Bond With Believing

Sponsored Post: Everywhere, LLC provided me with compensation for this post. However, all thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own.

As we continue to move our television, video gaming and movie habits to smaller and smaller screens, I can’t help but wonder if we’re missing a key part of the experience. Naturally, I was eager to head to the IMAX and see a film how it was supposed to be seen, and felt. Figuring it couldn’t get better than James Bond on a big(ger) screen, I went where few Chicagoans go: to Navy Pier on a Saturday afternoon. It was there I caught Skyfall among Bond fans, tourists and gals eager to see Daniel Craig in a larger-than-life way.

It.did.not.disappoint. From the very beginning, I felt like an added character. And peripheral vision? Forget it. No matter where I looked, the scene happened right before me.

Yet the screen did more than just make me feel like I had to duck and roll with James Bond. An IMAX screen did something I never imagined: tuned out the world around me. That man crinkling his plastic bag…heard it for four seconds and…wasn’t thinking of it anymore. The loud breather…the sound took away his breath for me while the movie’s score engulfed me.

I highly recommend the IMAX experience for any film with detailed elements (looking at you Pixar® Films) and action films. After watching the two-minute trailer for the upcoming Hobbit movie, I knew watching any other way would be disappointing. As we continually opt for the screens of laptops, phones and tablets, it’s nice to get a reminder of how movies should be seen. A nice big, six-story, massive reminder.

For more information on IMAX:

–IMAX on Facebook
–IMAX on Twitter

You May Say I’m a Dreamer

Last month, my boss sent me home with Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. It’s a book I’ve had on my reading list, but wasn’t in all that of a hurry to begin. While my reading habits lately include more nonfiction, they’re usually in the way of memoirs or biographies. For some reason, I’ve never been all that jazzed about industry books and tend to really labor through them.

Not the case with this one.

Lehrer breaks creativity, the creative mind and the enabling environments in a wondrous, storytelling way. From Bob Dylan’s songwriting ways (or lack there of) to the way Pixar studios places their bathrooms, Lehrer somehow manages to engage senses and parts of the brain that are dormant while reading.

The chapter about urban living really struck a chord. I never paid much attention to why I feel like I’m more “creative” in Chicago, I just chalked it up to the fact there’s a lot going on…there are a lot of resources to explore…and the people watching is stellar. I never even gave much thought to what all of those components contribute to the way the mind works.

When contemplating a fascinating and engaging read this summer, imagine Lehrer.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” –Picasso