Frozen

Twas the day before Christmas all through the house

Not a creature was stirring except for my spouse

And the rest of her family, gathered there for the season

Who were talking so loud without very much reason

At deafening volumes they talk and they jest

About Christmas and football and NCIS

So my wife and my nephew and sister-in-law

Bundled ourselves and we said au revoir

And we drove out to Westridge to take in a show

About two princess sisters who live in the snow.

The theater sits in the old Westridge Mall,

which is more than half empty and really quite small.

There’s a Herberger’s store and a food stand, as well

But the rest of the mall isn’t doing so swell.

There’s a a Tae Kwon Do place and sporting goods store

But other than that, there isn’t much more.

So we purchased our tickets and then settled in

And waited awhile for the the show to begin.

The movie kicked off with a song about ice,

And although nothing special, I guess it was nice.

It featured some guys cutting ice from fjords

Had it gone on much longer I might have got bored.

But the song wrapped in under 2 minutes, and so

Let’s get to the princess stuff, on with the show!

The princesses, who, in this film, are the stars,

Are the lady from Wicked and Veronica Mars.

Anna, our hero, is played by Kristen Bell

And I had no idea she could sing quite so well.

And her big sister Elsa? Idina Menzel!

She uses her powers to cast icy spells.

There’s a magical snowman, who’s totally rad,

And he’s voiced by the great Broadway singer, Josh Gad

Who starred as a Mormon in the big Broadway hit

And he brings to the role lots of charm and some wit.

The story’s absorbing and ever so sweet

Some moments were funny, animation was neat

The ending was touching, the message was great

But out of a 10, this movie’s an 8.

This movie is cute and it probably would

Have been ranked as a 10 if the lyrics were good.

Now, the lyrics aren’t bad, they are simply not great

And that’s what prevents this from being first rate.

When I go to a musical I want to hear

Songs that inspire and charm and endear.

The song “Build a Snowman” ‘s a bit melancholic

One girl is secluded and one wants to frolic.

The song lets us know just how these two girls feel,

And it makes you like Anna from the very first reel.

Plus the song has a melody worthy of praise,

My wife has been singing it now for 3 days.

Later we hear a romantic duet

Between Anna and some handsome prince she’s just met.

The song is delightful, but wait! Was this planned?

That bass line’s from “Your Body is a Wonderland”

Is this a mistake? Or some humorous layer?

Did they have to give co-writing cred to John Mayer?

The melodies here are ones you’ll want to hum,

But some of the lyrics are sadly, quite dumb.

“Elated or gassy” Am I s’pposed to laugh?

That line should have been cut after just the first draft.

Overall I believe that this movie was good.

Do I think you should see it? I think that you should.

Especially those who are out of town guests

Who feel as if they’ve been put on house arrest

And need a short break from the yelling and squawking,

Because at the movies the rule is no talking.

American Hustle

We saw this yesterday afternoon at AMC Roseville. I liked it a lot. The actors probably had a lot of fun with the costumes and the hair. All the performances were great. Jennifer Lawrence is really funny. I’m glad she’s getting to play a totally different kind of role. I don’t always like Bradley Cooper, but he’s really funny here especially in the later scenes.

A lady walking out of the theater provided commentary on Christian Bale. “He was such a weasel! The hair! Oh my! What a weasel! But I liked him!” That pretty wells sums it up. He’s great.

It was too long by about 30 minutes, but we also had over 30 minutes of trailers, so it might have felt long because of that. We saw about 6 previews and then an advertisement telling us that we could watch even more trailers online.

I predict this will win a bunch of awards.

MUD

Debi and I walked to the Red Box near our house tonight and picked up a copy of Mud. On the way there we stopped to talk to two men sitting on a park bench smoking. One of them told us that Anoka was turning into a haven for pimps and prostitutes and drug dealers. He said Anoka was becoming too much like Minneapolis and he wasn’t happy about it. Debi later said that if Anoka was anything like Minneapolis she wouldn’t be so anxious to move. I like Anoka and Minneapolis both fine.

This movie was great. It’s photographed beautifully.  Director Jeff Nichols does an amazing job of establishing a sense of place. The town and the river and the characters create a rich, detailed setting for the story. I didn’t grow up in a tiny southern town, but I found it easy to relate to Ellis and Neckbone. They’re able to go off on their own all day and no one seems to worry about them or miss them. I used to do that all the time, though my adventures were never as interesting or dangerous as the one depicted in the movie.

The kid actors are wonderful. They seemed like two real 14 year old boys.

Matthew McConaughey is so great. I love seeing him in interesting movies like this rather than dumb rom coms.

The story unfolded like a good book. The things in the beginning paid off later. I really liked this one.

This would be a good double feature with Winter’s Bone. Both have young protagonists in dangerous situations that bring them in contact with sketchy characters. It’s also a little like Stand By Me.

Promised Land

We rented this at Movie Gallery in Fergus Falls. They had a DVD of A Talking Cat!?! but no one wanted to see it.

Good performances all around. It’s a little didactic at times. When they lean hard into the anti-fracking stuff it reminded me of that Saved By The Bell episode where they drilled for oil in the schoolyard.

Hal Holbrook reminds me of an owl. So wise. So owl-shaped.

I think it’s an important message, but the people who would benefit from hearing it probably won’t see this movie. The next Fast and Furious or Ironman movie should be about the dangers of fracking, then people will take notice.

Gut reaction: Pretty good.

Movie I liked more: Erin Brockovitch

Movie I liked less: Parental Guidance 

Monsters University

My nephew and I decided we’d had enough outdoor time this afternoon and walked over to the theater to catch this movie. We both thought it was great.

—This post contains spoilers for Monsters University.—

Monsters University is sort of like Revenge of the Nerds with monsters. Mike and Sully are part of Ooze Kappa (OK) a mediocre fraternity made up of misfits who are not very scary. They enter a competition to prove that their fraternity is scary. They learn to work together and prove everyone wrong. This is familiar territory for a college movie, but that doesn’t matter.

One thing I love about Pixar movies is the attention to detail. Their best movies create incredible, complete worlds where everything fits and makes sense. The MU campus is beautiful. Even though it was populated by monsters, it felt like a real campus and it made me nostalgic for my college days. I particularly enjoyed the activities fair in the quad. It perfectly captured that feeling of excitement one experiences as a college freshman in the first weeks of school.

I wonder what enrollment is at MU. It seems pretty small and they only have a few majors, but it also has a great reputation and appears to be one of only a few colleges available to monsters. I also wonder how that one very tall monster participates in classes. He is way too big to go inside any of the on campus buildings. He would also be too big to get a job as a scarer because he wouldn’t fit through any of the doors. I also wonder who threw the giant frisbee to him in the first place. I think we can safely assume there’s at least one other enormous monster on campus. I would like to see Pixar make a short film to explain more about these giant monsters.

The best part of this movie was the surprise in the third act. The moment Mike wins the scare contest feels too easy and is completely unsatisfying. When we find out that he didn’t actually win, it sets up the real climax of the story, which is great. I loved the change in setting. The camp looks real and it’s spooky. The flashlights and police officers were an amazing bit of animation. The woods and lake looked like a photograph. The canoe rack was another great detail. And I love that the movie takes a break before the last bit of action to let the characters have a conversation about their relationship. That’s all I really care about anyway.

When we see that last bit of action it isn’t big. It all takes place in one small building. Nothing blows up. No one punches anyone through a wall. It only lasts a couple minutes at most, but it is more exciting and more interesting than anything that happens in Ironman 3 or Man of Steel because the actions the characters take are things that only those characters could do, and we know they’re capable of the action because we’ve seen their development throughout the movie.

This was a really fun movie. It was an afternoon well spent.

Gut reaction: This movie was a ton of fun.

Movie I liked more: Monsters, Inc.

Movie I liked less: Old School

Parental Guidance

Kids today! They are spoiled and whiney and weak. Modern parents are completely inept and coddle their entitled children! That’s the premise this movie is operating on, so if that appeals to you you’re probably an out-of-touch grandparent and you’ll love this movie.

Billy Crystal is an annoying minor league baseball announcer. Bette Midler is his annoying wife. They have three annoying grandchildren and due to some stupid circumstances, they have to go visit them and help take care of them for a week.

The kids are annoying. The daughter is uptight. The middle child has a stutter and plays some kind of fake baseball with no outs. The youngest boy is a lunatic. Billy and Bette are like, “What’s the matter with these kids?” and then after a couple days they fix all their problems.

The middle kid has to go to speech therapy for his stutter in a big room with a large group of kids and the parents get to sit and watch. I work with speech pathologists and maybe things are done differently elsewhere, but I cannot imagine speech therapy taking place in this setting. They sit on the floor and do some kind of interpretive dance or something. Well, Billy Crystal sees right through this bullshit. He knows best because he’s an old man. Even though the movie establishes that the speech therapist has a PhD from Yale, it depicts her as a fool. The movie’s position about the kid’s speech impediment seems to be, “Just stop stuttering.”

By the end of the movie, Billy Crystal cures the boy’s stutter by playing him old recordings of baseball announcers. Why didn’t the speech therapist think of that? Oh yeah, because it’s dumb. But how does the movie reveal to the audience that the stutter is gone? The kid runs up on stage during a recital and delivers a famous baseball radio broadcast for a huge crowd. Does the crowd say, “What’s wrong with this weird kid? Get off the stage!” Nope. They go bananas for it! This doesn’t make any sense! We have no idea what motives this child to run up on stage. This little actor probably asked the director what his motivation was and the director said, “You’re right, there’s no reason for your character to behave this way, but it will be cute.”

The youngest kid is unbearably irritating. His name is Barker. He has an imaginary friend named Carl who is a kangaroo. Why isn’t Carl spelled with a “K”? We don’t know! Nothing makes sense! Billy Crystal’s character is named Ardy, so this kid calls him Farty. The kid also pees on a half pipe which causes Tony Hawk slip on pee. Barker sucks.

At one point they take the kids to a symphony. Barker runs through the crowd, and then Billy Crystal chases him down, catches him on the stage and threatens to spank him. But he doesn’t spank him. He raises his hand high above the kid’s butt and then stops. I think the filmmakers knew that the audience wouldn’t feel comfortable cheering Farty on as he beat a child in front of an auditorium full of people, so instead he just delivers a speech about how kids today are spoiled rotten. Then the audience cheers.

What? They cheer? Of course they do. They validate the movie’s stupid point of view. I’m sure the people watching the movie are supposed to say, “Billy Crystal is right. Baby boomers have all the answers.”

But if Billy Crystal is supposed to know so much, why is he such a terrible parent? The movie states that Billy Crystal saw his grandchildren 10 months prior to this movie. We also learn that his daughter, Marisa Tomei, has worked at ESPN for 5 years. But when Billy Crystal learns that Marisa Tomei works for ESPN he is surprised. WHAT!? Are we really supposed to believe that this man is completely unaware of what his daughter does for a living? How is that possible? They saw each other 10 months ago! Did it not come up? Did no one ask? Doesn’t Bette Midler know? Billy Crystal loves baseball, doesn’t Marisa Tomei think he might be interested in her job at a giant sports network?

This movie is awful. If you like Andy Rooney and Family Circus cartoons you’ll probably like this movie. Everyone else can skip it.

Gut Reaction:  This movie sucks.

Movie I liked more: City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold

Movie I liked less: Man of Steel

The Heat

I got excited about seeing this movie when I learned it was directed by Paul Feig. Feig created Freaks and Geeks, a show I loved, and directed Bridesmaids, one of the funniest movie comedies to come out in the last few years.

This is a genre movie and it follows a lot of the tropes of a buddy cop movie. I like seeing interesting takes on familiar stories. The plot is never anything we haven’t seen before, but these characters are so great that it’s endlessly engaging.

I really liked Sandra Bullock in this. I think the last thing I saw her in was The Proposal, which I watched with my wife’s family and I thought it was terrible, though my father-in-law loved it and kept repeating what he thought were the funniest lines. Here she’s given a good role in a good movie.

Melissa McCarthy is good. She’s a loud, brash,plays-by-her-own-rules cop, and she does it well. She’s funny but she also gives this character, which could be one note, some depth. My big complaint about this movie is with McCarthy’s character and it is the swearing. Chris Kluwe, former punter for the Vikings, was interviewed on MPR earlier this week and he was saying that he thinks people are not very creative with their swearing. That was the issue with this movie. The swearing was boring. They toss around the f-word a lot, but that’s about it. If one of the big sources of comedy is McCarthy’s character’s foul language, why not be a little more creative? I’m not going to fill this post with a lot of swears, but for some good examples of what I mean, look at South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut or In The Loop. The swearing in those movies is masterful, and I think The Heat missed an opportunity for some really great swearing.

That’s a nitpick, though. This is a great character driven comedy. The characters had real arcs and it was about their relationship more than anything. I would love to see more movies like this.

Movie I liked more: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Movie I liked less: This Is The End

Warrior

This movie is great. I was a wrestler in high school and college, and a few of the guys I knew ended up going into mixed martial arts. I’m not really a fan of MMA, I don’t watch it, I don’t know much about it, but I love this movie nonetheless.

Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton are outstanding. Hardy looks like a wild animal in the fight scenes. He does this crazy eye thing that is chilling. Having two protagonists helps this movie escape the predictability of most sports movies.

The stakes are really high, which is important. It’s about more than just winning a fight, and both men have so much riding on their performance in the ring (or octagon, or nonagon, or whatever they’re fighting in) that

I think it’s great. The bits with the students and principal seems a little unnecessary, but I’ll look past that. This is a perfect sports movie.

Movie I like more: The Royal Tenenbaums

Movie I like less: D2: The Mighty Ducks

Man of Steel

Zack Snyder sucks, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that this movie sucked. Superman looked great, and there were a couple cool scenes of him flying, but that’s not enough to keep me engaged for two-and-a-half hours.

The story is told non-linearly. I really liked the scenes of Superman saving the oil rig and the bus. The tornado thing was really dumb because it seemed like the twister was doing a lot of damage to the cars and somehow not picking up Kevin Costner. And I think Clark could have run out there and grabbed his dad without too much trouble. Kevin Costner is a jerk for making him do that. Why didn’t he let Superman run and get the dog in the first place? Dumb.

The things I didn’t like about the non-linear structure was that when we finally got to Lois and the present day story I didn’t know if we were still in the past or if it was the story.

The last part of the movie was really boring. I found myself trying to calculate how much more time I would have to sit there. The last fight was incredibly tedious. Also, there is so much collateral damage, which makes the light hearted romantic ending between Superman and Lois Lane feel a little inappropriate.

Movie I liked more: Batman Begins

Movie I liked Less: The Dark Knight Rises

This Is The End

I’m sure they had a lot of fun making this movie but I did not have very much fun watching it. There were a couple things I laughed at, but overall I was bored and the jokes didn’t work for me.

I thought Danny McBride was funny, but other than that there’s not a lot I liked. I think it would have been more interesting to spend more time outside of James Franco’s house.

I thought Michael Cera was funny. But he’s only in the movie briefly.

I don’t even have very many thoughts about this one. It didn’t work for me.

Movie I liked more: Superbad

Movie I liked less: Spiderman 3