8 Reasons Why the Museum of the Moving Image is Awesome

Watch out MoMA, there's another museum with a four letter moniker in town. The Museum of the Moving Image, or MoMI, has plenty of cool and exciting features that are sure to please casual museum goers and snooty types alike. It's a great museum for families as well. It has retro video games and cartoons to keep the kids awake, as well as props and costumes from classic films to make the grandparents feel all fuzzy and nostalgic. Here's a list of things that make MoMI so dang awesome:

8. You can make your own stop-motion animation

There are stations in the museum that allow you to create your own animated masterpieces. Each station has a surface with several 2D models of characters and props. Using a touch screen monitor, you can control a camera above you to shoot your animation frame by frame. Once your done, you can playback your animation and watch your characters come to life. I totally felt like Tim Burton for a minute.          

7. Tons of retro memorabilia

As part of the museum's "Behind the Screen" exhibit, there's enough vintage merch to make a geek shed a tear. They've got Everything from souvenir lunch boxes to a C3PO tape dispenser.            

6. The building is designed to resemble the set of 2001: A Space Odyessey

  No, seriously. A tour guide at the museum told me this. That's freaking cool.  

5. Souvenir flip books

Another awesome interactive feature of this museum: personal flip books. There's a station where you can capture yourself and/or others doing whatever, and convert it into a series of images which you can purchase at the gift shop in the form of a flip book.  

4. Gregory Barasmian's Feral Fount

This amazing kinetic sculpture is used by the museum do demonstrate the zoetrope effect that that is the foundation of film. The sculpture spins, first with the lights on to expose its true form. Once the strobe lights go on, the sculpture comes to life.  

3. Costumes and Props from films and TV shows

FAKE GORE WARNING

 
   This is just a sample of the many pieces of film and TV history kept at MoMI.

2. Video Games!

In one of the museum's many nooks and crannies, you can play some classic arcade games like Space Invaders, as well as some retro console games like Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo or Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis.

1. Film Screenings

The museum screens more than 400 films every year! See for yourself.               These are just a few things MoMI has to offer. I strongly encourage everybody to visit MoMI and experience these things for themselves. So stop looking at this screen and go to Museum of Moving Images to... look at... other screens! Click here to see the current and upcoming events and exhibits at MoMI.