This was a pretty wild
Memorial Day Weekend at the Box Office! Or at least it was for everyone geared
up for Top Gun: Maverick (2022)! But I watched The
Bob's Burgers Movie (2022) instead, which was an equally importantly
nostalgic style of filmmaking - The big screen adult animated show adaptation!
SPOILERs hotter than a hot rod to follow.
Bob's Burgers has quietly been on the air for twelve
seasons. That's nuts. I guess we just don't cancel animated series anymore
(See the fact that American Dad! has
somehow been renewed through Season 21). But Bob’s Burgers feels hardly like its contemporaries. It’s such a
subtle, family-based show. It’s more King
of the Hill than Family Guy, with
hardly any interest in shock humour, pop culture references, or even a dynamic
protagonist.
It’s wildly
entertaining. I stopped watching a few years ago when the sameness of each
episode started getting to me, but it’s so wholesome that I couldn’t consider
myself anti-Bob. It even works
through H. Jon Benjamin’s ubiquitous voice. But it’s always feels so under the
radar. It’s unbelievable they made a movie about this.
This feels like the
marketing move of yesteryear when we got a South
Park movie in 1999, a Simpsons
movie in 2007, and what feels like an insane number of Rugrats movies. All those standards are there – a huge upgrade in
animation and blocking (shadows!), big musical numbers, and centering around
the reveal of a gimmicky thing they’ve never revealed in the show (what’s under
Louise’s ears). Except unlike Kenny’s face, they still don’t show it.
This is a genuinely feel
good summer movie. The plot is significant, but in Burgers fashion, it’s not all THAT dramatic. Sure, the family is in
danger of losing the restaurant, but when are they not!? And there is a
sinister murder plot, but that also could be an episode. The film works by
giving each character a basic but sincere motivation and playing that off with
earned set-ups and payoffs for the rest of the film. Tina wants to ask out
Jimmy Jr, Gene wants to play music, and Louise wants to prove she’s not a baby.
It’s all standard Bob’s Burgers fare,
but that’s why it works. It stays really true to the show while finding new
ways to challenge these characters and spinning their typical tropes.
It showcases most of its
secondary characters, from Mickey to the Fischoeders (a central plot point),
although there’s not much from Jimmy Pesto or Gail or Mort. The former might be
because the voice actor was in the Capitol Riot. Yaaaay. But it delivers what
fans of the show want, which is a little spotlight for everyone.
The show is incredibly
musical, almost every episode has a little song in it, sometimes just over the
end credits, and the film is no different – it actually had a bit less songs
than I expected. They mostly land, and the choreography is expansive and
exciting, which always happens when characters in such a static show look so
dynamic. Their faces weren’t that expressionable, which threw me off a bit, but
it was still very fun.
It's also very genuinely
funny. The humour comes from character traits instead of conflict, which is
always a bit of an acquired taste, and it always spins things in a slightly
unexpected way. The peak of the film, when the family is SPOILER buried alive
contains one of the most magnificent comedic sequences in recent memory. It
gets its comedy from goofiness, commitment, and pay off. You know, classic
comedy. It’s always weird to watch this and then see comedians complain that
comedy is dead or that we don’t know how to laugh anymore. We’ve never needed Bob’s Burgers more than right now.
The main plot gets going
when Louise finds a dead body in a sinkhole and the mystery is afoot! You can
guess where this is going when they introduce a new character, voiced by David
Wain. Like, it’s always the new guy since a murder accusation of any main
character would both throw off the show and paint a rough color on any
preceding character. You can see it coming. Although it only worked for me
because I figured Wain’s character was a recent addition to the show that I had
missed. They sell you on the many possible suspects and it all works.
It does through you
right into the action as if it were just another Season 12 episode that you’ve
been binge watching. There’s almost no character introduction or grounding in
the world, which was refreshingly efficient for someone familiar with the show,
but I’m curious if someone would be lost going into this. I don’t really think
so, this is really the kind of show that’s easy to figure out pretty fast, and
that holds well for the movie as well.
There’s almost no
celebrities brought into the cast, which is the good move. It really just feels
like a long and magnificent episode of the show, and I say that in the best way
possible. It was a lot of fun, a wholesome little excursion on a fun Saturday
Memorial afternoon and it hit everywhere it needed to.
And as usual, there are
plenty of puns here that work really well. I’m just waiting for The Great
North movie now!
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
30 May 2022
20 June 2019
First Impressions: The Secret Life of Pets 2
That's right. This was...such a weird movie. In reality it wasn't actually a movie at all. It was more three unrelated stories strung together for eighty minutes. But more on that later. SPOILERS to follow about The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019).
I actually just watched The Secret Life of Pets (2016), so that was nice and fresh. In the intervening three years a lot has happened, namely lead little dog voice actor Louis C.K. was out, Patton Oswalt in. Kevin Hart is still here as a maniacal little rabbit named snowball. Is he still okay to like? Take of that what you will.
The Secret Life of Pets was a pretty surprise hit back in 2016. Never underestimate the appeal of a bunch of cute animated talking animals. It comes from Illumination, which is NBC / Universal's animation branch, primarily known for Minions movies. Pets has little hints of this, and a nice minion introduction just to remind you of the studio's bread and butter. Twinkie and butter?
Unfortunately, the studio has then become known for somewhat diminishing returns. Despicable Me remains their highest rated (81%) and most sentimentally adored film. That being said, they haven't quite entered DreamWorks levels of pop culture regurgitation and celebrity worship, but they're close. More importantly, though, their films tend to find a way to become financially successful. How the hell did Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018) find a way to $270 million last year?
From an animation standpoint I tend to be turned off by Illuminations' fan of giant heads and bodies with tiny feet and arms. It's off-putting to me for some reason. Having said that, their backgrounds are awesome. I loved Pets' interpretation of a massive, endless glistening New York City. There is a sense of frenetic action and purposeful unrealism that modern CGI, namely Pixar tends to avoid. SONY Animation, for all its wretchedness actually does animated slapstick really well. It keeps me interested in the Hotel Transylvania series of all things.
The heavenly depiction of New York in Pets borders on irresponsible with how clean and crime-free it looks, but that movie found contrast between the silver shine of the city and the grimy underground of flushed and forgotten pets. This all came together into a coherent story of Louis C.K. dog loving his master until a newer, bigger, wilder dog is introduced. They then get lost, find the misfit pets and need to escape to get back before their master notices them gone.
Holy shit.
Sorry, I just realised this is the plot of Toy Story (1995). Okay, okay - moving past that.
It's fine and entertaining and full of really genuine pet / owner moments that earn a handful of chuckles. It's not thematically dense or anything, but it's also really not trying to be. We often talk around here of how a film can accomplish its own goals, which I think Pets does, it's just not a far goalpost. To be real honest, it was a whole lot better than I had been led to believe and I could stand to have this play in the background for like two months straight if I had kids who got into it.
Pets 2 mystified me. The basic premise is that Patton Oswalt dog's owner gets hitched and cranks out a baby, which the pups are at first wary of, but then grow to love and eventually be overprotective. The helicopter parent analogy is pretty clear here. They then journey out to the farm for reasons that are never explained (I suppose that keeps with the dog's perspective and it also doesn't quite even matter) and meet a dog voiced my Harrison Ford who thinks the city dogs are pussies (ha) and is way more into an old school way of parenting.
It wasn't until long after the cinema that I found myself wondering who this plot was even for. Are kids like "Yeah, mom and dad - don't raise me like that!" Would they even pick up on it? I liked that it was at least an indictment against helicopter parents and not Millennials, which tends to be an easy target in films like this filled with old folks who don't understand that thar Ol' Intranets. And Harrison Ford actually does a fantastic job and doesn't even sound that grouchy.
There are good sheep jokes but there is truly no place for Eric Stonestreet dog. It's tough when his very presence was the central conflict of the first film. He just kind of exists here. They could have developed him a little more - say he sides against Oswalt dog and when Harrison Ford shows up there's more conflict there when he justifies a lot of what he's been saying the whole movie.
Apparently they didn't have time for all that, though, because there are two whole unrelated stories at play here. The first is Jenny Slate dog learning how to pretend to be a cat in order to infiltrate an old cat lady's apartment to steal back a chew toy Patton Oswalt lost.
And don't get me wrong - this bit is hilarious and works exceptionally well as its own 20-minute short. But what the hell is this doing intercut with two other unrelated stories in a feature-length film? The old lady gangsta pay-off as she kills the Evil Circus Owner at the end who she definitely did not know is fantastic, but narratively this film is insane.
Yes, Evil Circus Owner - voiced by Nick Kroll and dressed like the Wicked Witch of the West for some reason. Russian because Evil German was too on the nose I guess, but the last vignette involves Kevin Hart Snowball bunny dressed as a superhero (because superheroes are popular) teamed up with Tiffany Haddish (because Haddish is popular) to free an imprisoned White Tiger. Again, this all works better than it sounds. Haddish is a little miscast - her character is surprisingly relaxed and calm and doesn't seem to take advantage of her raspy, excitable voice. Still, it's a fun Night School (2018) reunion. Did ya'll see Night School?
This Tiger-saving ends up being the thing that Oswalt dog needs to do to prove his bravery at the end of the film, but considering he has never met this Tiger or Tiffany Haddish it feels really weird and empty. All the stakes are there and even the proper build-up, but then they switch out the hero for one who is in better need of the hero moment. It's bizarre. Like, it fits Oswalt's story but...isn't.
Pets 2 works as a series of vignettes and it's fun to play around in this world for a little bit. That's essentially all that's going on here, though. It's playing and spending a little more time with these characters. The jokes land and kids will be entertained (I think a little more by the latter two vignettes, but whatever), but this is such a weirdly structured movie. It's like as if Four Rooms (1995) or Amores Perros (2000) was set in the Secret Life of Pets universe. I'd actually like to see a little more of this. I suppose what threw me off the most was waiting for these stories to intersect or to find meaning in parallel to each other. Like, imagine if Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (2019) is just three separate stories in the Star Wars Universe. Okay, that might actually be awesome, but my brain spent more time trying to piece together what was happening than enjoying the cuteness.
Anyway, I've whined a lot but I generally liked this for the same reason I liked the first film. They just nail pet/owner relationships so well, it's a familiar chuckle, and Lake Bell, Harrison Ford, Dana Carvey, and Jenny Slate all give some legit great voice performances. Upon second viewing it would be nice to relax and enjoy cuteness. Also notable is the simple fact that this film made no attempt to simply re-do the plot of the first film, which often befalls these kinds of movies. It knows what it wants to be and then is that. Tougher than it looks.
What did you think of Pets 2? What the hell will they do with Pets 3?
I actually just watched The Secret Life of Pets (2016), so that was nice and fresh. In the intervening three years a lot has happened, namely lead little dog voice actor Louis C.K. was out, Patton Oswalt in. Kevin Hart is still here as a maniacal little rabbit named snowball. Is he still okay to like? Take of that what you will.
The Secret Life of Pets was a pretty surprise hit back in 2016. Never underestimate the appeal of a bunch of cute animated talking animals. It comes from Illumination, which is NBC / Universal's animation branch, primarily known for Minions movies. Pets has little hints of this, and a nice minion introduction just to remind you of the studio's bread and butter. Twinkie and butter?
| Snowball's superhero name is Captain Snowball. Next up, Captain Steve Rogers. |
Unfortunately, the studio has then become known for somewhat diminishing returns. Despicable Me remains their highest rated (81%) and most sentimentally adored film. That being said, they haven't quite entered DreamWorks levels of pop culture regurgitation and celebrity worship, but they're close. More importantly, though, their films tend to find a way to become financially successful. How the hell did Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018) find a way to $270 million last year?
From an animation standpoint I tend to be turned off by Illuminations' fan of giant heads and bodies with tiny feet and arms. It's off-putting to me for some reason. Having said that, their backgrounds are awesome. I loved Pets' interpretation of a massive, endless glistening New York City. There is a sense of frenetic action and purposeful unrealism that modern CGI, namely Pixar tends to avoid. SONY Animation, for all its wretchedness actually does animated slapstick really well. It keeps me interested in the Hotel Transylvania series of all things.
The heavenly depiction of New York in Pets borders on irresponsible with how clean and crime-free it looks, but that movie found contrast between the silver shine of the city and the grimy underground of flushed and forgotten pets. This all came together into a coherent story of Louis C.K. dog loving his master until a newer, bigger, wilder dog is introduced. They then get lost, find the misfit pets and need to escape to get back before their master notices them gone.
Holy shit.
Sorry, I just realised this is the plot of Toy Story (1995). Okay, okay - moving past that.
It's fine and entertaining and full of really genuine pet / owner moments that earn a handful of chuckles. It's not thematically dense or anything, but it's also really not trying to be. We often talk around here of how a film can accomplish its own goals, which I think Pets does, it's just not a far goalpost. To be real honest, it was a whole lot better than I had been led to believe and I could stand to have this play in the background for like two months straight if I had kids who got into it.
Pets 2 mystified me. The basic premise is that Patton Oswalt dog's owner gets hitched and cranks out a baby, which the pups are at first wary of, but then grow to love and eventually be overprotective. The helicopter parent analogy is pretty clear here. They then journey out to the farm for reasons that are never explained (I suppose that keeps with the dog's perspective and it also doesn't quite even matter) and meet a dog voiced my Harrison Ford who thinks the city dogs are pussies (ha) and is way more into an old school way of parenting.
It wasn't until long after the cinema that I found myself wondering who this plot was even for. Are kids like "Yeah, mom and dad - don't raise me like that!" Would they even pick up on it? I liked that it was at least an indictment against helicopter parents and not Millennials, which tends to be an easy target in films like this filled with old folks who don't understand that thar Ol' Intranets. And Harrison Ford actually does a fantastic job and doesn't even sound that grouchy.
There are good sheep jokes but there is truly no place for Eric Stonestreet dog. It's tough when his very presence was the central conflict of the first film. He just kind of exists here. They could have developed him a little more - say he sides against Oswalt dog and when Harrison Ford shows up there's more conflict there when he justifies a lot of what he's been saying the whole movie.
Apparently they didn't have time for all that, though, because there are two whole unrelated stories at play here. The first is Jenny Slate dog learning how to pretend to be a cat in order to infiltrate an old cat lady's apartment to steal back a chew toy Patton Oswalt lost.
And don't get me wrong - this bit is hilarious and works exceptionally well as its own 20-minute short. But what the hell is this doing intercut with two other unrelated stories in a feature-length film? The old lady gangsta pay-off as she kills the Evil Circus Owner at the end who she definitely did not know is fantastic, but narratively this film is insane.
Yes, Evil Circus Owner - voiced by Nick Kroll and dressed like the Wicked Witch of the West for some reason. Russian because Evil German was too on the nose I guess, but the last vignette involves Kevin Hart Snowball bunny dressed as a superhero (because superheroes are popular) teamed up with Tiffany Haddish (because Haddish is popular) to free an imprisoned White Tiger. Again, this all works better than it sounds. Haddish is a little miscast - her character is surprisingly relaxed and calm and doesn't seem to take advantage of her raspy, excitable voice. Still, it's a fun Night School (2018) reunion. Did ya'll see Night School?
This Tiger-saving ends up being the thing that Oswalt dog needs to do to prove his bravery at the end of the film, but considering he has never met this Tiger or Tiffany Haddish it feels really weird and empty. All the stakes are there and even the proper build-up, but then they switch out the hero for one who is in better need of the hero moment. It's bizarre. Like, it fits Oswalt's story but...isn't.
Pets 2 works as a series of vignettes and it's fun to play around in this world for a little bit. That's essentially all that's going on here, though. It's playing and spending a little more time with these characters. The jokes land and kids will be entertained (I think a little more by the latter two vignettes, but whatever), but this is such a weirdly structured movie. It's like as if Four Rooms (1995) or Amores Perros (2000) was set in the Secret Life of Pets universe. I'd actually like to see a little more of this. I suppose what threw me off the most was waiting for these stories to intersect or to find meaning in parallel to each other. Like, imagine if Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (2019) is just three separate stories in the Star Wars Universe. Okay, that might actually be awesome, but my brain spent more time trying to piece together what was happening than enjoying the cuteness.
Anyway, I've whined a lot but I generally liked this for the same reason I liked the first film. They just nail pet/owner relationships so well, it's a familiar chuckle, and Lake Bell, Harrison Ford, Dana Carvey, and Jenny Slate all give some legit great voice performances. Upon second viewing it would be nice to relax and enjoy cuteness. Also notable is the simple fact that this film made no attempt to simply re-do the plot of the first film, which often befalls these kinds of movies. It knows what it wants to be and then is that. Tougher than it looks.
What did you think of Pets 2? What the hell will they do with Pets 3?
04 January 2019
2018 TV Watching Retrospective
As I did an exhaustive analysis of my movie watching in 2018, which soared, my TV watching sorely declined. After nailing 867 episodes of 81 shows last year, all I could manage was 476 episodes of 54 shows. TV is declining for me, what can I say? Here's a graph!
The most serious show I watched was probably Evil Genius, followed by Tigers of Scotland. Seinfeld won, of course. My Simpsons was way down, after hitting 105 last year and 222 the year before that.
Arrested Development and Always Sunny remain pretty strong, but props to The Good Place for being a relatively recent, contemporary show and not something that peaked in the 90s! I was definitely off my game for most of the year, and not into a ton of new shows like I used to be. The Last Man on Earth was cancelled, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is coming back but not this fall, and I just can't do The Flash anymore. To be honest, I've been kind of sick of The Simpsons after they couldn't have handled their Apu controversy with less aplomb. I'm still super into everything...90s... but stopped regularly watching every week.
I mean, it wasn't that hard to because the show got terrible. STARTING WITH SEASON 28.
What did you watch this year?
13 July 2018
Hotel Transylvania 3 and Skyscraper
July is a surprisingly lax month as far as movies go. Maybe Hollywood is learned from the bloat of a few years ago where solid films like Jason Bourne (2016) and Star Trek Beyond (2016) were totally ignored because they all ran into each other. Can you believe Star Trek Beyond was only two years ago? How did that happen? I was literally think it was 2014 or something before I looked it up. That's disturbing and probably needs its own post about how easily we can turn on a franchise and ignore good work they do. That movie did have a lot of problems, but...okay, I'm getting really distracted by an offhand remark.
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018). Alright, so I'm going to be pretty bold here and make the claim that the Hotel Transylvania movies are totally underrated. It is a sincerely weird amalgamation of Adam Sandler and his buddies making childrens' monster films for some reason, but under the guidance of Genndy Tartakovsky, whose animation style guided my entire childhood through Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars (not the lack of the definite article - The Clone Wars is the CGI show. Moving on...). All this mixes together for a really irreverent and fun animation style. It is a little obnoxious in that soulless Dreamworks pop-culture spouting kind of way instead of that sweet, timeless Pixar kind of way, but it's also SONY Animation, which is its own animal.
I actually really dig the SONY Computer animation films because they aren't afraid to actually be cartoons. Pixar tends to ground its films - they are exciting, funny, and certainly wondrous in ways that only animation can do, but they're hardly ever slapstick. There isn't much Looney Tunes heritage there. No piano drops or flexible reality. Even Dreamworks tend to sly away from this kind of tone. SONY for some reason does that really well, and everyone tends to ignore it. I suppose that's why more profitable studios steer away - either no one but me actually cares or no one else even enjoys it. Or notices.
This blog has been leaning pretty hard into some Adam Sandler love, too, and if you look at my latest movies watched...it's a lot of Sandler lately. And we all seem to constantly forget the fact that Sandler is capable of phenomenal voice work. This includes Sandler himself - he doesn't do nearly enough legitimate vocal work or songs. It's another reason why his personal interests always seem so selfish and frustrating. His Dracula, though is spot on and brilliant, and for some reason, Tartakovsky also animates him exactly as a young Adam Sandler-as-Count Dracula would look like.
Having said all that, I mean, yeah, the plots for all these films are ridiculously thin, the jokes are really easy and obvious, and there's not a tremendous amount of thematic depth anywhere. They are kids films but unlike Pixar, kids films that are tough for adults to get into. They're explicitly juvenile. On some level that should be fine - kids can enjoy them for their own merit, but I think the greater critical and Internet cultural community has ignored them. And to be fair, while I am a big fan of all their technical work - animation, direction, and vocals, literally everything else is awful, which makes them tough to slog through.
I mean, Summer Vacation looks really bad. On its face it's a total cash grab. And we're not even starved for kids animation hits - Incredibles 2 (2018) just passed the $500 million mark. It's amazing that that film, with 14 years in between installments has built up a fan base far surpassing anything Hotel Transylvania (2012) could hope to do. Amazing when you make a well-structured, four-quadrant film, with heart and hope, it can actually connect with people and build goodwill year after year. THAT'S when you drop the cash-grab sequel, SONY. Get it together.
So yeah, I don't see Summer Vacation making much of a splash commercially or culturally, and surely not critically. Still, it'll do okay, lest we forget that Hotel Transylvania was the highest grossing September release for five straight years until surpassed by IT (2017) last fall. This of course doesn't compare to Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which held the September record for ten years before that. That's right. Come to Norwegian Morning Wood to learn all about obscure Box Office Record history. Still, this is July, not September. Summer Vacation won't be nearly as notable.
Next we have Skyscraper (2018). Props to the Rock for trying to launch all these franchises, and between this, Rampage (2018), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), and the upcoming Hobbs & Shaw (2019), his action hero status is pretty secure. As if it wasn't already. I am more concerned, however, about the opposite. Is Dwayne diluting his brand by appearing in a major original (or semi-original) action franchise every three months? I don't know a single soul excited about Skyscraper. In fact, I barely know what it's about.
It's basically like San Andreas (2015), right? Just the Rock like, fighting buildings falling down? I should go watch the trailer. Here, I'll post it because you haven't seen it, either:
It all feels kind of generic, right? "Courage has no limits" could be the tagline for literally every movie ever. Except maybe A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012). Cool that the building is really tall and on fire and Johnson's got a cripple leg - that actually brings the Rock down from god status quite a bit, although it doesn't seem to impair him like....at all.
My deeper impression of this film is that it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. The premise seems outrageous - a vertical city under attack by Terrorists, or maybe an inside job, or whatever. This could easily get into Snowpiercer (2013) territory where reality is thrown out the window in favor of exploring some wacky themes that still end with some potent bite. Skyscraper, though, also seems impeccably earnest. I talked about this a little bit when watching Blood Fest (2018) - the impossibility of telling a straight story these days. It should be possible, I think sincerity is slowly coming back and there does seem to be an increasing movement away from cynicism, irony, and sarcasm into more genuine moments, everywhere from comedy to major motion pictures, but that also seems to be playing out in different parts of the country.
See, I see this failing on the East Coast. We're still very much a jaded and eye-rolling bunch. I can, however, see this succeeded in more rural or Southern parts of the country that would like to just sit down and watch a movie where good guys fight bad guys in a big burning tower. It's an easy concept to wrap your head around. I think it's too simple and undeveloped for more experienced (some would say arrogant) movie-goers. Maybe this isn't the right judgment call, but that's the vibe I get. I'd be curious what ya'll think. Am I way off base?
Anyway, I can see this being as significant as we remember Rampage three months on. Do we? It should do fine - there's no real competition around it besides Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and for the record, yeah - that's what I mean when I talk about movies that can't take their premises seriously. That isn't doing crushing numbers, though, so it ought to do fine, if it can bring in any seats at all.
What do you think? What are you watching? There's actually a lot to digest this week. Is it okay to have child-like fun with whimsical monster-based slapstick? Or to truly invest in a straight action film? These are genuine moments, movies for their own sake. One could say a momentous weekend, in fact. What say you?
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018). Alright, so I'm going to be pretty bold here and make the claim that the Hotel Transylvania movies are totally underrated. It is a sincerely weird amalgamation of Adam Sandler and his buddies making childrens' monster films for some reason, but under the guidance of Genndy Tartakovsky, whose animation style guided my entire childhood through Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars (not the lack of the definite article - The Clone Wars is the CGI show. Moving on...). All this mixes together for a really irreverent and fun animation style. It is a little obnoxious in that soulless Dreamworks pop-culture spouting kind of way instead of that sweet, timeless Pixar kind of way, but it's also SONY Animation, which is its own animal.
I actually really dig the SONY Computer animation films because they aren't afraid to actually be cartoons. Pixar tends to ground its films - they are exciting, funny, and certainly wondrous in ways that only animation can do, but they're hardly ever slapstick. There isn't much Looney Tunes heritage there. No piano drops or flexible reality. Even Dreamworks tend to sly away from this kind of tone. SONY for some reason does that really well, and everyone tends to ignore it. I suppose that's why more profitable studios steer away - either no one but me actually cares or no one else even enjoys it. Or notices.
This blog has been leaning pretty hard into some Adam Sandler love, too, and if you look at my latest movies watched...it's a lot of Sandler lately. And we all seem to constantly forget the fact that Sandler is capable of phenomenal voice work. This includes Sandler himself - he doesn't do nearly enough legitimate vocal work or songs. It's another reason why his personal interests always seem so selfish and frustrating. His Dracula, though is spot on and brilliant, and for some reason, Tartakovsky also animates him exactly as a young Adam Sandler-as-Count Dracula would look like.
Having said all that, I mean, yeah, the plots for all these films are ridiculously thin, the jokes are really easy and obvious, and there's not a tremendous amount of thematic depth anywhere. They are kids films but unlike Pixar, kids films that are tough for adults to get into. They're explicitly juvenile. On some level that should be fine - kids can enjoy them for their own merit, but I think the greater critical and Internet cultural community has ignored them. And to be fair, while I am a big fan of all their technical work - animation, direction, and vocals, literally everything else is awful, which makes them tough to slog through.
I mean, Summer Vacation looks really bad. On its face it's a total cash grab. And we're not even starved for kids animation hits - Incredibles 2 (2018) just passed the $500 million mark. It's amazing that that film, with 14 years in between installments has built up a fan base far surpassing anything Hotel Transylvania (2012) could hope to do. Amazing when you make a well-structured, four-quadrant film, with heart and hope, it can actually connect with people and build goodwill year after year. THAT'S when you drop the cash-grab sequel, SONY. Get it together.
So yeah, I don't see Summer Vacation making much of a splash commercially or culturally, and surely not critically. Still, it'll do okay, lest we forget that Hotel Transylvania was the highest grossing September release for five straight years until surpassed by IT (2017) last fall. This of course doesn't compare to Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which held the September record for ten years before that. That's right. Come to Norwegian Morning Wood to learn all about obscure Box Office Record history. Still, this is July, not September. Summer Vacation won't be nearly as notable.
Next we have Skyscraper (2018). Props to the Rock for trying to launch all these franchises, and between this, Rampage (2018), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), and the upcoming Hobbs & Shaw (2019), his action hero status is pretty secure. As if it wasn't already. I am more concerned, however, about the opposite. Is Dwayne diluting his brand by appearing in a major original (or semi-original) action franchise every three months? I don't know a single soul excited about Skyscraper. In fact, I barely know what it's about.
It's basically like San Andreas (2015), right? Just the Rock like, fighting buildings falling down? I should go watch the trailer. Here, I'll post it because you haven't seen it, either:
It all feels kind of generic, right? "Courage has no limits" could be the tagline for literally every movie ever. Except maybe A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012). Cool that the building is really tall and on fire and Johnson's got a cripple leg - that actually brings the Rock down from god status quite a bit, although it doesn't seem to impair him like....at all.
My deeper impression of this film is that it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. The premise seems outrageous - a vertical city under attack by Terrorists, or maybe an inside job, or whatever. This could easily get into Snowpiercer (2013) territory where reality is thrown out the window in favor of exploring some wacky themes that still end with some potent bite. Skyscraper, though, also seems impeccably earnest. I talked about this a little bit when watching Blood Fest (2018) - the impossibility of telling a straight story these days. It should be possible, I think sincerity is slowly coming back and there does seem to be an increasing movement away from cynicism, irony, and sarcasm into more genuine moments, everywhere from comedy to major motion pictures, but that also seems to be playing out in different parts of the country.
See, I see this failing on the East Coast. We're still very much a jaded and eye-rolling bunch. I can, however, see this succeeded in more rural or Southern parts of the country that would like to just sit down and watch a movie where good guys fight bad guys in a big burning tower. It's an easy concept to wrap your head around. I think it's too simple and undeveloped for more experienced (some would say arrogant) movie-goers. Maybe this isn't the right judgment call, but that's the vibe I get. I'd be curious what ya'll think. Am I way off base?
Anyway, I can see this being as significant as we remember Rampage three months on. Do we? It should do fine - there's no real competition around it besides Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and for the record, yeah - that's what I mean when I talk about movies that can't take their premises seriously. That isn't doing crushing numbers, though, so it ought to do fine, if it can bring in any seats at all.
What do you think? What are you watching? There's actually a lot to digest this week. Is it okay to have child-like fun with whimsical monster-based slapstick? Or to truly invest in a straight action film? These are genuine moments, movies for their own sake. One could say a momentous weekend, in fact. What say you?
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