latest:

When Dory said “just keep swimming” in 2003’s Oscar®-winning film “Finding Nemo,” she could not have imagined what was in store for her (not that she could remember). Ellen DeGeneres, voice of the friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish, revealed details today about Disney•Pixar’s “Finding Dory”—an all-new big-screen adventure diving into theaters on Nov. 25, 2015.

“I have waited for this day for a long, long, long, long, long, long time,” said DeGeneres. “I’m not mad it took this long. I know the people at Pixar were busy creating ‘Toy Story 16.’ But the time they took was worth it. The script is fantastic. And it has everything I loved about the first one: It’s got a lot of heart, it’s really funny, and the best part is—it’s got a lot more Dory.”

Director and Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton takes audiences back to the extraordinary underwater world created in the original film. “There is no Dory without Ellen,” said Stanton. “She won the hearts of moviegoers all over the world—not to mention our team here at Pixar. One thing we couldn’t stop thinking about was why she was all alone in the ocean on the day she met Marlin. In ‘Finding Dory,’ she will be reunited with her loved ones, learning a few things about the meaning of family along the way.”

According to Stanton, “Finding Dory” takes place about a year after the first film, and features returning favorites Marlin, Nemo and the Tank Gang, among others. Set in part along the California coastline, the story also welcomes a host of new characters, including a few who will prove to be a very important part of Dory’s life.

“Finding Nemo” won the 2003 Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature; the film was nominated for three additional Oscars® (Best Writing, Original Screenplay; Best Music, Original Score; Best Sound Editing). It was also nominated for a Golden Globe® Award for Best Motion Picture–Comedy or Musical. In 2008, the American Film Institute named “Finding Nemo” among the top 10 greatest animated films ever made. At the time of its release, “Finding Nemo” was the highest grossing G-rated movie of all time. It’s currently the fourth highest grossing animated film worldwide. The film has more than 16 million Likes on Facebook, and Dory—with more than 24 million—is the most Liked individual character from a Disney or Disney•Pixar film.

DeGeneres’ distinctive comic voice has resonated with audiences from her first stand-up comedy appearances through her work today on television, in film and in the literary world. Her syndicated talk show, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” is in its 10th season and has earned 38 Daytime Emmy® Awards. DeGeneres has won 12 People’s Choice Awards and the Teen Choice Award for Choice Comedian for three consecutive years. Additionally, her show won two Genesis Awards and a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Talk Show Episode. For her unforgettable turn as Dory, DeGeneres was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance.

finding nemo dory

I love Nemo, but my favorite character has always been Dory & I can’t wait to see a whole lot more of her! Be sure to follow Finding Dory on Facebook & Twitter for updates as they come out!

Who is your favorite Finding Nemo character?

Filed Under: Disney, Disney/Pixar, Entertainment, movies Tagged With: , , , , ,

Make Movie Night Easier with the Find Your Critic Tool!

March 21, 2013 By 15 Comments

We love watching movies at home either as a family or for a “date night”. But we love movies and don’t want it to feel like we just stumbled into something while flipping commercials- we like true “movie nights”. Here’s what we do to prepare:

Choose a Genre: Earlier in the day, we choose a genre. I prefer comedies and Justin prefers action, so we tend to trade off. If Shane will be watching with us, we definitely have to choose something in the family-friendly category. Knowing ahead of time what to prepare myself for works best since I’d rather not spend all day thinking I’ll be laughing hysterically only to watch a total tear-jerker- I need that time to prep myself {and buy tissues}.

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Make it Interactive: If it’s a family movie night, I like to include some sort of activity that relates to the movie beforehand for Shane. It gets him more excited about the movie and makes him more likely to actually pay attention once it’s on. Sometimes I’ll print coloring sheets from the internet, and other times we’ll do something more hands-on, but I try to make it an enriching experience either way.

Invest Your Time Wisely: Check reviews for the movies that you’re considering. Nothing is worse than getting all ready for movie night, turning it on, and getting bored 5 minutes in. We spend a lot of time looking up reviews on RottenTomatoes.com so that we don’t waste our time watching mediocre movies. That said, we probably spend too much time looking at reviews, but it’s still time well spent.

Pop Secret Popcorn Popping

Grab the snacks: Just because you’re watching the movie at home instead of at the theater, doesn’t mean you have to skip the popcorn. I like to have some candy and Pop Secret popcorn to really complete the movie experience.

Speaking of Pop Secret, they’ve teamed up with Rotten Tomatoes to help us all solve one of the problems I mentioned: wasting time on bad movies. With their new Find Your Critic tool, you can find which critics on Rotten Tomatoes you share a taste in movies with so that you can follow their recommendations! I tried the app out recently & it was very easy to do.

Pop Secret and Rotten Tomatoes- Find Your Critic App

First, go to  the Find Your Critic tool and make sure you’re connected to Facebook. They will show you a variety of movies and ask you to rate each one. Once you’ve rated about a dozen movies, they’ll give you a list of critics that agree with you! You can then view all of those critics’ reviews to see what other movies you might like. The tool helped me pick out a couple of movies we can watch at the hotel after the wedding this weekend, so now I can spend less time checking out random movie reviews & more time enjoying wedding bliss. And, of course, popcorn.

Pop Secret Logo

At Pop Secret, we love movies as much as you love movies. That’s why we created the Find Your Critic tool with Rotten Tomatoes. It helps you figure out which movie critics you should listen to. All you have to do is rate some movies and the tool figures out which critics share your taste in movies. It even helps you follow your critics’ new movie reviews and recos. So when it comes to enjoying movies, the only thing you have to worry about is which kind of Pop Secret to make. Check it out!

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Pop Secret via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Pop Secret.

Filed Under: Entertainment, movies Tagged With: , , , , ,

Interview with Ballerina Jenelle Manzi & “Barbie in the Pink Shoes” DVD & Doll Giveaway!

March 17, 2013 By 21 Comments

Just like most little girls, I always wanted to be a dancer. My older sister was a dancer {and a very, very good one- she was even in a music video!} and I always looked up to her, so naturally I wanted to dance. I took dance classes for awhile but they aren’t cheap, so I mostly just danced to Spice Girls songs on my boombox in my room. But for many girls, dancing is an entire lifestyle.

I recently had the chance to submit questions to be answered by Ballerina Jenelle Manzi of the New York City Ballet!

About Jenelle:

Jenelle was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey and began her dance training at the age of four. In 1999, Ms. Manzi began studying at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet. While a student, Ms. Manzi originated a featured role in Christopher d’Amboise’s Tribute, as part of the SAB 2005 Annual Workshop. In December 2005, Ms. Manzi became an apprentice with NYCB, and in February 2006, she joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet.

barbie in the pink shoes

If you have a little ballerina in your life, you won’t want to miss Barbie in the Pink Shoes! The movie features Kristyn™, a ballerina with big dreams! When she tries on a pair of sparkling pink shoes, she and her best friend, Hailey™, are whisked away to a fantastical ballet world. There, Kristyn™ discovers she must dance in her favorite ballets in order to defeat an evil Snow Queen. With performances to the legendary Giselle and Swan Lake ballets, it’s a wonderful journey where if you dance with your heart, dreams come true!

Buy It: You can find Barbie in the Pink Shoes wherever DVDs are sold for the MSRP of $19.99. There are also several Barbie dolls to accompany the movie!

Win It: One lucky reader will win a prize pack, including the new Barbie movie & the Barbie “Kristyn” Doll! Just enter using the simple form below. Good luck!

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