Tornado Alley Premier In Chicago!

Mar 16, 2011

It’s not often I get to share “The Chase” with my family and a trip to Chicago seemed to be a great way to do it.   We left Des Moines in the afternoon after I did some work there and got into Chicago for a late dinner.     Tried to pick up a new ipad 2 at the Verizon store after the guy “Qualified” me informed me that they did not have any…. grrr.  On to dinner @ Moe’s Southwest Grill (Something we don’t have in Omaha) and to the hotel for a night of swimming for the kids.

Amazingly we made it downtown around 10am to the Museum of Science and Industry and found a new trick, park at the back door and it’s just $1 a hour to park!  The garage is like $18!

Anyway we got inside where we immedately found Mike Brady and soon Nick Nolte… obviously we were there for the kids so they joined our group.

One of the big things on our list was the “Toymaker 3000″ we had heard about it but had not seen it on previous visits (10/09, 10/10) so that was our first “Mission”

The Toymaker is a completely automated toyline that has robots assemble a “top” of sorts…  It is also supposed to engrave your name and date in the device…  when we got to the ordering console we were greeted with a “out of order sign”  Nick Nolte was none too happy.  (Don’t worry it got fixed)

Once things get rolling you get a pallet # to follow, my “Nick”‘s pallet was #8, Paige was 10 and Dani was 12.

There were 3 color tops, Orange, Purple and Green it seemed logical 3 kids and 3 colors.   The last step in the “Manufacturing Process” is a test of the toy… Nick & Paiges passed… we later found out Dani’s did not.   Apparently the machine makes Green ones when there is no custom ones to make, it then breaks them down on the other side and reuses the parts.   Dani basicly has a “Refurb” top and failed in the QC check…. no problem the machine remade it for her.

So enough about the Museum….. what did I think about the movie???

Say what you will about Sean Casey but he is PASSIONATE about everything he does.   Some people hear him talk and think he is corny…  but from my few brief encounters with him in real life makes me think a lot of when you see Sean on TV you get the real deal.   Sure the drama is on full but looking back was he really the focus of the drama or that which surrounded him?

Before the movie some of us sat in on a discussion with Josh, Sean… I hate to do this but (and a couple other people I did not know) hosted by Ginger Zee.   Obviously she spun some Reed stuff in there but Sean was really cool when he talked about what he does.   Anyone who chases has passion, Josh has passion he is just not much fun to be around.    Sean talked about filming crabs and what started his interest in storm chasing… he is a film maker at heart and telling a story is what he is about, the storms are an added bonus.

Sean’s movie did just that… lots of story… ZERO drama and big ass Tornadoes how can you go wrong?

Lots of focus on V2 (then again it was part of their dime so more power to them) but Sean did a great job telling the story.   The “B” roll shot by Jack and the others was really well done and SOOOOO happy it was in there.   I love tornadoes but you need something else in there too.

At 40min it was the perfect length, my 4 and 5 year olds did not get bored and I really only have 2 problems with the film.

The Omnimax format is just too big…. Yea it’s a monster tornado heck it looked almost life size and that was awesome however the imperfections in the screen matched with the low light quality of the film made it really fuzzy and hard to watch.  I think on a standard IMAX screen it will look GREAT and look forward to seeing that.

Second… they really needed to pipe in the smell of rain!   You can’t get closer to a tornado without being there… that is EXACTLY what this movie did.

After the show Jenn Casey was nice enough to get our group some time with Sean away from the “Fans” and MSI was cool letting us stay after closing to talk.   I can’t really say enough good things about MSI wish it was in Omaha.

Sean took some time to talk to my kids… I unfortunately missed it but Matthew Cumberland was nice enough to get a picture for me.   Sean asked my youngest Dani “What was your favorite part of the movie?” to which Dani replied “I did not like it when the Tornadoes were gone”  I am REALLY looking forward to Sean’s next movie and the technology he is packing to do it I would not miss it for anything.   Please go see the movie and support another “Chaser” out there sharing his passion!