Wreck-It Ralph

2012 cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Jennifer: 16/20; Dylan: 12/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 20/20; Buster: 19/20)

Plot: The titular video game baddie--a bulbous-fisted bully who destroys buildings--is tired of living the life of a villain and covets the popularity of his counterpart Fix-It Felix, a guy with a hammer who scrambles around fixing Ralph's messes. Ralph decides to bolt and find a game in which he can be the hero and win both a medal and the admiration of other video game characters. Things don't go well at all.

I really wanted to like this, but it was just too much. There's some humor, and it was good seeing Q-Bert again. There are more than a few nods to video games from my childhood as well as people younger than me, an obvious attempt by the Disney people to grab everybody. There's a bunch of action, and the whole thing is animated really well. The voice work--especially Alan Tudyk as the really unlikable King Candy, but also Reilly, Silverman, the almost too-recognizable McBrayer, and Jane Lynch, the latter who might have the funniest lines--is really good. Is Jack McBrayer going to be in every animated movie from now on? That seems like the kind of thing that could happen.

Studio Executives: Ok, and we need the voice for this little pipsqueak of a character. Who should we use?
Other Studio Executive: Duh! Jack McBrayer? Heard of him?
Studio Executive: Great choice! He's right next door finishing up work on another animated movie. Let's fetch him!

That's right. Jack McBrayer is the kind of actor who is fetched. I can only recall one other animated feature film with his voice (not that I've seen them all), but I have a feeling I'm about to get really sick of the guy. Sarah Silverman stretches things a bit. I didn't recognize her voice, but Jennifer did. Anyway, the voice work is fine. The characters, however, aren't all that likable. There's really nobody to latch onto here. Ralph's not a bad character, but he just doesn't work as the emotional center for this thing. For one, we're supposed to buy that he's forced into this bad guy life but is really a hero at heart, but he acts so selfishly in this movie that I had trouble seeing that heart. He's also not very bright. Secondly, about midway through the movie, the audience is jerked from his story into Vanellope's (am I missing a pun here?) world and the conflict in that game. Like the colors, camera swoops, and barrages of sound thrown from my television screen, the clashing stories was just a little too much to take. I didn't like Vanellope's character either, and the limited amount of feeling that I could spare for these characters was stretched really thin. I liked a lot of what I saw and I really thought it was a creative idea with loads of potential. I just wish the story wasn't driven by too many modern animated movie cliches and had better characters.

This got me thinking about modern animated films that are very visually busy compared with the older, much simpler animated treats such as, say, Bambi. How do you think somebody in the 40's would react to seeing something like this? Would they vomit? Froth? Convulse? Flee in terror? A combination of those? I wonder what effect modern entertainment--especially visually with a definite shift from very simple ideas to very complex ones and the sonic barrage we get nowadays--has on children and their minds?

ParaNorman

2012 cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 14/20; Emma: /20; Abbey: 18/20)

Plot: A boy who sees dead people inherits the job of reading a magic book to a centuries-dead witch from John Goodman, and along with his friends and sister, he's got to save the town from zombies.

Rapid Fire--Where Shane desperately tries to catch up and refuses to put much thought into this, write like a grown-up, or proofread himself.

Either I'm going nuts or there was a Manos: The Hands of Fate reference in this one. I really wanted to like it, and there are plenty of things to like. The creators have loads of creativity, there's a lot of fun visual humor, there's a visual style that keeps it from being just another one of those animated things, and Jon Brion does a nice job with the music. Then again, there's some crudeness and frightening imagery that made me wonder who the audience is, the humor in the dialogue doesn't work nearly as well as the visual stuff, the characters are really flat, and things just start looking stupid during a crazy climax. The story's weak. There's just not a lot of depth here, but this skims along entertainingly enough. It's darkly humorous and really probably not for children at all. Tim Burton fans might like it. The movie reminded me of him for a lot of reasons, not necessarily in a good way. Or is there a good way anymore?

Home Alone

1990 slapstick comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 15/20; Dylan: 11/20; Emma: 15/20; Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: Some really bad parents leave their 8-year-old home alone and fly to France for the holidays. A pair of burglars try to rob his house but are in for more than they bargain for!

Macaulay Culkin is really likable during a lot of scenes in this movie. Well, maybe during a couple scenes. Unfortunately, he's really annoying during the rest of the scenes. The spoiled-brat bad behavior stuff before he's left home alone makes me almost want to root for the burglars, and the barrage of screaming, celebrating, and cutesiness gets painful after a while. Compare Culkin to Peter Billingsley in the far-superior A Christmas Story. Billingsley, or maybe Bob Clark who directed him, understands subtlety. Culkin, although he was younger and already hooked on heroin when this was filmed, doesn't. So even though it's always funny to see Joe Pesci with the top of his head on fire or Daniel Stern getting hit in the groin, there are a lot of scenes in this where it feels like you're the one getting a blow torch to the scalp or a shot to the groin. And getting punched in the groin three times just to see somebody else punched in the groin once just isn't worth it although I think I just invented a new game show. When you see this movie a second or third or fourth or fifth time, you really feel like you're wading through a bunch of crap to get to the cool booby trap scenes at the end. Once there, you realize that they're not nearly as funny as you remember them and have nothing better to do but focus on how the scenes with Roberts Blossom (the old guy) and his shovel didn't really need to be here. Sappiness drenches this thing by the end with that father/son reunion, the mother coming back home, and all the other relatives coming back home at just the right Hollywood time.

My new favorite thing about this movie is that there are apparently people who believe Elvis makes a cameo. Of course, the King had been dead for about fourteen years, but that doesn't stop people from thinking the extra standing behind Catherine O'Hara is him:

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

1989 Christmas comedy

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 14/20; Dylan: 13/20; Emma: 8/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Clark Griswold has family over for the holidays and tries his best to give them the perfect Christmas. Meanwhile, he awaits his Christmas bonus check so that he can feel more comfortable about the deposit he put on a backyard pool. Things unravel slapstickily.

This was never one of my favorites though I've seen it countless times. Like the superior A Christmas Story, there's a very thin plot that's really only there to hold together the series of gags. I'm not sure any of those gags--the Christmas lights, the recurring snooty neighbor torture, the electrocuted cat, the attic imprisonment, the Christmas feast, etc.--are all that great, but they add up to something that will make most people laugh a few times around Christmas time. I'm not sure that Chevy Chase was ever as likable as he was as Clark Griswold. That's not to say he was all that likable though. Things threaten to get stale early on in this one, but Randy Quaid swoops in to save the day and steals pretty much every scene he's in. And then there's the very best thing about Christmas Vacation--the great William Hickey as Uncle Lewis. He and Aunt Bethany bring this thing to life again after it starts to lose steam again. All in all, this isn't a bad comedy to spend Christmas with if you can only tolerate a little irrelevancy and typically enjoy that characters-stepping-on-boards-and-hitting-themselves-in-the-face-and/or-testicles style of humor.

A Christmas Story

1983 Christmas movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 15/20; Becky: 18/20; Dylan: 12/20; Emma: 13/10; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Ralphie wants a B.B. gun, but his parents, his teacher, and a department store Santa Claus all tell him that he'll shoot his eye out with it. Meanwhile, his father wins a major award.

This nearly plotless series of memories that almost-but-not-quite feels like you're watching somebody else's home movies has really grown on me through the years. I laugh more now than I ever did when I watched this as a kid or a younger adult. I appreciate nostalgia a lot more these days, even if it's not anything I can personally connect with because it's before my time. Perhaps it's just the mention of Terre Haute, Indiana, that works for me. Whatever it is, this movie almost gets funnier the more you see it, and it's rewatchability is great. Actually, I'm surprised that some cable channel hasn't decided to play a 24-hour marathon of this movie every Christmas. This is already on the blog somewhere. Actually, I just looked and it's on the blog 2 1/2 times, and I've bumped it up a point every time.

I've seen A Christmas Story memorabilia around lately--replica leg lamps, figurines, snowglobes. Honestly, I'm not sure if I've seen a snowglobe or not, but you're not going to fact-check me or anything, so I can probably get away with it. I'm not sure how I feel about people being able to buy leg lamps. Part of the beauty of those scenes is that the lamp is so completely ridiculous. Now that I can see them in people's windows almost taints it. I even saw one in a window right above a nativity scene the other day. Of course, I could be making that up, but again, nobody's going to fact-check.

This was my mother-in-law's first time seeing this movie. Next time she's here in December, I'll show her Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Hop

2011 Easter movie

Rating: 8/20 (Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 20; Buster: 13/20; Jennifer: 13/20)

Plot: The Easter Bunny's son--the next-in-line Easter Bunny--goes to Hollywood to make it big as a drummer. A 20-something with no job prospects and no home but his parents basement befriends him, and they have a little adventure that is partially animated and mostly stupid.

The makers of this thing need to be crucified. I'll give them credit for mixing the animation with the live action really well. The movie looks pretty good. I can't remember the last time I got bored with the story of a movie though. Hating both of the central characters probably didn't help much either. The rabbit is voiced by Russell Brand which seemed to be the main reason Emma liked this movie. No, she's not a Russell Brand fan, but she really liked his voice in this. I thought he was kind of irritating, and I've never thought the Easter Bunny should have an English accent anyway. James Marsden overdid things, probably because he knew he'd be upstaged by a cartoon rabbit in post-production. This movie is predictable, bland, and too colorful. And that chicken! Hank Azaria should find better things to do with his time and talents. It's unlikely that I'm the audience for it, and my girls seemed to like it just fine, but I kind of hope it'll wind up forgotten since nobody will ever feel the urge to pop in an Easter movie around that holiday season like they do with Christmas movies. Speaking of Easter movies though: The Passion of the Christ has about three more laughs than this movie. If Mel Gibson would have had the foresight to add a cartoon bunny to that movie, who knows how much money he would have made. Actually, I'm not entirely sure why a movie hasn't been made about Jesus and a cartoon bunny. Wait, didn't The Last Temptation of Christ have a bunny?

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

2012 animated pirate movie

Rating: 16/20 (Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 19/20; Jen: fell asleep)

Plot: Pirate Captain (that's his name) desperately wants to win the coveted Pirate of the Year award, but he's terrible at plundering and pillaging. All he's really got is a strangely immobile beard. He befriends a lonely scientist named Charles Darwin (yes, same one) and lucks into a chance to win a science prize because of his pet bird.

Delightfully goofy and manic with enough little details that I want to see it again, this feature from the Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run people (well, Peter Lord--not sure where the other guy's run off to) isn't afraid to get a little politically incorrect or throw an obscure reference at you. I doubt either of my daughters recognized John Merrick in there, but that made me laugh, and leprosy, in my humble opinion, is always pretty funny. This is stuffed with clever references for adults, and what I like about them is that they aren't necessarily just timely references. And there's a funny monkey. This bursts with creativity--a variety of interesting characters stuff the screen; there's clever movement all over the place, especially in a couple action sequences that can only be created by somebody involved with the Wallace and Gromit stuff; the Darwin-meets-pirates idea is original and very funny; and the visual and verbal humor, some just as juvenile as you'll find in Chicken Run, give this a fast pace. The makers of this aren't shy about putting all of their ideas on the screen, and at times it's almost overwhelming. As with the other features and shorts, the characters are so simple, but their movements are so clever and complicated, and the addition of some CGI sky and water blends wonderfully with the stop-animation stuff. It's a great-looking movie, so good that you might mistake it for all-CGI, and there's just a terrific amount of detail put into each shot. I was sold near the beginning during a scene that managed to combine something called "Ham Night" with the Pogues and moonwalking. This is probably too odd and random to be an instant classic or anything, but I can't think of a recent movie I've seen that I've enjoyed watching more. Of course, I haven't seen that many movies recently, so maybe I enjoyed it just because it was a movie. Cartoon pirates always help though. You know, like in those Johnny Depp Disney movies.

Mousehunt

1997 mouse movie

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 15/20, Dylan: 15/20; Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 18/20)

Plot: Two down-on-their-luck brothers who don't really get along inherit a seemingly worthless house and a string factory from their father. They find out that the house is potentially worth millions, the lost design of a famous architect, and start fixing the place up. In their way stands a mouse who isn't happy about the human intrusion. Mousehunt!

"A world without string is chaos!"

I've seen this one many times, but I hadn't seen it in several years. Always really liked this one, a vibrant family non-animated cartoon comedy that's fun for adults and children and only slightly risque for the latter. There's a visual flamboyance--maybe expected given director Verbinski's later work--that I really like, and the special effects are really great. The shots that follow the mouse as it maneuvers through tight spaces in the house are a lot of fun, and my family started making fun of me when I kept asking, "How are they getting the mouse to do that?" It's hard to tell which scenes involve a live trained mouse and which ones are manufactured with the magic of special effects, so I'm just going to assume the whole thing is done with a real mouse and declare that mouse to be the greatest mouse actor and stuntmouse to ever grace the silver screen. Speaking of rodents, I'm now two-thirds of the way to a rodent trifecta after this and Rat. Somebody suggest a third for me. Rodent trifecta would be a good name for a punk band, by the way. The human actors are almost as good as the mouse. Nathan Lane and Lee Evans bounce off each other well, both stretching these unrealistic comic situations--enough comic mischief to give this a PG rating without the aforementioned risque scene--as far as they can without destroying any potential for believability. Lee gets the funniest moment in this or almost any other movie I've seen recently during a scene where he screams "I've got you now, little guy" at an auction. That whole scene is slapstick perfection though. Christopher Walken has a small part as Caesar the Exterminator, an underappreciated role. Only Walken can deliver a line like "What's that--horse? Fiendish! I won't eat it!"--a line that looks completely nonsensical on paper--and turn it into comedy gold. William Hickey, playing the boys' father in flashback and in painting form, looks like he could fall to pieces at any moment. There's an absurdity to the action scenes and a few no-way-real-people-survive-that moments that might remind you of Home Alone but with a mouse, and the overall flashy comic tone gives it just the right amount of cartoonishness. It's like Tom and Jerry or a Donald Duck short where you know the characters will be OK even after you just watched them explode. There are a few darker comic moments though, including a wowser opening that shows the tail-end of a funeral that sets an irreverent and humorously violent tone for the rest of the movie. The music's terrific, too. I don't think this first feature from Gore Verbinski is highly regarded, but I think it's a very entertaining and almost special little movie.

The Great Muppet Caper

1981 shenanigans

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: fell asleep; Dylan: 13/20 ; Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Kermit and his twin brother Fozzie are newspaper men who, along with their photographer Gonzo, aren't doing a very good job. They get one last shot to report a big story and travel to London to get a scoop on a jewel heist.

For my money, this is the funniest of the Muppet movies. And Jim Henson's just showing off here in this more freewheeling and irreverent follow-up to The Muppet Movie. He's got Muppets swimming, a Muppet multitude riding bicycles, Muppets flying through the air, Muppets climbing up the sides of buildings. There are so many moments where you just scratch your head and wonder, "How the hell are these puppets doing that?" Yes, the story is more than a little goofy, and a lot of the puns are very nearly painful. But the cameos aren't as obtrusive as in the predecessor (Peter Falk is particularly funny), and, if I'm remembering clearly enough, there are more Muppets involved in this one. The Swedish Chef, that eagle guy, Stafford and Waldorf, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Bunson and Beaker, and a bunch of others not even I can name all have their chance to be funny. A lot of this takes place in a dilapidated hotel called The Happiness Hotel, the only free place Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo can find in London. It's a place slightly better--maybe a fourth of a star better--than the motel I worked at. Only it's got a bitchin' bus. And when I imagine that bus without all those Muppets hanging out the window, it makes me want to tell a stranger about it while grabbing him by the shoulders and vigorously shaking them. Charles "Freakin'" Grodin hams it up--in a good way--as the villain while John Cleese and Peter Ustinov are also funny in small roles. Oscar the Grouch also has a brief cameo appearance. But it's really the five guys who do the voice work for thirty-three (if I counted correctly) Muppets that are the stars here. The Muppet movements and, as weird as it feels to say this, facial expressions helps them blend into the settings and make them feel like living things, but it's the voice work that gives them their personalities. Lots of laughs during this family movie night, so much that I'm surprised Jen didn't wake up. Oh, and this makes yet another musical for family movie night. The songs in this are fine if not especially memorable. The Electric Mayhem get to throw down on the bus. I wonder if that bus would have been allowed at the airport. My boss at my motel told me that I had to take the magnet with our name off the door when I picked up customers at the airport because "we are not allowed there." I never asked what the hell he meant by that.

I'm going to have to re-evaluate my ratings for all these Muppet movies. The Muppet Movie and the new one were both 15/20 according to the blog. Treasure Island was only a 12/20, but it's not very good. I guess Manhattan isn't on the blog, so that might be an upcoming family movie night pick. But that rating for The Muppet Movie seems awfully low, especially since it does have memorable songs and, if I'm remembering correctly, a wild Muppet sex scene.

Trivia time: Charles "Freakin'" Grodin was in one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Want to guess what that was?

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

1971 kid flick

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 14/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The reclusive and eccentric titular candy maker holds a contest to invite five annoying children for a tour of his titular factory and a lifetime supply of his scrumptious titular confectionery treats. The tour ends early for some of the children who have poor listening skills. Grandpa Joe gets gas.

I just now realized that this movie is older than me.

Here's a link I stumbled across that suggests Gene Wilder had a lot of influence on the iconic character created in this. It's a great read, not only because it adds a bit to the genius of Wilder's performance but because it shows how classy that guy is. My 4 1/2 readers know that I love Johnny Depp and don't mind Tim Burton, but when I heard that remake was going to be made, the first thing I said was, "No, that's not right. Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka." And I know that I made the outrageous claim that this movie contained the greatest acting performance of all time, but that was actually wrong. The greatest acting performance of all time belongs to Gene Wilder for his work in this movie. Look no further than the wildly grotesque boat ride which not only gives Gene a chance to show his chops but just might be the greatest scene that takes place on a boat in movie history. That song, by the way, has lyrics that are from Dahl's book. I love all of Wonka's sneaky literary allusions which are not in Dahl's book: "Where is fancy bred--in the heart or in the head?" from Shakespeare, "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams" from O'Shaughnessy, Oscar Wilde, Ogden Nash, John Keats. It's like a sweet-toothed lit. major's wet dream! Wilder's multi-lingual tour guiding, the deadpan humor, the curly hair, the somersault, the schizophrenic tone switcherooing, the dance moves, his sweet singing voice, the fluidity of his movement. It's all so brilliant, one of the most whimsically dark characters. As I've said many times, Wilder's most fun to watch when his character is angry, and I try to find as many opportunities as I can in life to imitate his "You get nothing!" near the end. I'm also going to start each school year by saying my classroom is where "all my dreams become realities and some of my realities become dreams" before weeping uncontrollably. Anyway, enough about Gene Wilder and his character. You don't need me to convince you that this is the greatest performance in the history of acting.

All the kids are good, even if they're good in really exaggerated ways. You hate them all, except for Charlie, and you're supposed to. Violet's gum chewing and annoying voice, Veruca's whining, Augustus's general shape, Teevee's know-it-all attitude. You don't mind when terrible things happen to these children because they're really awful young people. Their demises work as little object lessons, too, the dangers of not taking care of one's body, of being too prideful or just a little snotty or mean, of greed, of ennui. Those Oompa Loompas. They'll get you, like enforcers of the consequences of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I counted correctly, there were ten Oompa Loompas in the credits. One was in Labyrinth, one was in The Elephant Man and Time Bandits, one was in fourteen of seventeen episodes of The Prisoner and Magical Mystery Tour, one was in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, one not only played three different characters in A New Hope but was in Willow and two Harry Potter movies, one was an Ewok and acted in both Labyrinth and Willow and Time Bandits, one was not only in one of those C.S. Lewis movies but played a character called Dwarf--Eater of Cars in something called Born to Boogie and was also in Magical Mystery Tour, and one was only in this move. And one of them was named Pepe Poupee (I shit you not!) and was actually a woman (I still shit you not!)! What's it say that all the winners of Wonka's contest are Caucasians, by the way? Anything? And I was surprised to find that Peter Ostrum is another of those great one-and-dones and that he didn't have a single other acting credit. He's as perfect for Charlie as Wilder's perfect for Wonka, and I think a lot of that has to do with his hair. Like Wilder, I guess. The only gripe is that Ostrum's belching is wack. If you're about to be dismembered by a ceiling fan because a carbonated beverage is making you float and you can only save yourself by belching, you need to do it like a man. I'll mention one more performance that I like: David Battley as Charlie's teacher, Mr. Turkentine. I used to think that was Paul Benedict, but it's not. He's hilarious anyway, and one of the funniest lines in the movie that nobody would ever mention is his--the "Well, I can't figure out just two!" when he's teaching percentages. Oh, wait! I am going to mention one more character--Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark is in this movie! Not the actor, the character--the dude who whispers to the children after they win. Or maybe I'm just on drugs.

Speaking of drugs, what a wonderful world the makers of this create without the need of computer graphics or a lot of special effects. The big candy room? 1/3 of it was actually edible according to Gene Wilder. That river? Yep, actual chocolate. Those wacky machines with their funky moving parts. So much color and so much fun. I'll take this old school set design over what Tim Burton did any day.

This is the second musical my family and I have watched for our summer family movie nights. A lot of the songs are great, too--"The Candy Man," a Sammy Davis Jr. staple; "I've Got a Golden Ticket"; "Pure Imagination," another great Gene Wilder moment; all the Oompah Loompah songs. Now "Cheer Up, Charlie" is pointless and shitty, and although Veruca Salt's "I Want It Now" isn't a terrible song, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Why does one of the children get a song before leaving while the others don't? This would be a memorable movie without the songs, but the songs make it even more memorable.

One of my favorite children's movies that are really made for adults. It's not for adults, you say? Well, go ahead and check for yourself what a snozberry is then. Oh, it's just so hard to not love Roald Dahl.

Bonus point for Pepe Poupee.

The Secret of the Magic Gourd

2007 children's movie

Rating: 6/20 (Jen: 3/20; Emma: 8/20; Abbey: 10/20)

Plot: Some lazy Chinese kid finds the annoying titular fruit which promises to give him anything he wants. Predictably, it doesn't turn out to be a good thing.


Gooby vs. Gourd--which children's movie magical character is more irritating? I think their fuzzy and flesh respectively neck and neck. Gourd's got a really annoying voice (voiced by somebody named Corbin Bleu which is almost an Arby's sandwich), crosses his arms above his mouth, spews far too many bad puns (as if there's another kind of pun), says things like "What's the diff?", raps poorly, and for reasons that I will never understand no matter how much I try to understand them, was animated with an anus. I think this is my first "anus" on shane-movies.blogspot.com, and I didn't figure it would be a children's movie that was a collaboration between Disney and China that would be responsible for it. It's possible that I was just seeing things, but I'm willing to bet you my youngest child, who actually seemed to like some of this, that this thing had an anus.

Now one of the biggest issues with this is some bad dubbing. It might not be fair to make fun of a movie for bad dubbing, but it's not like some cheapo dvd production company is taking a cheesy kung-fu movie and throwing in a bunch of voices that sound like John Wayne. This is freakin' Disney! And poor voice decisions were made here, not limited to the Corbin Bleu. And the translation? "Whenever you work hard, better is your level of satisfaction" sounds like something Yoda would say.

The movie doesn't just sound bad. The special effects--very plasticky CGI gunkiness--do create some interesting individual visuals, however. The kid running beside his bike while a frog flees on two legs might be my chase scene of the year, and a scene with some flying fish looked kind of cool. But the gourd is rubbery and doesn't always mesh with the setting or other characters as well as he should. And there's this scene featuring a circle of junk food that nearly gave me a seizure. A lot of the effects here are just gross. Dinosaurs, a parade of toys, flying books, a space ship. This thing was just ugly.

This was a family movie night selection. The idea with family movie night was that we would take turns picking movies, but I forced this one on my family because I remember seeing a preview of it (those fish, I think) and thinking it looked pretty good. Whoops. Little did I know that it had a Corbin Bleu in it. Of course, there may be some cultural things that my family and I just don't understand. For example, the main character--some annoying and really unlikable kid--saying "Huh!" in an angry way to end about three conversations. To me, that seemed goofy, but maybe in China it's completely normal. Or the grandmother's obsession with toe nails which didn't work for me as a recurring joke and for some reason seemed to offend Jennifer. Jennifer, by the way, referred to this as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Gourd at one point which distracted us enough to stop paying attention to the movie to come up with more titles. The Maltese Gourd, Indiana Jones and the Gourd of Doom, How to Train Your Gourd, I Spit on Your Gourd. That was more fun than the movie. One more thing: This lost another point because of the song playing over the end credits. I imagined this conversation:

Chinese people: [playing song] Did you like it?
Disney people: God no! That was awful! We can't use that.
Chinese people: I'm sorry, but this is Asia. That is the way we end our movies.
Disney people: Ok, fine. But this is going to cost us a point or two on Shane's blog.

If I were you, I would not watch this movie with your family. I'd watch I Spit on Your Gourd instead. Of course, I am me and I did watch this with my family, so what do I know?

Seriously though. An anus.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Redux

1981 adventure

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 16/20; Dylan: 20/20; Emma: 16.5/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The titular archeologist/professor globetrots in search for Noah's boat. He runs into some Nazis, a group of people who historically weren't very nice.

I've already written poorly about this movie twice, but Abbey picked it for family movie night. It's not one that I'll complain about having to watch again. That's part of the beauty of the thing. It's more than likely the film that I've seen the most times with the possible exception of Toy Story. Anyway, I'm dividing my thoughts into three categories for this--questions, noticings, and things-I-freaking-love.

Questions:

How can this be rated PG? It's got face melting/exploding. Face exploding, by the way, would be a horrible way to go, wouldn't it?

What's the body count? Next time I watch this, I'm counting.

Where the hell did Belloq get that goofy outfit and that staff? The only thing I can think of is that there must be a Ark-Opening Clothes "R" Us on that creepy island.

Speaking of that creepy island, how's Indy ride on the outside of a submarine for the distance shown on the map? Dylan explained that submarines are faster when they surface, so they probably wouldn't have gone under. If not, then why would they even use a submarine in that situation?

Is that Ralph Macchio preparing dates?

Why don't the Germans wonder why there are people off digging in a different place from everybody else? Belloq eventually notices them, but you'd think somebody would walk up to them and ask, "What the heck are you digging here for?"

How do you get a monkey to Heil Hitler salute? Or are monkeys just naturally hateful creatures? I wouldn't put it past them.

How many extras were in this movie? The big dig, the streets of Cairo. There are so many people in this!

How can Indy fans have so much of a problem with aliens and refrigerators in the new movie but not have a problem with melting faces and burning crates in this one? And speaking of the swastika burning scene, what's up with that rat? He looks like he's about to boogie.

Was Shooby LaBoof conceived on a submarine? I'm going to have to check the date for that fourth movie! If he was, it explains a lot.

Noticings:

All these movies start with monoliths, don't they? Or maybe just a plain rock.

There's a lot of man screaming in this movie. 1) The guy with the stocking cap screams at the statue as they're trudging through the forest. 2) Alfred Molina screams like a woman at a skeleton. I also freaking love how that skeleton turns his head to glance at Molina. 3) Toht (a role turned down by Klaus Kinski if you believe a word that guy says) gives his first girly scream when he grabs the hot medallion. Hot Medallion would be a great band name, by the way. 4) Random guy with turban screams when the Well of Souls is opened. Then there's Sallah's "Eeahahahhaheh" which, at the very least, isn't all that feminine. 5) The cobwebby skeletons in the Well of Souls scream. That makes even less sense than all of those different kinds of snakes living in there. 6) Toht gives the best scene of the movie during once the spirits from the ark start wreaking havoc until 7) the guy who screams after him manages to top it!

Scream bonus: The Wilhelm Scream is used when a dude spills from the back of the truck in the big chase scene.

The natives with their spears and blowguns are as accurate as the stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies. And a bonus question. There were a lot of spears being thrown in that chase scene. Once you're an extra in that scene who has thrown his spear--you know, shot your wad--do you keep chasing? You were probably handed another spear, right?

The guy trying to outdrink Marion looks like George Wendt, Norm from Cheers. I don't think that's a coincidence. All guys who look like that are big drinkers.

Indy almost consumes that "bad date" several times. It's a neat little detail.

The map room has an obelisk. I'm too lazy to see if that is architecturally correct. I had Indiana Jones actions figures and a map room, by the way. That's a really cool scene in the movie with the beam of light and Indy brushing away sand, but it wasn't all that fun to reenact in your bedroom. Also, there's one building in the map room that looked like it had been tagged. Was a street gang down there at one point or did the Nazis mark it?

Things I Freaking Love about This Movie:

That first shot of Indy--absolutely iconic. Framed by waterfall and mist, quick edited shots of bullwhip frenzy, Jones stepping out from the shade. So awesome. To think that Indy was almost Tom Selleck makes me slightly ill.

Indy's shadow on the wall of Marion's bar. Also so awesome. And I love their dynamics in that scene with dialogue perfection. You find out just enough about their past without it seeming like it was written in a script just so the audience could catch up.

Sallah: "Why does the floor move?" At this point, by the way, Jennifer informed me that she had never seen this movie all the way through. What the hell?

Toph! Love his beady little eyes. His little giggle--once when he walks past Belloq after they seal Indy and Marion in the Well of Souls and later after the ark is opened. And his hanger is the most bad ass hanger in movie history. And yes, I'm including the hangers in Birdemic: Shock and Terror. And that bald head of Toph's? It's nefarious.

I love how Indy fights so dirty during the brawl with that big bald Nazi guy--dirt in the eyes, using a chunk of wood as a weapon, the old point-at-your-opponent's-shoe-to-divert-his-attention trick.

How Belloq says "idiot."

Head explosion!

"It's not the years. It's the mileage."

The way Indy saves Molina by grabbing his belt. Poor Molina, by the way. This was his first movie, I think, and he starts his career by having tarantulas all over him, screaming like a girl, and getting killed by a booby trap that he had already seen which makes him one of the dumbest characters ever.

That gunfight in Marion's place? The best ever, the type that can make me type in hyperbole! But that motley crew of thuggery, the "Whisky?" from Indy, a guy punching with an arm that is on fire? All sans music, just the crackling fire, the rat-a-tat gunfire, breaking bottles. What a terrific scene.

Another action sequence--the Cairo street brawling. It's lively and exciting in the midst of an adventure story, but there's such a personality with the fight scenes. There's humor mixed in with the mayhem, all while Harrison Ford's got the runs.

And that guy who Marion threatens with a pan only to watch him pull out a knife? The dude's teeth are even scarier than his blade!

I love the mystical guy with the high-pitched voice they visit. You know he's a mystic because he's wearing bright blue and has his own telescope.

Terry Bradshaw's "Waa-ehh" as he gets run over. And before that, the "Let's see how you like it!" toss out the front window. Indy's so pissed. Before that, there's a shot of a guy on the windshield and Indy and his passenger look at each other and laugh. That guy's expression and the shared laugh of enemies makes me smile just thinking about it.

Indy putting his hat on against a sunset backdrop--just beautiful. That is one evil-looking sky as they find the edges on top the Well of Souls.

Not everybody likes the music in this (I'm eyeing you here, Laurence), but I love it. It's the soundtrack for my childhood outside play. That's the music I heard when I ran around my backyard with a fake gun and an invisible whip, and it's the music I heard when I stepped up the plate in the last inning of a baseball game in college with a chance to drive home the winning runs. In this movie--the familiar music when Indy, fleeing from 15,000 natives while dust from the cave flies off him in that terrific scene, swings from a vine like Shooby LaBoof and dives into the water. Boom!

After the booby-trap-packed cave climaxing with a fiberglass boulder chase, I'm hooked forever. If you're not, you're a child without a heartbeat.

Top men. Endless boxes. Where was that shot? That place has to really exist. What's in all the boxes? Other than dead alien bodies, of course.

What did I miss? What do you love about this movie?

Singin' in the Rain

1952 musical

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 10/20; Emma: 6/20; Abbey: 6/20; Buster: 5/20)

Plot: A movie studio and its stars try to adapt to the talkie phenomenon.

The first sign this is a movie that Shane will like: Zelda's walk about a minute and a half into the movie. It's not a sexual thing here, more about the flamboyance, making something that ridiculous the focal point of a scene that early in the proceedings. No, the sexual thing comes later with the movement of a green dress and some rhythmic coin flippage. It's so awkward getting an erection on family movie night. The reaction from my family during this was fun. Dylan, during a kid tap-dancing scene in a pool room, said, "I don't feel comfortable about this," and later exclaimed, "Oh no! He's going to sing!" Emma also yelled a "No! Why does he have to sing again?" at one point. Later, the kid who gave Dr. Strangelove a 6/20 and forever ruined his credibility, complained that Gene Kelly was a bad dancer. He also claimed he was going to give this movie a 0/20 for "unrealistic violin playing" but reconsidered later. Jen was really looking forward to the "Singin' in the Rain" number, and when it began, she emitted a for-some-reason gravelly "Alright!" Buster's reaction was the best. She loved watching this despite her 5/20 rating. I wish I would have videotaped her imitating "Make 'em Laugh".

But I digress. This would be a classic even without that aforementioned green dress and coin flippage scene because of the "What's you hitting him with--a blackjack?" guy. But it's filled with a lot of memorable moments--the talking picture demonstrator, like Vincent Price with bad teeth; the way Gene Kelly assaults Debbie Reynolds a few times, just because he's Gene Kelly and, like John Wayne, he can; Gene and Cosmo's walk through a studio where several movies are being filmed at once, a scene put in there just for movie lovers; that exhilarating seersucker violin tap-dancing number that looked like it came straight out of Spike Jones; lines like "I can't make love to a bush" or "I make more money than Calvin Coolidge combined"; the spoken argument during the silent scene of The Duelling Cavalier; Cathy's dress blown by a fan; a way-too-close close-up of Gene's face, a shot that made me as uncomfortable as Dylan probably was while watching a little kid tap dance; the hilarious sound issues during the premiere of The Duelling Cavalier, the "No! No! No!"; the "Broadway Rhythm" sequence set designs and dazzling colors. The best musicals, at least for me, are the ones that manage to have a buoyancy throughout, not just during the song and dance numbers. This one's got that buoyancy and pours on a little extra during some of those song and dance numbers. I nearly creamed my britches during the "Mose Supposes" sequence, one that makes me realize that the same exact part of me that loves watching kung-fu movies also loves to watch tap-dancing. Singin' in the Rain's got a cool story despite being sort of artificially created around songs that already existed, and it's hard for me not to watch and recall my childhood, the days when people destroyed their homes with lethal tap routines and then collapsed giggling. That happened all the time when I was a kid! The world would be a better place if they'd just stop what they were doing and watch Singin' in the Rain once or twice a year.