The Family Savvy - A Parent's Guide to What's Worth Seeing, Doing, Reading and Thinking Right Now (Los Angeles Edition)

Click on over and peruse the new site for things to do this weekend. You'll find our picks listed by age group under This Month. Feel free to poke around the site to check our reviews of interesting new art and culture around town. Then, if your coffee cup is still full, spend a few moments reading our blog.

Tickets are still available for Cirque du Soliel's IRIS, at the Kodak Theater - we loved it. And a new show from Cirque du Soleil, OVO, opens today at the Santa Monica Pier. Music fans will love the family show for They Might Be Giants, at UCLA Live on January 28.

Fast Breaking Idea: There is an unusually large pod of orcas off the coast, so a whale watch is not a crazy idea for the weekend.

My kids are as obsessed with taking pictures and editing them onto Instagram as I am with pinning pretty images on Pinterest. How'd we get so visual? And... when did everyone become a photographer!?

You'll pick up some clues when you take the family over to see The Annenberg Space for Photograpy's new show, Digital Darkroom. Everything - from gorgeous portraits of athletes, to dreamy shots that originated in the imagination of a romantic 20-something year-old, to sophisticated collages made of found objects. Each image is more intriguing than the next, and were all cooked up by contemporary artists with the help of the folks at Adobe Photoshop. You'll head back into the world wondering what's real and what's not.

Kalpa at the Getty -- Kicking off 11 days of Pacific Standard Time's Performance and Public Art Festival is a one-time installation called Kalpa. Dancers and musicians will take over your senses in a performance like no other. Click here for details.

The Family Savvy - Using Our New Site!

As a subscriber to Kids Off the Couch, you'll also be subscribed to The Family Savvy, so please be sure your email provider recognizes our address:info@thefamilysavvy.com.

We encourage you to use the site as a family resource -- it's a great place to find new ideas, timely exhibits and show reviews, or discover a new place to explore. We will communicate with you once or twice a week, updating you on recent postings and articles online at The Family Savvy.

Here are some of the many features that you're going to enjoy at The Family Savvy:

This Month is our carefully curated list of the events that we think are key to each age-group this month, and is segmented into Elementary, Middle-School, Teens and Adults. We have some great ideas to help you celebrate The Year of the Dragon, and information about a free screening tomorrow of a film called City Lax about inner-city kids in Denver learning the sport of lacrosse.

Destinations is a list of what's going on for families at all the major cultural institutions around town, right now. You'll want to check out The Annenberg's fabulous new show, Digital Darkroom.

By Age is where you will find featured exhibits and events archived by ages. Here you'll find our review of one of last year's best films, Hugo. (And, we finally saw The Artist and think it is must-see, as well).

Extras are features that we hope you'll find interesting. We'll post ticket offers, introduce you to members of our community in the Subscriber Profile (parents like you who are dealing with life in LA and have professional or personal expertise that you'll find helpful), share articles we think are important from other major periodicals (look for Clip and Share), and cover general issues of interest to our community.

Finally, we have created a Blog which will both reflect on our point-of-view and share the views of other savvy parents and institutions around town.

Do stay in touch!

• Bookmark The Family Savvy
• Sign Up for the free newsletter
• Like The Family Savvy on Facebook
• Follow The Family Savvy on Twitter

Questions? Write to me at:familysavvy@gmail.com

The Family Savvy Launches! A New Website to start the New Year

There's a new website in town called The Family Savvy. I spent the last six months creating a robust calendar-based site for families looking to interact with the city and with each other, and I am excited to share it with you. It's where I'll focus my attention from here forward, so check it out and start 2012 equipped with up-to-the-moment information about culture and kids around LA.

CLICK TO VISIT THE FAMILY SAVVY

A few words from The Family Savvy: 

We don't know about you, but we can't stand having this conversation: "What-do-you-wanna-do"," I-dunno. What-do-YOU-wanna-do"? The Family Savvy was created in order to let you skip past the planning inertia and find ways to keep the whole family engaged. By staying up-to-date on everything cultural and cool around town, we are in a great position to help you make the most of your family's time together. We know from experience that family outings help to change up the weekly scenery, are useful for oiling the joints of inter-generational communication, and - most importantly -- are a fun way to introduce your family to many wonderful events, art and ideas that crop up in our world-class city.

Think of The Family Savvy as your Cultural Concierge. Your Ambassador for Adventure. Your Envoy for Enjoyment.

Connect with The Family Savvy: Here's how you can get up-to-the-minute information about what's happening around town as well as free screening and ticket offers. 

·   Bookmark The Family Savvy

·   Sign Up for the free newsletter

·   Like The Family Savvy on Facebook

·   Follow The Family Savvy on Twitter

Spread the Word! We rely on the good graces of subscribers like you to grow. If you like the new site, please share it with your friends and teachers, family and co-workers so they can share in all the subscriber benefits.

Best wishes for 2012 to you and your family.

Sarah Bowman
Co-Founder, Kids Off the Couch
Founder and Editor, The Family Savvy

Questions? Write to me at:familysavvy@gmail.com

Scorsese's First Family Film

Hugo - A Holiday Gift for All!

Our favorite in this season's varied crop of family films is Hugo, director Martin Scorsese's sumptuous 3D adaptation of Brian Selznick's award-winning, best-selling novel, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret". At first glance, Hugo would seem to hail from Spielberg territory, so it takes until the final reel to understand why Scorsese chose to helm this captivating PG film. The film opens with an extended tracking shot that flies over the roofs of Paris and swoops down through a busy train station, signaling the technical proficiency of the celebrated director, and drawing the audience dramatically into the life of an intrepid child living between the walls of the Gare Montmartre. Hugo, orphaned after the death of his clockmaker father, has taken over for a drunken uncle, whose job it was to maintain all the clocks in the busy station; not even the nosy Station Master (a curious turn by Sasha Baron Cohen) knows a child is the one keeping the trains running on time.

Hugo spends his extra time repairing an automaton figure that his father was working on at the time of his death, but one day, while swiping the workings of a toy mouse from a toy shop, he is caught red-handed by the shop keeper, a brilliant and enigmatic Ben Kingsley. Kingsley finds the tattered notebook that Hugo's father used to fathom the mystery of the automaton and a flash of recognition is borne. Hugo's quest to unlock the mystery of his automaton leads him to unravel the mystery of the shopkeeper's true identity.

Hugo is a loner, watching the world go by from the safety of his Hunchback-like perch above the train station. Much has been made of Scorsese working through his childhood demons in this story (as an asthmatic, he spent time isolated from other children) and in the end this is a very personal story that is pitched at the broadest possible audience. Everyone over seven will be caught up in it's elegant storytelling. Visually, the film is stunning - from the incredible sets which are augmented by 3D technology, lending a story book moodiness that lets us know we are in the netherworld of make-believe and magic. Scorsese turns the station into a rollicking maze of wheels, slides and hidden compartments. While full of kinetic energy, the story unravels at an unhurried pace true to Selnick's inspired book - a must-read for anyone who wants to pore over the simplicity of the original narrative - a novel told for the most part in line drawings.

Hugo's companion in the tale is Isabelle, a plucky girl whose advanced vocabulary and sense of adventure spur Hugo on in his journey. Hugo sneaks her into a movie theater where they watch Harold Lloyd dangling on the clock in Safety Last and Charlie Chaplin riding a train gear in The General -- Scorsese's nod to two lions in the panoply of silent film greats. Grounded by the silent stars, Scorsese reveals Kingsley's character to be a real figure from cinema history, and the loving attention focused on a recreation of the creative genius of George Méliès explains why Scorsese (whose passion is film preservation) chose to bring this story to life. In flashback, Kingsley plays the spirited writer-director-producer-actor at the height of his renown. It's hard not to be struck by Méliès' creative genius, and heart-breaking to see how desperate he has become by the time Hugo meets him.

And this is where Hugo's ability to put things back together comes into play. The boy's simple insight is that when people lose their purpose, they become broken. In putting the automaton back together, he fixes his friend Méliès, and he fixes himself. We promise you'll leave the theater a bit more in touch with your dreams -- for that is what cinema represents in this parable.

Click here to read our Popcorn Adventure about "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" and Méliès' A Trip to the Moon. We also love Brian Selznick's latest book, "Wonderstruck".

Next week, we'll take a look at Spielberg's holiday gifts -- The Adventures of TinTinand War Horse.

Kids Off The Couch

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