Meet the Feebles

1989 puppet movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The titular Muppet-esque creatures desperately try to get their variety show ready on schedule, but a variety of issues threaten to derail the whole thing.

This is one of those movies that I want to like more than I actually like. It starts out well enough with a bit glossy impressive theme song. The puppets look great, like creations Jim Henson's people just barely decided to discard. There's a ton of color and personality on the screen as we see the characters on stage for the first time. Then, the whole thing stumbles for about an hour and a half. There's way too many subplots, Peter Jackson (yes, this is what he did before he got Hobbititis) trying to juggle way too many ideas in a movie that is far too weak on main plot. For certain types of people, it'll be a hoot seeing these puppets, like bizarro Muppets, engaging in really bad behavior. The first clue that this thing isn't for children is the first sex scene featuring a little walrus-on-cat action. They're interrupted, and the walrus exclaims, "I was just about to pop my cookies!" It's ridiculously filthy, but it does force you to imagine interesting animal pairings. How would an elephant and a chicken do the deed, for example? For the rest of the movie, the creatures show off their waxy nips, puke, fornicate, smoke, die, shoot up, eat each other, curse, gorge themselves, drool while peeping a rabbit ménage a trois, engage in S&M acts, sniff panties, bleed, perform opera, eat fecal matter, have Vietnam flashbacks, make pornography (nasal pornography), contract sexually-transmitted diseases, projectile vomit, attempt suicide, and perform songs about sodomy. Again, I want to remind you that these are not puppets that you should watch with your children. I can't recall a Muppet ever dying. Lots of the Feebles die, and they die in grotesque meaty ways that only Peter Jackson at this stage in his career can dream up. If a director who seemed to be trying to see just what kinds of lewdness he could get away with doesn't completely scare you away, this might be worth you time. You'll probably never look at puppets the same, however.

Mulan

1998 cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Buster: 20/20)

Plot: The titular feminist, with the help of the talking donkey from the Shrek movies, has to become a man in order to save her father's life and the future of China.

There are animation issues with this one, but it's hard to argue a movie's greatness when it features the voice work of Mr. Miyagi, the dude in the Chinese restaurant in that Seinfeld episode, and Sulu. Is Mulan a Disney princess? She's one of the better role models if she is. I mean, sure she runs away, steals, lies, and befriends a dragon, but she's a good smart and brave character who I wouldn't mind my son emulating. Her army friends--including a little fellow voiced by Harvey Fierstein who, if I made animated films, I'd have do all the voices in one of my movies just to do it--are good comic characters although her love interest is a little generic. The bad guy is menacing and brings some darkness, and I'm glad the Disney people didn't decide to unleash Gilbert Gottfried to give voice to his bird. I also like most of the songs, especially the exciting "I'll Make a Man out of You," a song which, when I first heard this in 1998, helped encourage me to urinate standing up. Some day, I will make an animated movie based on my personal urination history. Tentative title--I Pee: Stand Up for Yourself, Hotshot. Harvey Fierstein will provide the voice of young Shane and older Shane, Shane's father, Shane's mother, Shane's best friend Vernon, Shane's future wife Jennifer, "locker room bullies 1-17," and Rodolfo the Talking Toilet. And his character in Mulan if I can get the Disney people to let me borrow him.

A Talking Cat!?!

2013 talking cat movie

Rating: 2/20 (Emma: 4/20; Abbey: 3/30)

Plot: The titular cat!?! brings a pair of families together.

"Is that a cat?" You'd be surprised how many times that line is in this movie. This is a movie about some people who apparently have never seen a cat before. And that's weird because there are several times when the cat gets up and walks away and you can clearly see cat food on the floor. That leads me to believe that these are people who have cat food but who aren't sure what a cat looks like. And that's the real mystery of this movie. This is one of those movies where all the pieces come together so imperfectly to produce something so beautifully awful that you want to tell everybody you know about it. The acting isn't the worst that you'll ever see, but combined with everything else, it seems almost magical. The worst offender is Eric Roberts who provides the voice of the cat. The cat is fine, but Roberts sounds like he was locked in a closet, fed nothing but vodka and oatmeal pies, and forced to read his lines. He mostly sounds tired, and when he doesn't sound tired, he sounds bored. When he doesn't sound tired or bored, he sounds like he has come to a point in his life where he despises himself and his maker. Johnny Whitaker isn't a realistic father or millionaire, but he's got a soul patch and does a great Bogart impression. Justin Cone is awful as his son, surly and effeminate in cut-off jeans. He nails one line though: "I did see a cat--that one!" Soap star Kristine DeBell is just as bad playing a character who doesn't need oven mitts when taking things out of an oven. She does play exasperated well, probably because that's how she feels about having to be in this movie. The music is also terrible, and whoever scored this thing should be put to death immediately. I know that sounds harsh, but we're talking about somebody who threw a MIDI version of "La Cucaracha" in this thing. This is clumsily written and poorly paced. I was convinced halfway through that this was possibly written in under a half an hour. Cheese puffs were mentioned extraneously, the explanation of the cat's powers of human speech were never explained in a way that made sense, and the human characters seemed to have been created by people who have never heard human beings interact with each other before. Most impressive of all might be the special effects that allow the cat to talk. I was confused about whether the cat was "talking" to the human characters telepathically, but the magic of special effects made it clearer later with an animated black mouth. Dreadful, the kind of special effect that makes you feel sorry for everybody involved in the production of this so that you start weeping in front of your daughters. This is the type of movie that is around ninety minutes but seems like it goes on for ninety days, sad since it was really about twenty-five minutes of movie padded with random shots of a waterfall and some trees. In fact, the only thing that might have been in the movie more than nature shots were shots of the cat's butt hole. That thing popped up so many times in this movie that I began to wonder if it was intentional.

Good news: A Talking Pony!?! is in post-production. It features DeBell and Whitaker, so it must be a sequel. Also, director David DeCoteau has a movie in post-production called My Stepbrother Is a Vampire!?! I almost wish I was making the punctuation up.

It's possible that I'll see a worse movie this year, but this is a strong Manos contender right now. And Roberts, in a voice-acting role, just could grab himself a Torgo. He's really that bad here.

What Is It?

2005 movie

Rating: n/r (Mark: n/r)

Plot: A snail murderer wrestles with himself.

According to the credits, "This film has not advocated the assassination of Steven Spielberg in any way."

My brother and I made the trip to Bloomington to see Crispin Glover again. He showed us slideshow versions of eight of his novels, showed this first movie of the "It" trilogy, and then verbosely sort-of answered some questions. He had a beard this time.

I love this man. I really do. I have a feeling that people think I'm just joking around when I go on and on about him, but I think he's a borderline genius and one of the most interesting of Hollywood people. Having said that, his performance in this is about the worst part of the movie. He and his hair (or possibly wig) are distracting, and being distracting in a movie like this is an impressive feat. So what kind of movie is this? It's oddball avant-garde, cheap but fanciful and full of ideas, and a lot of people are going to find it downright offensive. It takes place, from what I can tell, on at least three levels of consciousness, years before Leo and his special effects team did it in Inception. The cast is made up mostly of unintelligible actors who have Down's Syndrome. There are references to Shirley Temple and Nazis, sometimes at the same time. There are cheap puppet shows. One character, the one who tells us that he's Michael Jackson, is in blackface. One scene right after Crispin Glover's character--either Dueling Demi-God Auteur or The Young Inner Psyche and Id since he plays both--floats in with what has to be one of the best special effects I've ever seen features a Cabbage Patch Kid, the playing of a song that uses the no-no n-word and is mostly about how black people smell, and a naked black woman in a monkey mask manually pleasuring Steven C. Stewart, the guy with severe Cerebral Palsy who wrote and starred in the second film of the "It" trilogy. Yep, that's the kind of movie this is, and if you're not in the right place mentally to see any of that, you should stay away. As I've mentioned many times on this blog, I like my avant-garde or experimental films best when they're a little goofy or at least humorous, and I did find parts of this really funny although I stifled laughter because I didn't know how the woman sitting next to me felt about the whole thing. I mean, I already came in with the guy who had smelly hair, so I already had one strike against me.

I can't pretend to know exactly what this is (pun, I guess, intended) or what Glover is wanting to say, but it's a movie that sticks with you and makes you think which is one of the director's intended goals. It's far from a perfect movie and, in fact, appears to have been filmed in Crispin Glover's backyard or basement, but at the same time, it is unique and almost pretty special. My brother and I are refusing to rate the thing because we're a couple sissies. I neglected to ask everybody else in the theater.

By the way, this is now easily at the top of my list of "Best Shirley Temple Movies" right ahead of The Littlest Rebel.

Ted

2012 comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Marky Mark refuses to grow up, spending all his free time smoking pot with his childhood friend--the titular teddy bear who was magically brought to life after the fairy from the Pinocchio story felt sorry for him because he was a loser and brought the stuffed animal to life. This puts a strain on his relationship with his girlfriend.

This is just a big game of "Let's see what crude things we can have a teddy bear do!" and I found it pretty annoying. I've never been a fan of The Family Guy, so I'm not really sure why I thought this might be funny. I guess it was knowing that there would be a teddy bear saying a lot of crude things and maybe, I predicted, having a sexual encounter with an adult female. I know, I'm not a genius for predicting that or anything. We all saw the previews, the perfect case where those could have just been repeated about thirty times to produce a similar result. I didn't anticipate the storyline being so predictable. And predictably lame. It's definitely too predictably pedestrian for a movie that features a talking teddy bear should be. I don't like Marky Mark anyway, and although I'll credit him with having a nice rapport with a CGI stuffed animal, I didn't like him here either. I also didn't like Mila Kunis's voice at all. I think she's supposed to be sexy or something. This is filled with gags that I am not going to remember in a year, and a lot of the targets it pushes around won't be around long enough for this to need to be seen in twenty years. It's nowhere near as funny as Gooby, another talking bear thing. In fact, I don't believe I laughed a single time. I laughed during Gooby just to try to keep myself sane.

This is about as well written as Ted, but I have an excuse: Rapid fire!

The Masque of the Red Death

1964 Poe movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A mean prince parties pretty freakin' hard while keeping people safe from the plague.

Ah, Vincent Price. It's been far too long, old friend. This is one of 7 or 8 Corman-directed Poe adaptations. This actually combines a couple--the short story that shares the same title and the more obscure "Hop-Frog" which has the alternate title of "The Eight Chained Ourangoutangs"--which allowed Corman to not only have Vincent Price using words like "Garrote them" or "One of [the daggers] is impregnated with a poison that kills in. . .five seconds" like no other actor can but also include a little person and Patrick Magee in a gorilla suit. The little person is played by Skip Martin who gets a chance to do some gymnastics and dance with Esmeralda, a character who is supposed to be another dwarf but who I think was a child dubbed with a grown woman's voice. Magee, when not in the gorilla suit, gets to speak to women about the "anatomy of terror" which is really close to the pick-up line I used when I met my wife. Of course, nobody can compete with the great Vincent Price even though he has difficulty saying "squirrels" correctly. His Prince Prospero character's got a nice pad with colorful rooms, a variety of animal heads on the wall, more interesting decor, a pendulum on a clock that moves way too slowly. Prospero makes his friends act like animals, a scene that ends with one lady in a yellow dress really getting into things with some gnarly flapping. There are also great party games like the aforementioned poison dagger game which inspires one couple--maybe the woman in the yellow dress and her date--to start voraciously making out upon. Like these other Corman productions, there's some nice period style, from the atmospheric opener to a nifty parade of plagues at the end. Speaking of that opener, I don't think cinematographers shoot through tree branches enough anymore. Samurai movies and old horror movies both feature shots through tree branches. There's also one of those obligatory trippy hallucination sequences all veiled in blue mist with Hazel Court's silent screams and an erotic bird attack. Bonus awesome moment: guy in the dungeon who goes "Waaaa!" Cool little period horror movie here, one that will definitely appeal to fans of Satan or plagues.

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?

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

2011 sequel to what I assume are movies that are just as bad as this one

Rating: 3/20 (Dallas: 5/20; Rodrigo: 15/20; Osni: 17/20; Melany: 16/20; Dutch: 18/20; Lance: 15/20; Drake: 1/20; Ig'Enid: 5/20; Kimberly: 11/20; Mary: 16/20; Jaidah: 16/20; Breona: 17/20; Adrian: 19/20; Kuenton: 17/20; Justin: 10/20; Cierra: 1/20; Matthew: 1/20; Danel: 19/20; Sarah: 2/20; Tyler: 13/20)

Plot: Talking chipmunks fall off a boat and Jason Lee ruins his career looking for them.

So this is the complete bullshit they're forcing me to watch at school now? I saw the terrible and terrible-unfunny punny title of this and said to myself, "This thing loses points just for the title." And then the chipmunks started talking and singing, and there went the rest of the points. Speaking of their voices, here's a question: Why do they need famous people--Amy Poehler, Anna Faris, Justin Long, Jesse McCartney, Chritina Applegate (some of them are famous, right?)--to do the voices for the chipmunks? Their voices are speeded-up and unrecognizable anyway! You know what I think? I think they're doing it just to screw with me. That's right. Director Mike Mitchell, who after this and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo should probably never be allowed to work again, cast Justin Long as Alvin just to screw with me. Well played, jackass! Jason Lee looks really uncomfortable here, and I'm not sure if it's because he has to talk to himself (well, imaginary chipmunks) the whole time or if he's upset that his career has come to this. And what's David Cross doing? His appearance actually makes me a little angry because there are a lot of things that David Cross could be doing with his time that doesn't involve him walking around in a chicken suit in this movie. This is annoying on more levels than I knew a movie could be annoying on. The chipmunks rap, sing, sing some more, rap again, and sing. And gyrate. There are way too many songs, and I was really close to sending one of my students out to pull the fire alarm so that I could a) hear something more pleasant and b) have a reason to go outside for a while. There are also all kinds of awkward references to much better works of art--Cast Away, Lord of the Rings, James Bond, television commercials, and Internet memes. All of them seem tired, and some of them won't make any sense in a few years. Hopefully, nobody's being subjected to this trash in a few years though. This movie really loses steam when they run out of things to do on the island, and it really didn't have any steam to begin with. I will say this, however: the chipmunk animation works well with the animals blending in with their surroundings perfectly. Unfortunately, they must have run out of special effects dough before making the volcano. I think this completes a "bad volcano trifecta" actually.

There was a movie that the chipmunks watched on the boat that had this monster that could shoot lasers out of its mouth. I really wanted to watch that movie instead. Hell, I really wanted to watch any other movie ever made instead!

Yes, I lowered the grades of any student who gave this above a 5/20. It makes me tremble when I think of our country's future.

And really. This and Deuce Bigelow? Blacklist this fiend!

The Wizard of Oz

1939 fantasy

Rating: 20/20 (Dallas: 1/20; Rodrigo: 1/20; Treslynn: 10/20; Osni: 19/20; Dutch: 1/20; Lance: 17/20; Breanna: 19/20; Ig'Enid: 20/20; Jonathon: 3/20; Kimberly: 9/20; Reinn: 1/20; Mary: 15/20; Jaidah: 12/20; Kuenton: 8/20; Justin: 2/20; Cierra: 20/20; Matthew: 20/20; Donnyha: 17/20; Daniel: 3/20; Sarah: 14/20; Tyler: 1/20)

Plot: The first movie ever made about the effects of bath salts! Dorothy, as a way of revolting against her elderly guardians who give away her dog, becomes a drug addict, shoe thief, and murderer. She also takes some apples that don't belong to her. She decides to run away from home in the most illogical way imaginable--via cyclone--and meets more little people than I'll ever meet in my entire life. She befriends a stupid scarecrow, an apathetic robot, and a chickenshit lion (Oz trivia: Originally, the Cowardly Lion was called the Chickenshit Lion.) and searches for the titular wizard so that she can get out of a coma.

Monkeys and Munchkins and talking trees--oh my! First off, yes I do have a student named Donnyha. We watched this as school to reward our students for a nine weeks of embarrassing mediocrity. One teacher suggested we watch Beastly, but I threatened to quit on the spot and this one was settled on. 8th graders were not happy that it was a) partially in black and white, b) filled with songs, or c) kind of "gay," but I was entertained as I hadn't seen the movie in a while, so who cares about them? They're all a bunch of punks anyway. I did love one conversation I had with a student:

Girl: What movie are we watching?
Me: The Wizard of Oz.
Girl: (Pause) The Wiz?
Me: No, not The Wiz. The Wizard of Oz.
Girl: Oh. I've not seen that. I've only seen The Wiz.
Me: Right. That makes perfect sense.

My students poked fun at the special effects, but check out that tornado! I think that's an astounding effect for the late-30s. It looks realistic enough and is such a menacing presence as it gets closer and closer. That tornado, something I saw every single year as a kid since this was on yearly, is one of the reasons I first started loving movies. So yes, this looks dopey in some places, but the painted backdrops, the fact that this is obviously made on a stage, and the dated effects give this a feel that Tim Burton has been trying to duplicate for years while knowing that he never will. That tornado has passed, Mr. Burton. And that color! When Dorothy opens the door, that color just splashes at you. Wonderful!

This also has to be one of the most arousing moments of all time, and I'm really glad that my lower half was hidden behind a desk in a semi-darkened room during this. It starts with Auntie Em. Yeah, she's bitchy, but she's also undeniably hot. And then there's Margaret Hamilton in those dual roles. That voice just does it for me. Don't even get me started on the Munchkins because things might get inappropriate. The good witch singing "Come out, come out" scene where the Munchkins "come out" might be the most arousing moments in cinematic history.

I remember watching this as a kid and thinking that all little people must sound like the Munchkins and always wanting to meet one. That impressive array of costumes and facial hair. And the Lollipop Guild. If I ever formed a street gang, I'd call ourselves the Lollipop Guild, and we would roll pretty hard. Billy Curtis is also in there somewhere.

The performances are so good in this. I've already mentioned Margaret Hamilton. If she's not the perfect witch, I don't know who it would be. That nose and that voice would be enough to get her in the Witch Hall of Fame if that existed, but her posture is also so perfect. My favorite Margaret Hamilton moment is when her image replaces Auntie Em's in a crystal ball and she starts mocking Dorothy--"Auntie Em, come back!" Oh, and that laugh! Frank Morgan is also great in his multiple roles, and he gets a lot of the best lines--his terrific alliteration, calling the scarecrow a "Doctor of Thinkology," the famous "Ignore the man behind the curtain" and the "Oh, you liquidated her" which should be just as famous. Ray Bolger's physical, elastic shenanigans as Scarecrow are fun to watch even for the 47th time. When you see him early on as "Hunk" (Hunk?), he seems like the worst actor of all time, probably because of the way he says "Finga," but then you find out it was Scarecrow foreshadowing and makes perfect sense. The foreshadowing in this is really neat, one of the reasons this is so much fun to watch again and again. I always thought Bert Lahr was one of the Stooges. Jack Haley is the weakest link, but he's still good.playing the more-than-likely gay Tin Man. Of course, there's Judy Garland as flat-chested Dorothy. Shirley Temple might have ruined this movie. What I like most about Garland's performance is that she never overdoes anything. She's the main character of the movie, but you never notice her all that much, and for whatever reason, that's the way it should be here.

The Munchkin hanging himself in the background of one shot (ok, so it's one of those weird birds), the irritable trees who really have a legitimate argument, the "Clever as a gizzard" line, all those flying monkeys that I'm still convinced are mostly real, the Cowardly Lion's "Pullin' an ax on me, eh?" followed by the "Whoo-uh, whoo-uh" growl which might be the worst growl of all time, that giant menacing green hall that leads to the Wizard, the first glimpse of the Wizard's disembodied head with all that fire and all that noise, the Scarecrow holding a gun in one scene (I never noticed that until I watched the movie this time--what the heck is the Scarecrow doing with a firearm?), the wack blinky bird effects, the army of Alan Thickes with their "Ooh-ee-oh" song that has always been my favorite song from this movie filled with all kinds of great songs (although that one Alan Thicke's voice when he says "She killed her" proves that they shouldn't have talked at all), Toto's impression of Lassie (did you know, by the way, that Toto made 125 bucks per week while the Munchkins earned less than half that?), the witch using the inefficient Hourglass Method of Murder which she must have gotten from the Batman Villain School of Villainy, the beauty of the unleashing of the monkeys scene and the dark scenery detail when the characters are atop the witch's castle, Morgan's uttering "Bless my buttons" and the Lion's expression right after. There's just so much here to love again and again which is probably why this should start being shown annually on network television again.

My only two gripes--

1) I've never liked the second solo the Cowardly Lion gets while they're waiting for the wizard, the "King of the Forest" number where it seems like Lahr had an "R-trilling" clause in his contract or something. It might include the great line "The chipmunks genuflect to me," but the song is about fifteen minutes long and just passes time.

2) The poppy field scene also has always seemed extraneous, just a silly distraction.

Other than that, this is perfect. And with the hefty little person bonus, it's easily a 20/20 for me.

Just spellchecked and am pleased that "Munchkin" is a word while "Donnyha" is not.

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011 sequel

Rating: 14/20 (Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: The titular panda and his pals return to stop an evil peacock from using a modern explosive weapon to destroy kung-fu and take over the world.

I'd suspect that if you saw and liked the first of these movies, you would enjoy this one, too. It's really more of the same with a great use of colors, the same interesting if a bit underutilized characters, a few new additions including Gary Oldman as the villain, and a lot of action sequences. The fight scenes, if my memory's any good, are better than the ones in the first movie. The animators have these kung-fu fightin' animals clash in some very creative ways, and the screen's filled with all this complex movement. I really liked how the peacock fought, the animators--folks who have obviously seen their share of classic kung-fu flicks--cleverly using his tail feathers like one of those fighting fans. As with the first movie, there's a mix of animation styles, and the 2-D stuff used to give some backstory or for dream sequences is really neat. The music is very good, and even better is the use of sound effects. The humor doesn't work for me at all, and the attempt to inject a little emotional depth into the story of a goofy panda trying to save the world with his kung-fu skills feels forced although I wouldn't want any less of Seinfeld alum James Hong's voice. I threw up all over my lap with the "My son is alive" ending. I also had to penalize this a whole point for a "Skadoosh"that reminded me that I was just watching a sequel. By the way, I don't see how a third one of these could work even though the ending seems to set us all up for one with a shot of a lost panda village or something. A third movie might just be 90 minutes of Jack Black saying "Skadoosh" actually. Actually, now that I think about it, that could work. Throw in an interesting bad guy--I'm thinking an evil walrus--and you might have something.

You know what could also work? An animated Bruce Lee movie. Think about it. That would be bitchin'!

I just noticed that this is directed by a woman, Jennifer Yuh, who is also directing the third installment. There's a delicate flamboyance here that just might be the result of having a female at the helm. I hope that doesn't offend any of my female readers because I meant it as a compliment.

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?

Lady and the Tramp

1955 dog cartoon

Rating: 14/20 (Buster: 20/20)

Plot: A brown dog from a well-to-do neighborhood and a gray dog from the wrong side of the tracks meet and go on a date where they eat Italian food. Lucky for the streetwise gray dog, Lady's the type willing to put out on the first date. He spends the rest of the movie telling his pals, all representing a different racial stereotype, about how he "hit that."

How many perverts do you think walked into the theater to see this back in '55 because they thought it was going to be a movie about a couple lesbians?

This works as a love story. It doesn't work as a comedy. It is animated very well; I really like how all the animals--dogs, giraffes, the same beaver who's "not in the book" from the Winnie the Pooh movie, the other dogs--move around in this one. When this is focused just on the talking animals, this isn't too bad although it is a little boring. The humans get in the way a bit though. But this has to be Disney's most racist movie. Imagine the squirming that would take place if you watched this as part of a racial-diverse audience. It's also maybe Disney's most sexually-suggestive movie. It's all concealed from the kiddies, of course, but adults know exactly what's going down, from the scene where the other mutts are chasing down Lady because she's in heat to the pretty shot of the dogs silhouetted in front of a full moon where Tramp's about to get some. Doggy style. (Sorry, regular readers. I had to throw that in to lure more Googlers here.) This is a sweet enough little cartoon with far too many distractions. It's never been one I cared that much about.

The most famous scene in this movie, the one where the dogs eat spaghetti, reminds me of my date with Elizabeth in high school. There was a fat stereotypical Italian, and we both reached for the same spaghetti noodle with our mouths because this was a really cheap restaurant and they had run out of silverware. In the movie, the dogs [SPOILER ALERT] kiss. I just kept chewing and didn't realize my mistake until it was too late. Elizabeth had to have reconstructive surgery, and we never had a second date. I did not, if you're keeping score at home, hit that.

None of that is true, by the way. You know, in case you're keeping score at home. There was a girl named Elizabeth, but we never shared spaghetti. I also never even came close to chewing apart her face.

Disney movies, for whatever reason, bring out my raunchiness more than any other type of movie. (It's why The Little Mermaid is my most frequently visited blog post.) I wonder why that is. Should I talk to a psychologist about it?

The Emperor's New Groove

2000 movie where a David Spade character befriends a fat guy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular emperor, a young and arrogant spoiled brat, has plans to build a waterpark on a hill belonging to a gregarious peasant named Pacha. A power-hungry associate named Yzma attempts to assassinate Emperor Kuzco but winds up turning him into a talking llama instead. He has to depend on Pacha to get back to his kingdom and un-llama himself. It's a hilarious adventure!

Sure there' a midget Tom Jones in this, but other than his opening song, this isn't a musical. And thank God for that! This offering seems a little adventurous for the Disney folk. This one's got an ornery rhythm, and although there isn't anything objectionable, I imagine its general attitude might be off-putting to some parents. It's playful and as colorful as Robin Williams' squelchiest brain farts, but unlike his unhinged Genie, the modern references in this--boy scouts, exotic bird bingo--are never obvious. This is stuffed with visual gags, and the jokes in the dialogue are rapidfire, the funny coming so quickly that you really need to see this more than once to catch it all. So much contributes to this unique liveliness this cartoon's got. You've got the good voice work from the likes of sarcastic Spade ("He's doing his own theme music!") who, for at least part of the movie, narrates unreliably; John Goodman; freakin' Eartha Kitt as one of Disney's most inept villains ("Should have thought about that before you became a peasant."); Patrick Warburton as her even more inept sidekick, the rare dumbass character who doesn't get annoying by the end, a character whose every bit of dialogue is funny; even John "Piglet" Fiedler with one of his final roles, an Old Man cameo surrounded by movie after movie after movie in which he has to voice fucking Piglet. The action sequences, those scenes of adventure that must have been the reason this had a "mild peril" warning stamped on it, have both a zip and a wang. The sound effects accompanying all the mild peril were also great, giving this almost a Looney Tunes flavor--wacky and lively. The settings, a variety of gnarled locales with no regard for buzzkills like continuity, just pop, and I like the cool transitions from place to place and scene to scene. The whole movie's got a look that I liked a lot--the characters with exaggerated angles of necks and limbs, the jazzy movement, explosions of color. It's all very refreshing. Buster watched this with me and instantly wanted to watch it again. She was, however, high.

The Lion King

1994 Shakespeare adaptation

Rating: 15/20 (Buster: 20/20)

Plot: Hamlet but with talking animals and a gay meerkat.

Ah, this is what the Disney magicians do best--loads of color, anthropomorphized animals, and disturbing parent death. I've not always liked this movie, more than likely because it came out while I put bicycles together at Toys "R" Us and heard "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and "Circle of Life"--the former which I would utter breathlessly in my wife's ear while engaging in sexual intercourse with her from 1994 to around 1997--four times an hour which was torture that no Geoffrey's helper should ever have to endure. Not that the songs are bad here. I like what Elton John does there, and "Hakuna Matata," though more than a little annoying after you've heard it more than 1 1/2 times, is a fun little number. If "Hakuna Matata" would have been in the Toys "R" Us radio rotation, I more than likely would have put myself in the cardboard compactor thing and ended it all.

You really see 2-D animation differently now, even when comparing it to other 2-D animation. The colorful "I Just Can't Wait to be King" sequence is great, but it really kind of looks like ass when compared to the stuff in The Princess and the Frog. Disney was always so good with animals, and I like their movements in this and the subtle tricks the animators use to give them personalities. The "camera movements" seem stiff and computery at times.

I'm only half-kidding about the Hamlet comparisons. Clearly, Scar isn't having sex with Darth Vader's wife, Nala doesn't drown herself, and Simba doesn't die at the end. That would probably be too much for a Disney movie. Of course, Scar's the type of villain who also might be too much for a kiddie flick. He's a very adult villain, the sarcasm and venom wonderfully voiced by Jeremy Irons. His song's not very good though. The token gay characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are funny, but they and the "Hakuna Matata" song, so fun and colorful and playful almost seem inappropriate after the darkness of the previous scene. And I've always wondered about how Simba ages during that scene. Were they really singing for that long? Yoda monkey's a fun little character. I got my picture taken with him at Disney World, and I had an unfortunate and obvious erection in the shot. It was the same situation with Mary Poppins at Epcot. My favorite character is Ed the hyena. That mo-fo needs his own prequel, maybe something called The Lion King 1/2. The bird's unnecessary, and his "Morning Report" song is about the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life. That includes Holocaust movies. I think it was added for a "Special Edition" thing, left out of the original for very good reasons. Simba's dad is kind of a dull character, and I think the feminist would have problems with how little the female characters do in this. I wouldn't want James Earl Jones as a father though! If he's not cutting off his kids' hands, he's letting monkey's hold his newborn children on rocky precipices! I wouldn't be surprised to find out that that inspired new fathers to hold their babies up like that on the roofs of hospitals similar to how people who get on boats have to imitate that whole "King of the World" thing from Titanic. Not a fan of the big fight at the end of this, a scene bathed in far too much red and using too many slow-motion swiping shots.

Antichrist

2009 horror film

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A married couple struggling with a personal loss ventures to a cabin in the woods to try to work through their feelings. Things get graphic.

This is difficult viewing. Like The Wacky and Whimsical Whites of West Virginia, this is the sort of movie that I don't seem to be able to handle very well anymore. I can stomach a lot, but there are at least two shots in Antichrist that I just wish weren't there. Certain things seen, it's been said, cannot be unseen, and I'll admit that I flinched more than once during this one. This is a beautifully-filmed movie and the imagery is powerful for the most part, but von Trier seems to enjoy making me (and I suspect most people) really uncomfortable. Trust me--this one is difficult visually and it's difficult emotionally. A beginning black 'n' white montage, thought stunningly poetic and tragically beautiful, is tough, and things just get worse from there. It's also got Daniel Dafoe who I always have trouble believing is a real person. I'm not sure his penis is real either actually. Charlotte Gainsbourg is solid, and both of the leads wrestle bravely with some of the most challenging roles I think I've ever seen. I don't know why I said "leads" there because with the exception of a little kid at the beginning and some faceless walking symbols near the end, there aren't any other characters. Unless animals count. Talking animals. You know, the kind of talking self-cannabalizing foxes that you're used to seeing in a Disney flick. Ants and hawks, weird subtle wobbly cam effects, a CGI grotesque fawn, ominous acorns, and the tree-root/hand thing you see on the poster up there. I didn't get all the symbolism being shoved in my face, probably because the movie stole my will to live. This one pulls no punches.

Titanic: The Legend Goes On...

2000 abomination

Rating: 2/20

Plot: Apparently, this is based on the true story of an actual boat called Titanic that ran into an iceberg and sank. Except this version has talking mice and rapping dogs.

I shit you not, dear readers! Rapping dogs. Not only are they rapping (poorly) on a ship that sank, oh, roughly sixty-seven years before rap music even existed (that's right, suckers, I'm throwing credit to "Rappers Delight" and the Sugarhill Gang), but they are doing their thing doggy style in front of a brick wall, a kind of wall I'm not sure they had on the RMS Titanic, that has a piece of paper with the words "rap music" written on it. This follows a classic line, perhaps a historically classic line but I'll have to do some research on the Titanic tragedy to know for sure, uttered by one of the mice: "If it wasn't for you, I would have ended up in somebody else's digestion!" One of the rapping dogs is carrying a boom box which I'm not sure was invented by 1912 either. I'm not sure how many people were in the room where this scene of the movie was planned and actually decided it was a good idea, but they might as well have gone down in one of those submarine things with James Cameron, found a few victims of the tragedy, brought them back to the surface, strapped them to an iceberg, and pointed and laughed at them. It would have been less offensive maybe, unless Celine Dion was invited. Speaking of her--there might be a song in this that is worse than that grating song from Cameron's little boat movie. I'll call it the "Yi yi yi ya ya, You're in My Blood, You're in My Blood" song. Actually, it's not only worse than the Celine Dion song (which I call "Goo La Doo La Gooly Doo")--it might be worse than the Titanic tragedy itself. This thing is poorly animated with out-of-proportioned characters, on-screen jitters, and stiff backgrounds. And most of the characters seem ripped from other movies--loads of Disney, Speedy Gonzalez, An American Tale, Home Alone maybe. Lots of stereotypes, too, the kind you just don't get to see much since they stopped showing the Warner Brothers cartoons. Appalachia, Jews, Mexican. The sound and translation work are equally embarrassing, with some lines not making much sense at all and some lines being repeated in this almost trippy way. It's bad in bewildering ways, probably (taking into account the tastelessness of the whole thing) the worst cartoon that I've ever seen.

Chicken Run

2000 animated prison break movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A bunch of chickens, led by feisty Ginger, attempt to bust out of Tweedy farms. They fail many times, and things get more critical when the Tweedy decides to abandon attempts to make it with eggs and purchases a giant chicken-pie-making machine. A performing rooster named Rocky flies in and agrees, reluctantly, to teach the chickens to fly.

I love this little movie from the Aardman folk who bring us the Wallace and Gromit movies and not just because it can technically be described as a women's prison movie. Sure I wish they were a little more prolific, but these are labors of love, and the amount of detail that goes into these things makes them magical for children and adults. The details given to the strange looking characters and their odd expressions (I just love how the chickens have teeth in this thing) give them real personalities. The voice work is great in this, especially Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson as Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy and Benjamin Whitrow as the lone rooster Fowler. "The turnip's bought it!" and "Don't be ridiculous; I can't fly this contraption!" still makes me laugh. Mel Gibson, the only American voice in this thing, gives a terrific and inspired voice performance in something he could have been tempted to phone in so that he could concentrate on his first love--hating the Jews. The little details in the setting are also nice and give this location that you could easily imagine a Steve McQueen or Paul Newman trying to escape from a little of its own personality. There's so much on the screen to see here; it's so complex for a stop-animation feature. There are scenes where you have an impossible number of chickens making all these impossible-to-coordinate movements, and it's just amazing. Amazing, but I guess not impossible since they pull it off. Things get a little goofy at the end with an action sequence that crosses the line into absurdity and completely ignores the laws of physics, and a lot of people will get a little sick to their stomachs with the terrible puns delivered by a pair of questionable rats. Birds of a feather flop together, it's raining hen, "Dough!', poultry in motion, it's like an oven in here. Uggh. Otherwise, this is well written and clever with more than a few fun references to classic films. It's entertaining for the whole family! This is one of those movies that I have seen about a hundred times, by the way.

Oh, and it reminds me that I have a pirate movie to watch!

Winnie the Pooh

2011 cartoon

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20; Emma: 19/20; Abbey: 20/20; Sophie: too young to rate movies, especially ones this explicit)

Plot: Pooh wants honey, Eeyore's lost his tael, and Owl's got everybody convinced that a terrifying creature called a Backsoon has kidnapped Christopher Robin. It's just another afternoon in the bedroom of a terminally deranged young English boy. You just know that in a future sequel, Owl and Rabbit are going to convince him to start his classmates and/or parents. Actually, where are his parents in these movies? Somebody better check the freezer!

This is not your parents' Winnie the Pooh cartoon! No, in this one, Pooh Bear is disemboweled in what has to be the most horrifyingly grotesque scene this side of one of those Saw movies. Actually, this isn't a carbon copy of the older Disney Pooh material at all. It shares a love for childlike songs, endearingly simple and nostalgic animated backgrounds and characters, a wonderful playfulness, and sweet little stories. It actually does some things better than the original. It blends its stories, some from Milne's text and some created specially for this, really well, perfect for the no-attention-span of modern kiddos. The 2D animation doesn't look as flat as the characters weave in and out of their settings. And this is a whole lot funnier than the original with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. This new Pooh's got a wackier tone that is different from its predecessor while not disrespecting the previous stories or its source material. (It should be noted that my wife, a Pooh aficionado, did seem offended by a lot of the goings-on here.) I also really liked the voicework despite having to initially get used to the slightly-different-sounding character voices. Some guy named Jim Cummings, an actor with a resume packed with versatile voice acting roles, does both Pooh and Tigger. We recognized Bud Luckey, the depressed clown in Toy Story 3, as (of course) Eeyore. Luckey's more of an animator than an actor, but he could make a career out of voicing depressed characters. Checking imdb.com, it looks like he's got a handful of roles on the animated horizon--suicidal monkey, despondent puppet, moody Amish guy, heartbroken octopus. One of my favorite people, Craig Ferguson, is perfect as Owl, and John Cleese should win some kind of award for not making me miss Sebastian Cabot. I didn't care much for the songs in this one although there were some clever lyrics. Pooh's a briskly-paced barely hour-long breezy flick that's great for young children and funny enough for older ones. And it might help Disney make a buttload of money with children's clothes and stuffed animals, so everybody wins!

Shrek the Third

2007 sequel

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Shrek doesn't want to be the next king, so he and his friends travel to locate a true heir to the throne. Meanwhile, Prince Charming is still ticked off after the last movie failed to end the way he wanted it to, and he attempts to take over the throne himself. Oh, snap!

Well, they're just going through the motions now. I lost interest in the plot of this one almost right off the bat, and the characters, none of which I actually like at all, are even more grating here than they are in the first movie. There's not a single laugh to be had here, and the novelty that makes the first movie tolerable is almost completely gone. It's replaced with the reverberating sound of a cash register actually. I wish Dreamworks would grow a pair and kill a couple of these characters off. Pinocchio? Have him sawed in half? Gingerbread Man? Didn't he have his legs bitten off in the first movie? You know what else Dreamworks gets wrong here? There's a scene where a character actually does die, and they stomp all over it with halfassed humor. Then, they have a funeral scene where I'm actually supposed to be sad. In the fifteen minutes when this is all going on, they manhandle both emotions and leave me wondering why they even bothered. Why didn't they just have Shrek fart in Donkey's face for fifteen minutes instead? Pop songs, general loudness, allusions that aren't as clever as anybody thinks they are. This is just tired. They made a fourth one of these?

I've always wondered. You know how foreign countries translate the names of American movies and they sometimes turn out kind of funny? I wonder if this one is translated as Farting Moody Monster in Vietnam or somewhere? Somebody research that for me.

Zookeeper

2011 talking animal and talking Kevin James movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: The titular zookeeper is really good at his job, but he's not so good at love. Luckily, the animals he's been so good to at the zoo are willing to help him attract the attention of his dream girl. But will he like the guy he has to become in order to make that happen?

I think movies with Kevin James in them are become exponentially painful. This one's got talking zoo animals, ones slightly less humorous than the ones in Madagascar. Nick Nolte's a gorilla, Cher's a girl lion, Sylvester Stallone's a boy lion, and Judd Apatow--a guy with nothing else to do?--is an elephant. Adam Sandler gives one of the most annoying voice performances you'll ever hear, and Don Rickles is a frog. And I know what you're thinking--man, that's quite the collection of comedic geniuses! So you'd think one of them would stop everything during the recording session and give the director a heads-up. "Hey, this isn't very funny at all. And I should know because I'm Sylvester Stallone and/or Cher!" The increasingly ubiquitous (wait a second--not sure something can be increasingly ubiquitous) Ken Jeong's in this, too. Hollywood seems to be doing it's best to find this guy things to do. Same with Kevin James. Look, it seems like he's a nice guy and all, and I don't mind nice guys doing well for themselves. But when King of Queens ended, I just didn't think he had that "it" that would make it possible for him to carry a movie. So it's no surprise that he can't. Hollywood writers just keep giving this guy different jobs (zookeeper, mall cop, mailman, butcher, baker, candlestick maker), throwing a girl (or two) into the script, and hoping a comedy erupts. There's a lot of fat-guy-running-into-things slapstick if that's your bag, but I couldn't find a single laugh in this. And when the zookeeper gets his girl (no, that's not the end; the end is more predictable than that), things get entirely too preposterous. The animal-talking effects look stupid, and there's the most egregious product placement I've ever seen. At one point, the movie's plot steps aside to make room for a T.G.I. Fridays commercial.

Watched this at school with 7th graders. They laughed a couple times, but didn't seem to like it very much either. I didn't have time to get their ratings.

Quick, readers--can you think of a memorable Kevin James moment?