Toy Story 3’s Academy Award Nominations by Zach Loavenbruck

by Zach Loavenbruck

Computer animated movie Toy Story 3 received several nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this year. The film has earned nods for Best Picture, Animated Feature Film, Music (Original Song), Sound Editing, and Writing (Adapted Screenplay). The plot of the film revolves around an unpredictable future for a group of toys when their owner prepares to leave for college. The young man plans to take Woody, a Western cowboy doll, to the university with him and deposit the rest of the toys in the attic. Instead, his mother throws them away; eventually, they wind up in a collection for a daycare.

The movie continues with the toys meeting new companions at the daycare as Woody tries to explain to them the circumstances. After a series of adventures, the toys return to their owner’s home, and he ultimately gives them to a toddler he met earlier in the movie. The toys then feel wanted and needed again. Many of the original actors who provided voiceovers for the characters return in the third installment. These professionals include Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Jeff Pidgeon, Jodi Benson, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, and Laurie Metcalf.

The film also features some new characters, voiced by actors such as Ned Beatty, Timothy Dalton, Bonnie Hunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Garlin, and Michael Keaton. Talented musician Randy Newman wrote and composed the song “We Belong Together,” for which the movie received its nomination in the music category.

The film grossed more than $110 million when it opened, surpassing the record for an animated film set by Shrek the Third. In 2010, Toy Story 3 earned the most money of any movie released worldwide.

The Actors of the Harry Potter Series by Zach Loavenbruck

by Zach Loavenbruck

In my free time, I enjoy reading and watching movies. The Harry Potter series of books and films allows me to combines these two interests. Since the first Harry Potter film, I have enjoyed following the careers of the three child actors who have now grown into young adults.

Daniel Radcliffe. Born in London in July 1989, this young actor has portrayed the series’ title character in all of the movies to date. He attended schools in London and played a young David Copperfield in one of his earliest acting roles. After a series of auditions, he earned the role of Harry Potter, with the first film debuting in 2001. While he succeeded in his early academic endeavors, he has not yet pursued a university education. Daniel Radcliffe has appeared in a number of television shows, as well as the Australian independent movie December Boys, which was released in 2007. His other projects include The Journey Is the Destination, a biography of a photojournalist, and The Woman in Black, a ghost story. His live theater credits include The Play What I Wrote and Equus, which caused a stir because he appeared in one nude scene.

Emma Watson. Born in Paris in April 1990, Emma Watson has played Hermione Granger throughout the Harry Potter series of movies. In addition to acting, in fall 2009 she modeled fashions for British clothier Burberry. Prior to Harry Potter, Watson had only acted in productions for her school, Stagecoach Theatre Arts in Oxford. Outside of her famous role, she has acted in a BBC production called Ballet Shoes and provided the voice for Princess Pea in the animated feature The Tale of Despereaux. Her future projects include The Perks of Being a Wallflower and My Week with Marilyn. She has expressed interest in furthering her education once her affiliation with Harry Potter ends.

Rupert Grint. Born in Harlow, England, in August 1988, Rupert Grint has portrayed Ron Weasley, a friend of Harry Potter, throughout the movie series. Unlike his fellow actors, Grint obtained the role by submitting a video audition. He had no professional acting experience; he had appeared in productions at his Catholic school and local theater group. Aside from his work in the Harry Potter series, he has appeared in several films and completed voiceover work. His movie credits include Driving Lessons, Cherrybomb, and Wild Target. In two Harry Potter video games, Grint provided his voice for Ron Weasley. Outside of acting, Grint purchased an ice cream truck and has joked that he could rely on it for income later in his life.

By Zach Loavenbruck

Gore Vidal Part 2

Gore Vidal Part 1 here

Trained educator Zach Loavenbruck recently applied his teaching background toward managing a team of service representatives for Liaison International, a distributor of exam management and admissions software to institutions of higher learning and professional trade associations. A graduate of the University of Rochester, Pace University, and the University of Connecticut, Zach Loavenbruck frequently engages in cerebral pursuits like reading and writing. Of his favorite authors, Zach Loavenbruck has read many of the works of Gore Vidal, including Lincoln and Burr: A Novel.

Celebrated author Gore Vidal leads a multidisciplinary career, serving as a screenplay writer for Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios during the 1950s and 60s and running for political office twice in his life. Often associated with the postmodernism movement, Vidal earned as much praise for his essays and memoirs as he did for his fiction. Some of his more notable nonfiction pieces include Armageddon?, which investigates power in the United States, and Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings, a compilation of essays presenting Vidal’s perspective on sex and relations.

Focusing on novels and nonfiction work for much of his later life, Vidal sporadically revisited scriptwriting for cinema and television from the 1960s onward. Vidal’s credits include a 1989 made-for-TV movie titled Billy the Kid and a mini-series on the life of Abraham Lincoln. Vidal’s roles as an actor consist of appearances in the films Bob Roberts, Gattaca, With Honors, and Igby Goes Down, and voice performances on episodes of Family Guy and The Simpsons.

An unreserved political critic, Gore Vidal campaigned in 1960 as a Democratic candidate for New York’s 29th congressional district. Losing by a modest margin to J. Ernest Wharton in a traditionally Republican area, Vidal achieved 43 percent of the votes, more than any other Democrat had in the previous half century. Vidal’s supporters in his first run at legislature included Eleanor Roosevelt and longtime friends Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. During the early 1970s, Vidal chaired the People’s Party. Ten years later, he ran against current California Governor Jerry Brown for a U.S. Senate seat, representing California. Vidal lost to Brown in the primary election, though the author’s second attempt at political office was captured in the documentary film Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No.

The Jew’s Harp

by Zachary Loavenbruck

I have played in various bands since my college days, employing numerous musical styles. I enjoy the limitless possibilities music offers for creating something original and explore a full range of instruments, playing the piano, melodica, congas, guitar, and Jew’s harp.

Also known in America as a mouth harp or jaw harp, the Jew’s harp is thought to be one of the world’s oldest instruments. It has many names in various cultures over the centuries, such as the gewgaw in England, koukin in Japan, guimbarde in France, and genggong in Bali. A Dutch musicologist once identified over a thousand names for the Jew’s harp.

The Jew’s harp comprises a simple metal or bamboo reed connected to a rounded frame that looks like an elongated horseshoe. With the frame held firmly to the front teeth, the jaw acts as a resonator, amplifying the sound of the instrument. Although the basic tone of the harp is confined to a single pitch, various overtones and melodies can be added by varying the shape of the mouth and the amount of air stored in the mouth. Players can achieve volume modulations by breathing in and out. The Jew’s harp produces a droning sound, making it a popular part of some religious rituals.

The harp is also associated with traditional folk music, particularly in the Turkic regions of Central Asia. Many modern world music recordings utilize the instrument, because of its lively and highly syncopated nature. I personally enjoy the Jew’s harp for the warm tonality it brings to live performances.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

by Zach Loavenbruck

Published in 1999, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment in her seven-book series. A pivotal book in the series, the Prisoner of Azkaban introduces several new characters who shed light on Harry’s past, facilitate a significant maturation of Harry’s character, and change the course of his future. This was one of my favorite turning points in the series. The novel opens, as usual, with Harry at his aunt and uncle’s house, where he struggles to maintain a level head while his uncle’s sister berates him for a variety of perceived disappointments. As an adolescent boy subjected to an overwhelming amount of stress, Harry loses his temper and inadvertently performs magic on the woman to halt her verbal abuse. Harry then runs away from home and spends the remainder of his summer at an inn in the magic world until he starts the new term at Hogwarts. During his stay at the inn, Harry overhears his best friend’s parents discussing a dangerous criminal’s escape from wizard prison and his suspected plot to hunt down and kill Harry. He also ascertains that this particular wizard is widely believed to have betrayed Harry’s parents and, essentially, caused their death. Through a subsequent sequence of plot twists and turns, Harry meets childhood friends of his parents, encounters conflicting accounts of their tragic demise, and is forced to decide who to trust. Once Harry decides in whom he can trust, he dares to hope for a more pleasant future with adults who promise to love and care for him, as opposed to the way his coldhearted aunt and uncle have treated him up to this point in his life. Unfortunately, just as Harry begins to imagine his much-improved future, it is hindered by the closed-minded prejudices of fearful authority figures. The loving adults who so recently entered his life are forced into exile and hiding. Harry is once again forced to decide, this time as to whether or not he should align himself with his headmaster, who has resolved to sidestep the authority of the wizard government for the sake of true justice, or quietly accept his loss and hope that someday wizard-government officials will realize his friends’ innocence. This third novel marks the beginning of a substantial change in Harry’s understanding of the world as he confronts serious and difficult decisions. It also marks the beginning of an emerging atmosphere of anxiety and distrust in the wizarding world that Harry must combat in later novels. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling expertly develops her characters and sets the stage for the final half of her epic.

Fender Rhodes Electric Piano created by Harold Rhodes

One of my instruments of choice is the Fender Rhodes electric piano, an instrument created by musical visionary Harold Rhodes. With his own chain of schools by the age of 20, Harold Rhodes taught piano using a unique hands-on method, ensuring that his students were intimately accustomed to the physics of music by building pianos. The Fender Rhodes dates back to the Second World War, when Rhodes briefly abandoned his educational endeavors to join the Army Air Corps. Asked to provide therapy for wounded soldiers, Rhodes fell back on music and began engineering a piano that patients could play while bedridden. Using hydraulic aluminum pipes from B-17 bombers, Rhodes developed a xylophone-like instrument with two and a half octaves. For his achievements in providing superior therapy to soldiers, Rhodes received a Medal of Honor and his own method in the Air Corps Manual Number 29. After the war, Rhodes founded the Rhodes Piano Corporation in order to distribute his new instrument. After a lukewarm reception, Rhodes created a new instrument reminiscent of the baby grand piano that piqued the interest of Leo Fender, already famous for the Telecaster, Precision Bass, and Stratocaster. The first Fender Rhodes, however, featured only a bass range. Rhodes continued experimenting and eventually emerged with the Rhodes 88, a milestone product that prompted CBS to buy out Leo Fender. The first full-range Fender Rhodes Electric Piano was finally released in 1965. For the next two decades the piano met with great success. In 1983, William Schultz bought Rhodes, and the following year, the Mark V—quite possibly the best Rhodes Model—was released. A few years later, Roland acquired the Rhodes name. Within a decade, Harold Rhodes decided to personally develop a new electronic piano. Unfortunately, he died in 2000 of pneumonia before any new version could be released. Rhodes is truly a legend in the piano world, and it is an honor to play his instruments.

About Zach Loavenbruck!

Zach Loavenbruck

Mr. Zach F. Loavenbruck has a passion for communicating ideas. Whether he is lecturing in the classroom, performing his music on stage, or training others in the information technology field, Zach Loavenbruck relishes the opportunity to connect with others and share information.

After earning his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at the University of Rochester, Zach Loavenbruck went on to prepare for a career in education and a life of sharing ideas. Zach Loavenbruck attended Pace University in Pleasantville, New York, following his undergraduate work. Focusing his studies on Secondary School Teaching, Zach Loavenbruck earned his Master of Science for Teachers and a 3.85 Grade Point Average in the program. Following his Master’s level education, Zach Loavenbruck attended the University of Connecticut, where he specialized in Educational Psychology. Zach Loavenbruck undertook graduate level Professional Development studies at the Storrs Campus and earned a 3.85 GPA before leaving the program for professional work.

Zach Loavenbruck taught Social Studies, Health, Math, and English at various high schools in Connecticut and worked to inspire and challenge his students through his teaching. An innovative and creative educator, Zach Loavenbruck routinely presented engaging presentations to groups of 400 to 500 students. Mr. Zach Loavenbruck was well regarded by his students and peers and utilized his communication skills to pass knowledge on to others in a creative manner.

Following his career in education, Zach Loavenbruck worked in the Information Technology field, presenting critical information to clients and helping to train new hires. During his tenure at Liaison International, a Watertown, Massachusetts technology company, Zach Loavenbruck was promoted from his initial role of Senior Application Service Representative to Coordinator of Training & Organizational Support. Mr. Zach Loavenbruck was presented with the International Award for Excellence at Liaison International to laud his hard work and dedication.

Zach Loavenbruck lives in the Boston Area.