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September 8, 2024

20 PG-13 Movies to Stream with your Family

If you’re looking for a good movie to stream with your family, here are some choices I strongly recommend with your popcorn.

Every Friday, I spend at least 30 minutes scouring through the streaming apps I pay for to see if there are any new movies for my family to watch that night. It’s become an increasingly frustrating experience, as there just aren’t that many new films moving through the pipeline these days.

Yes… I know. There are thousands of hours of available content and nothing to watch. That’s how I feel.

But to be fair, I’m still limiting my search to PG-13 movies. I think one day soon, we’ll cross into ‘R-rated’ territory. Still, finding a movie that successfully threads the needle to meet the interests of my entire family is not easy.

The Usual Suspects
Fun and action-packed is a good combination. “Star Wars,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and MCU movies of course fit the bill, but we’ve seen them all… multiple times. And it doesn’t help that the only MCU flick this year was “Deadpool and Wolverine.” No, we’re not at all ready for that one yet. (I did enjoy it in the theater with a couple other dads, even though there were a few sloppy timeline and multiversal inconsistencies.)

Look Backwards
So, I think the answer is not to wait for the drip/drip of the next movie to show up on your app, but to look back to see what you might have missed. There are strong options that aren’t on the apps’ top 10 lists.

I’ve been maintaining my own list of movie choices for years. It’s a good reference for my family’s weekly conversation of which film we might stream next.

Here are 10 flicks for your consideration that my family has enjoyed watching together.

10 Older Movies to Watch

  • “Free Guy” (2021)
  • “Red Notice” (2021)
  • “The Adam Project” (2022)
    (Yes, they’re all PG-13 Ryan Reynolds movies that hit the sweet spot for my family.)
  • “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” (2017)
  • “Jumanji: The Next Level” (2019)
    (These are rare movies that are totally funny and border on silly. But silly still works for my 14-year-old son as long as it’s done right. Note: Dwyane Johnson movies are usually appealing.)
  • “The Other Guys” (2010)
    (Entirely goofy misfit cops with Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell)
  • “Ready Player One” (2018)
    (Imaginative virtual reality and directed by Steven Spielberg)
  • “Passengers” (2016)
    (Space travel with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence)
  • “Knives Out” (2019)
  • “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (2022)
    (Daniel Criag stars in these clever, funny and offbeat murder mysteries.)

3 Tom Cruise Action Movies

Over the years, Tom Cruise effectively created his own genre of action movies that are suitable for the whole family. So, his films usually show up on my list. Here are just three.

  • “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” (2023)
  • “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022)
    (Arguably better than the first)
  • “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014)
    (Our son really liked the “Groundhog Day” plot device for this intense alien invasion flick.)

2 Holiday Movies for the Family

There’s that time in December when someone says, “Let’s watch a holiday movie!” Well, here are two for you.

  • “Spirited” (2022)
    (Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell make magic together. It’s a riff on “A Christmas Carol” that’s nice and just slightly naughty. Plus, it’s a Broadway-quality musical with tons of laughs. Move over “It’s a Wonderful Life.” This is the new standard.)
  • “8-Bit Christmas” (2021)
    (It took me two years to convince my family to watch this. Its trailer doesn’t capture the true warmth of this very silly and satisfying look back at the 80’s. It’s another instant classic to keep on your list of flicks to watch over the holidays.)

5 Movies I’ve Yet to Convince my Family to Watch

Every potential movie goes through a Lester pre-screening process. That always involves watching the trailer. Sometimes the trailers for older movies are unappealingly dated. Other times, the trailer is surprisingly missing on the app. Instead, there’s just a scene included from the movie. That doesn’t cut it at all. And that omission usually spells doom for that flick.

Here are a few of those that we have yet to watch:

  • “Twister” (The original from 1996)
  • “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” (2017)
    (Certainly not as good as “The Fifth Element” from 1997, but still worth watching)
  • “Hellboy” (2004)
  • “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (2008)
    (Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Need I say more?)
  • “John Carter” (2012)
    (A failed Disney tentpole, but I think still worth checking out. I also must admit that this is a running joke with me and my son, as he’s declined the ongoing option to watch this movie for almost half his life!)

Prepare for your Next Family Movie Night
You can’t expect everyone in a family unit to have the same interests in movies. So, if you’re a curator of options to stream, it helps to have a healthy list of choices to offer. You’ll have a better chance to find consensus on at least one.

And don’t forget to look backwards during your research. Older movies are just as good. And sometimes much better!

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September 1, 2024

How to Master your Zoom Meetings to Increase your Impact at Work

Your webcam can be the most important tool to help you maximize your success at your job. Here’s how to sharpen your pencils for your next remote meeting.

The beginning of the new school year has always held that ‘fresh start’ feel for me. Sure, it’s been a few decades, but now I’m experiencing that vicariously through our son, who’s already in high school. (I just can’t believe it.) During these weeks, I also love the early hints of the cool, crisp feel of New England’s fall season.

It’s all stimuli that activates a deeply encoded message in my brain I learned as a child: “Summer’s over. Now, it’s time to get to work.”

Well, it’s not like I haven’t been working hard over these summer months. Sure, I took some vacation time with the family. (First to Cape Porpoise, Maine. And then to the North Fork of Long Island.) But now… the ramp-up to the end of the calendar year is undeniable.

Winter’s coming. You’d better sharpen your pencils.

Remote Meetings are Important
If you’ve been working from home more during this post-pandemic reality, one way to dust off your lunch box is to tighten up how you show up during your remote meetings on Zoom or Teams. These moments are critical tethers to your work community.

I know we’ve been at this for a few years, but I’ve noticed that some Zoom best-practices haven’t yet become second nature for many of us.

So, here are a few reminders. They will help you master the opportunity to maximize your impact at your job.

You’ve Got to Show Up for your Close Up
If you want to play an active role during a remote meeting, you really need to turn your webcam on. Visual communication is everything.

Sure, your voice is important, but offering all your important visual cues is the best way to connect with everyone else. That’s how to master those moments.

Follow Video Production Best Practices
I know by now you understand the basics of good video production and how they directly correlate to a strong webcam shot.

  • Be sure to have a front-facing light source. (The light from a window works great as long as the sun isn’t directly shining through.)
  • Your webcam should be positioned close to the same level as your face vs. pointing towards the ceiling and looking up your nose. (Yes, that may mean propping your laptop up on a few hardcover books.)
  • Frame your shot to fill the screen with your full head and shoulders. Pointing your webcam too high to just reveal your eyes and the top of your head is silly. (Only showing this incomplete body fragment at the very bottom of your screen is worse than not using your webcam at all.)

Put on a Clean Shirt
Look, I get it. It’s so much easier to keep your pajamas on all day. You may feel that nobody really needs to ‘see’ you. If you’re successfully doing your work, what’s the problem?

The concern is the risk to you slowing devolving into some kind of disconnected ‘chat-bot.’ You’re a human being! That’s supposed to carry some advantages. So, you should really consider showing up as one as much as possible.

Pay for Faster Internet
This has been a tough pill for me to swallow, but your standard internet plan may not offer enough speed for you to properly stream yourself into your Zoom meetings. How many times have you seen others freeze up or their audio feed begin to stutter? That’s because their internet speed is too slow.

It’s happened to me, even though on paper, my internet plan was plenty fast enough. So, I ended up doubling it to a ludicrous speed to fix the problem. What else can you do? (I currently pay for 500 Mbps.)

If you want to show up for your close up, yes… you may have to spend more to do it. I suppose that’s the price you pay for not having to show up in person at the office.

Don’t Disappear
I think success in any career requires staying connected with others. Connection used to be primarily based on in-person interactions. As we drift further away from those norms, I think it’s really easy to eventually disappear in plain sight.

So yes, this is a friendly reminder… and a word of caution. As your new school year begins, remember the importance of your webcam and don’t forget to hang out with your friends.

They really want to SEE you.

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August 25, 2024

Consider Adding in Blur when Editing your Photos

Where once you could only find your background blur when you snapped a photo, now you have the luxury to create and position it later when you edit the image. I did that with this photo I took in New Orleans.

Unwanted blur in my photography was always my kryptonite. Getting a clean freeze of any motion drove my creative process. Finding background blur (what the pros call ‘bokeh’) was always a ‘nice to have’ upgrade.

But when Apple added ‘portrait photo’ mode to its iPhone cameras, that commoditized bokeh to the point where anyone could easily create background blur. It’s a nifty software trick that generates a narrower focus point on just the subject in your photo’s foreground.

And this type of software muscle can help you control the focus point in your photos even further. In fact, it gives you an amazing amount of creative control after you’ve snapped your photos.

It’s also a tool for me to fix or hide a problem in plain sight within a photo. Here are a few examples.

Blur Out the Background

My family and I were taking a walk at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk recently, and we passed by this tandem bicycle. Something about it appealed to me. So, I pulled out my iPhone and got the shot. It wasn’t in portrait mode. So, my iPhone couldn’t quickly blur out all the people in the background. But it was easy to do that in post using Adobe Lightroom.

Blur Out the Foreground

I didn’t like the person swimming in the foreground of this shot, because I want the viewer to focus on all the people fishing on the jetty. So, I simply adjusted the focus towards the background.

Blur Out an Unwanted Element in the Middle

I snapped this shot while on vacation near Orient, NY. I found the two turkeys crossing the road right in front of a car. (Silly turkeys!) I love the moment, but I didn’t like the license plate detail being so prominent. Sure, there are ways to mask it, but the plate would never look totally natural. Here, I avoided the problem entirely by simply narrowing the photo’s focus point and blurring the entire car.

Direct your Viewer’s Attention

If you’re not just trying to fix a problem, you can be free to get creative and add in some blur to help define what’s most important in the shot.

I liked adding blur to the background of this shot to help you focus more on this tiny rowboat heading out into the enormous ocean.

How to Adjust the Focus Point in your Photos
I add in my photo blur using Adobe Lightroom’s appropriately named ‘Lens Blur’ feature. I prefer using the ‘Cat Eye’ Bokeh setting. Then, you simply use the ‘Focus Range’ slider to adjust. (Note: You don’t have to be working with a ‘portrait’ photo.)

You can also adjust the focus point of an iPhone’s portrait photo. In the Photos app, go into edit mode. Then, simply tap on the subject you want to focus on. (Note: You don’t get the same kind of control as Adobe Lightroom offers.)

Use Blur to Give your Photos more Clarity
Don’t fear the blur. Use it!

Whether you want to add more creative flair to your photography or minimize an annoying element, generating some targeted blur can be just the solution you need.

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