Mom's Movie Blog

Ahh, we’re over the Jan/Feb funk of nothing new in theaters, and off we went today to see Disney’s latest: “Mars Needs Moms”. I have not read the book, so I have no preconceived notions about the story or characters from a book. Some people freak out that movies-based-on-books aren’t exactly true to their literary predecessors, a few friends of mine hated “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” because of that, but I loved it. I am curious now, though, to find a copy of the book, just for curiosity sake.

A boy is startled one night to find his mom being abducted by Martians. He attempts to follow as she’s taken through the woods to the spaceship, and ends up stuck in the ship and going along for the ride. He finds a couple allies to assist him, and they uncover some secrets, have some adventures, and save the day. The movie is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, with lots of feelings expressed and dealt with. The possibility of the death of “mom” is a traumatic thought for any kid, and both of my kids gave a few gasps and worried looks a few times as they were worried about the character’s mom dying. (Yes, there is the quintessential happy ending, but I won’t spoil the details.)

On a different level, that kids probably won’t get, is the subject of the division of the sexes. The baby Martian boys are separated from the baby Martian girls soon after hatching. The girls are sent to be raised in a strict disciplinarian environment by their Nanny-Bots, and the boys are tossed into the “garbage” (basically) to be raised by the previously tossed out boys that are now grown, hairy, “wild” men. At the end, the realization of the importance of family comes about, and the sexes come back together. At first I was a bit bothered by the boys being tossed into the garbage, but I suppose they make up for it at the end, but I don’t really care for their portrayal as language-less, stupid, good-for-nothing creatures.

Seth Green and Joan Cusack are AMAZING in their roles as Gribble and Mom. They’re perfect, and there are no two better people to voice those roles. The Martians are a little creepy looking and Avatar-ish, but not so much as to make them unlikeable. As always, Disney animators don’t disappoint, and they provide a stellar visual experience. It’s a great movie, though I would recommend it for the 4 and up crowd. Any younger and there just isn’t the “toddler/little kid” draw to keep them engaged.

Disney hits the mark. Again. Will be adding this to our collection when it’s available on DVD/Blu-ray.

“Rango” was new in theaters this weekend, and we headed out in the monsoon-esque rains to check it out! My little guy has been looking forward to seeing this for MONTHS, since he saw the first preview for it ages ago. He loves lizards, snakes, animals, etc and was so excited to hear we were going to see it. From his perspective, it was a huge WIN! He loved the lizard main character and when Jake the Snake was introduced, the deal was sealed, it was his favorite since “How to Train Your Dragon”. For my older son, he’s nuts about sprinklers, so his favorite part was seeing the sprinklers in the Las Vegas scene.

“Rango” is a surprisingly deep movie, with messages most kids will probably miss. Not to say that it isn’t a movie for kids, because there are plenty of elements that kids will laugh at too. But the messages of “you are who you want to be”, and the deep self-awareness the main character develops aren’t something little kids are going to grasp. This movie isn’t all light-hearted and cutsie, but it is entertaining on multiple levels. So take the little kids, let them enjoy the silly parts, and hope that the older kids are able to let the deeper messages sink in.

The characters are animals, and some of them are rather “scruffy” in appearance. To the very skittish child they could be pretty scary looking, and there are a few scenes that could be a little frightening for some. All-in-all though, the scare factor is pretty low, with the “scary” parts being more “sinister” than full-out SCARY.

I think this is a quirky, off-beat movie that may gather some more negative reviews because it’s not all bright colors & light like Toy Story. But I think “Rango” has a good message, and makes for an enjoyable experience. Enjoy it for it’s quirkiness and use it as a start for good conversations with kids about “being themselves”.

Usually when I dig in the archives for something, it’s for something good (ala Brave Little Toaster). Disney’s “The Black Hole” is something that should just stay tucked away. I LOVED LOVED LOVED the epic “Forbidden Planet”, so don’t think I’m a modern-special-effects-only snob or anything like that. TBH’s special effects were, for their time, actually not that bad. It’s not the effects that sucked, it was, well it was the plot that sucked. What was Disney thinking? The storyline drags, the characters are flat, and the ending is a MASSIVE cup of WTF?

First, this is NOT a kids movie. I’m so glad I did this as an evening screening after the kids were in bed. Kids under 10 won’t grasp any part of the story, and there are some pretty creepy parts that just aren’t for younger eyes.

With the exception of Maximilian Schell, the actors deliver pretty stiff characters. Schell and the evil robot tie for best character. That’s not really saying much though. Okay, I will give Schell credit for the best performance of the movie, his “crazy-insane-evil-freak” is actually not too bad.

During the movie I was constantly having to adjust the volume. The audio is insanely dynamic, to a horrific extent. The volume on my TV was at everything from 8 during the crazy loud music and gunfight scenes to 22 during the quiet dialog scenes. I could NOT hear the dialog without cranking the volume, but then the music would blast me and I had to turn it way down again.

Despite my characteristically unusual negativity of this particular movie (I like to be positive, and I look for the “good” in any and everything), I will say that I think the actual concept of TBH has potential. Normally the thought of remakes makes me cringe, but I actually think that with some story tweaks (especially the trying-to-be-all-thought-provoking-but-failing religious-toned ending that left me with a massive WTF?!) this could actually be a great piece of sci-fi. With modern effects, more dynamic characters, a good cast, and a re-write of the ending this could be a new classic.

I found “Tugger” on Neflix, it’s available for viewing via instant streaming (as of writing, 21FEB11). It looked interesting, my guys are interested in jeeps & airplanes and we’re an “airplane” family.

“Tugger” brings together the unlikely duo of Jim Belushi and Carrot Top. No, no need to read that again, you read it right the first time. I really didn’t have time for form any preconceived notions about this little flick, had I, I may not have watched it. Believe it or not, this is actually a really neat little movie! We are an airplane/aviation family, so anything with airplanes, airports and all things mechanical and flying we’re up for.

Belushi shows his singing talents several times throughout. I’m not a big musical fan, so I really could have done without the musical numbers, but he’s actually not a bad singer!

The film starts out with the history of the jeep, and I love how the writers incorporate the history of the jeep and the war into the story. The jeep suffers a mechanical issue and has his engine fan replaced with a prop blade. This makes him feel part “airplane” and his sole dream in life is to fly. His story is a heartwarming tale, and at the end he joins up with a team he could only have dreamed of.

I don’t remember ever seeing this in theaters, though in 2008 my kids were still too little for movie-going, so it’s not surprising I missed it. However, thank you to Netflix to bringing it up as a suggestion!

It has been MONTHS since there’s been anything for kids/family in theaters, and we [okay I] was/were so desperate to get out of the house and go SEE something that we went to see Touchstone’s “Gnomeo and Juliet” in the theater. Apparently a great deal of other people felt the same way, as the theater was quite packed. I have to say I wasn’t really impressed with the trailers for it, and my expectations were pretty low. Not quite as low as they were for “Gulliver’s Travels” but right down there.

The opening scene with the gnome reading from Shakespeare was pretty amusing, I have to admit. I love that the writers acknowledged and joked with the fact that yes, the story has been told before and yes, they were telling it again. Later, Shakespeare himself (via the voice of Patrick Stewart) tells the “real” ending of the story, and it’s a nice bow to the history of the tale before the happier ending of this movie. I liked that they paid homage to Shakespeare’s tale and that they didn’t take themselves too seriously with this re-telling.

My 7 year old LOVES lawn mowers & machines. So the use of the lawn mowers in this movie absolutely made his day. He LOVED it. The story was easy enough to follow, with enough jokes thrown in for the adults to be tolerable. The only scary moment was when it appears that one of the main characters has been smashed, I won’t spoil the whole story for you, but the smashing episode could induce a gasp or a tear from an emotional child. It also drew obvious inspiration from the “Toy Story” franchise, with the gnomes having to “freeze” whenever a human comes around.

The music of Elton John is one of the draws touted in the advertisements for this movie, and his “persona” makes a few cameos throughout. Honestly I thought the musical numbers were a bit overdone and too dramatic for the nature of the movie.

If there were other kids/family movies in theaters right now, this film would have a hard time drawing people in. As it is, there is NOTHING else out there right now, so it’ll probably have a fair showing for a couple weeks. If you simply MUST get out of the house, the weather still sucks, and there’s nothing else to do, and you have a few extra dollars laying around, this is a fine way to escape for a couple hours. I can’t give it glowing reviews, but I can’t say that it was entirely awful either.

“Open Season 3” was released direct-to-DVD today, and as a huge fan of the first 2 Open Seasons I had to get myself a copy at Blockbuster!

After watching it, I have to say I’m kind of surprised that it was direct-to-DVD release. Sony probably thought that without the original Open Season voice cast that it wouldn’t have enough pull to warrant a theater release. One of the biggest critiques I’ve read about Open Season 3 is that without the original cast, it’s awful. I have to disagree… sure the voices were a bit different, but this isn’t the Toy Story franchise or anything. Perhaps I’m an incredibly forgiving person, but I really didn’t find the difference in voices to be all that much of an issue.

It was a cute story, fast-paced enough to hold kids’ attention and funny enough for everyone to laugh at. It is a bit on the short side, time wise. I think it was less than 90 minutes. Kind of makes it more of a long TV show than a “movie”. Truth be told, I was really happy to have something NEW to watch with the kids, with the pathetic selection of new movies [for kids] in theaters right now! Up against “Toy Story 3”, “Despicable Me”, or “How to Train Your Dragon” the new “Open Season” couldn’t hold it’s own in a theater, but Sony’s the timing of the release was great.

Run out and buy the Blu-Ray of “Open Season 3”? Eh, maybe not worth that much… but definitely worth a visit to Blockbuster or putting it on your Netflix queue!

I know it’s an old(er) movie, but I saw this delightful little gem again the other night and wanted to write about it.

“Brave Little Toaster” is a Disney movie (well, actually DONE by Hyperion but sold/marketed by Disney), and as I watched it I was VERY struck with it’s similarities to “Toy Story”. Then I checked IMDB and saw John Lasseter and Joe Ranft both worked on “BLT” and “TS”. The influence was obvious! Characters are objects owned by a beloved owner, they come to “life” only when humans are out of eye & earshot. They work together, to stay with their owner, and their owner goes off to college!

In looking at the history of “BLT”, I don’t really think it was given it’s due justice by Disney. Perhaps it was a bit ahead of it’s time, and Disney wasn’t able to yet fully accept an animated movie about appliances instead of cute little animals or princesses? I dunno…

“BLT” is a cute movie. Complete with a Disney-scary scene in the garbage dump with the metal collector and trash compactor! (Again, a VERY “Toy Story”-ish scene repeated at the end “TS3” .)

It is from 1987, so don’t expect 2010-ish HD or Pixar animation. However, it is a VERY well done movie, with characters with feelings that kids can relate to and a storyline that doesn’t drag or wander. It is a true gem of a film, and it’s sad that it’s relatively obscure.

I’m terribly late in posting this review, we saw “Yogi Bear” while visiting family over Christmas and just hadn’t gotten around to writing this til now. When deciding on the movie to see, it was between “Yogi Bear” and “Gulliver’s Travels” (which we saw later and I’ve already written the review for) and I think the better decision was made here! A vote was taken, “Yogi Bear” won, so off we went!

Honestly, I didn’t go into this with very high expectations. Despite starring the delightfully adorable nerdy Tom Cavanagh, I basically just hoped it wouldn’t suck. Justin Timberlake’s “Boo-Boo” voice was mildly annoying, and Dan Aykroyd did a passable Yogi Bear. I found myself wanting to grab Anna Faris (Rachel) and shake her, yelling “WAKE UP!!!!”, as it seemed like she went through the entire film in a wide, doe-eyed stooper.

Visually, the effects of live-action + animation were reasonably blended. There were a couple moments where the actors weren’t quite looking at the animated characters.. but it was done fairly well. The park where it was filmed was a beautiful site, I didn’t catch on the credits where it was done, but it’s a gorgeous park.

All-in-all though, I can’t be too hard on “Yogi Bear”. I’m pleased to say it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There were a couple good laughs, and it had Tom Cavanagh! So, while I can’t put it on the “Must See” list, put it on the Netflix que when it’s on DVD and zone out for a couple hours. It’s actually not that bad!

For Christmas I was generously given a gift certificate to the local theater! I made the first use of this to take the kids to see “Gulliver’s Travels”. I loved this story as a kid, and had read the original book many times years ago.

I think that this could have been done SO much better. To me, it seemed like they tried too hard with the raunchy humor.. putting out the fire with pee was just over the top. All-in-all though, I was okay with it til the song & dance musical number at the end. That was just dumb. I was saddened to see such a great story almost belittled in my eyes with this remake.

The special effects were tremendous, and the seamless visuals with the different sizes of people were so well done. The whole thing COULD have been amazing. Instead I was really a bit disappointed.