Concentric circles appear to be a spiral.
Source: A. Kitaoka
Been sorely missing this command for a while now. Used it all the time, and it suddenly disappeared sometime after about version 5.5.
In the old days, going to Edit > Transform > Numeric… launched a new box that allowed us to manually define the mathematical properties of a selected object. (X, Y, width, height, etc., using either percentages or measurement values.) It was much like Illustrator’s proxy in the Transform Palette.
So where’d it go? Or more importantly, why? This was a riff I’d use almost daily. Not having the option available was almost as bad as not having a Shift key on the keyboard.
Finally found the new equivalent. Ridiculously easy. Hit Command/Control-T, which puts you into the familiar Free Transform mode on the object. Now notice your toolbar’s new extended options. It includes the editable fields previously only available using the classic riff.
Yay.
A great comedy, which is a rare treat these days. Plenty of laughs to be had with this one.
A dysfunctional Albuquerque family of six pile into a VW bus with a bunk clutch to drive seven hundred miles to California so that their seven-year-old daughter can compete in the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant that she’s earned a spot in after a finalist drops out. It’s a delicious satire on the absurdity of these types of contests where selfish mothers dress up their second grader as Jon Benet Ramsey in an effort to vicariously live a life of adoration that their own plastic souls never had the chance to experience.
On the way home from the flick I was connecting some dots in my head. The six main characters (the struggling motivational speaker father Richard and his heroin addicted WWII vet father, his wife, her gay suicidal brother Frank, her adolescent color blind son with a hopelessly doomed air pilot dream, and the couple’s seven-year-old Olive) with all their quirks provided a stage of unlimited relationship possibilities. One interesting aspect I noticed throughout the film was the constantly shifting Mentor/Mentored relationships, where each of the six characters played the role on both sides of the equation. Namely:
- Richard (mentor to everybody, mentored by his wife)
- Grandpa (mentor to Olive and son, mentored by Frank)
- Wife (mentor to Richard, mentored indirectly by her son)
- Frank (mentor to son, mentored by Olive)
- Son (mentor to Olive, mentored by Frank)
- Olive (mentor to Richard, mentored by Grandpa)
I’ll give it four out of five stars with a recommendation. The only thing I’d really be critical of was the ending, which felt a little contrived and flat, and overlooked a few opportunities.
***SPOILER BELOW***
When Olive was about to take the stage for her portion of the talent competition, I was on the edge of my seat. I was waiting for her to pull something out of her bag of tricks of truly admirable value, such as a cool magic show or perhaps a kick-ass tap dancing routine. Something surprising. Something wowing. Something that would truly set her apart from all the talentless Ramsey wannabes.
Instead, she launched into a dance routine to Rick James’ Superfreak, which in a very unbelievable way sent the place in an uproar. Come on. It wasn’t THAT bad. Seriously, was this really enough to throw the entire family in jail? Maybe if Kinnear was naked.
I suppose the message left with us on this one is that “families, despite their differences, need to stick together”, or something like that. OK, that’s cool. But a little weak.
I would’ve liked something stronger, where Olive reached deep down and proved that there’s more to a person than a pretty face. Anything. She could’ve juggled, she could’ve told jokes, she could’ve leveraged her differences to change the views on what beauty is. Or at least make us think about it.
Instead, when it was all said and done, I left the theater feeling that Olive really wasn’t that different from all the other talentless contestants. Just a little chubbier, with a humorously odd family from Albuquerque.
