Month: January 2013

On December 26, 2004, a tsunami rocked the Indian Ocean and destroyed many islands and coastal communities. Over 230,000 lives were lost in a matter of minutes and it is one of the biggest natural disasters ever recorded in human history.

Honestly, I am surprised it took 8 years for a major movie to be made on the subject. After all, it only took 1.5 years to make a movie about the death of Osama Bin Laden, and a few months for a documentary on Michael Jackson.

Don’t tell those people in the Chasing Mavericks movie. They would surf the fuck out of this surge.

The Impossible is specifically about a family from Spain vacationing in Thailand for Christmas. Henry (Ewan McGregor) is a businessman who works in Japan, and his wife Maria (Naomi Watts) is a doctor, but no longer practices to take care of their three boys. Their boys are Lucas (Tom Holland), then Thomas (Samuel Joslin), and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast).

Then you know, huge ass wave. Maria and Lucas get swept down the current, while Henry and the younger boys get stuck in the resort area.

Turns out the acting in this movie is pretty darn great. Naomi Watts? Definitely deserves her best actress nomination. From a loving stay at home mom, to a weak and powerless person, the transition was quick and amazing to watch. Her survival rested solely on the shoulders of her oldest son,as the two were now equals while they were alone in the desecrated landscape. Tom Holland has been in theater for awhile, but this was his first movie role, and it was similarly knocked out of the park. Large portions of the film were left to him to carry, and he made it his bitch.

Finally, Ewan McGregor acted pretty strongly in the film as well. Despite the disaster in front of him, he continued to try and fit into his role as protector and provider for the family. He had to make multiple hard decisions before they were reunited, separating himself from his children, looking for his wife and other son, and helping others along the way. Plus, as a bonus, his sob sounds identical to how it did in Moulin Rouge, even after eleven years.

First, this log. Tomorrow, the world!

Despite the strong acting from the main three, the film suffered elsewhere. I loved the realism in term of the flooding and its lack of heavy CGI to get the effect they needed. But I think the film took too many liberties when it came to the actual story. Most notably, before the reunion, there was a pretty long scene of the multiple groups wandering around the same hospital, but continuously missing another party by a few seconds. It really cheapened it for me, for a film that was priding itself in its realism.

I also didn’t like that it seemed to create false suspense by only showing a couple character for long periods of time…even though the trailer and true story aspect give away certain “secrets”. We can’t not know that members of the family survived the initial onslaught thanks to the trailer, so stop trying to make it seem that way.

The rating for this movie I also felt should have been an R. Based on similar scenes in movies, I think it all of it is a bit too much with all of the injuries that occur. I almost threw up on a quick flash of a leg injury, given the detail in the makeup.

As expected, The Impossible is an incredibly sad film, but at the same time, a bit of an inspiring one.

It took me awhile to get excited about Zero Dark Thirty. I mean, what, Osama Bin Laden died a year and a half ago? It didn’t help that its original trailer was boring as crap (The second one was a lot better!). I was also a pretty big skeptic when I heard it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. How can I trust a movie about this subject so close to the actual event? There is no way that a lot of the actual information was declassified that quickly, given the subject. Unless of course, because she made The Hurt Locker, she clearly deserves the information and resources to make another war movie?

Just seems a bit unfair is all I am saying.

You know what else is unfair? Jobs that let you wear shorts. I want in on that racket! Fucking social norms.

The story begins a bit classier than I expected with the September 11th attacks. I was a bit worried they’d use that to help rile up the emotions, but it didn’t recreate the crash, show the fall, any of that. Just kept a blank screen and used real media outtakes to explain what happened. Okay, maybe that is still a cheap trick, but it could have been worse.

A few years after that, Maya (Jessica Chastain) has just arrived in Pakistan, after spending most of her career in the CIA so far working on Al-Qaeda intelligence. Her new partner is Dan (Jason Clarke), who she gets to meet during a nice torture session. Weee torture!

Long story short, Maya begins grasping at straws, trying to get a lead anywhere. She thinks she has found the name of Osama’s secret courier, but her boss (Kyle Chandler) isn’t having any of it. Well, it turns out she is right! Eventually she is able to figure out who he is, find him, find a nice Mansion/Fortress in Pakistan, and heat signatures show an extra man inside who NEVER leaves. I wonder who it could be!

Zero Dark Thirty of course also goes through the extraction of Osama, featuring such fine gentlemen in the Seal Team, like Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, and Taylor Kinney.

“Hey, let’s show mostly scenes of the actual take down of Osama! You know, a small minority of the movie!”

Let me break the movie down for you, with fractions! I would say that the first quarter of the movie deals with torture as a way of gaining information. Three eights after that involves slow, non torture means of getting what they want. Another quarter of the movie takes place after they find the fortress and deciding what to do and who is in there, with the last eighth involving the Seal Team and their assult.

That second part? I didn’t really like that part. It felt very slow and I almost fell asleep in my seat. But that leaves a pretty solid five eighths of the film, which is a lot better than most movies out there.

Unfortunately I am still left wondering how much of what I watched is accurate, and how much is just dramatic license in the greatest manhunt in modern history. The acting was decent, but didn’t feel like anything worth writing home about. Word on the street is that they are hoping to do a prequel to this movie, yet I have no idea what it would be about. Al-Qaeda before 2001? I don’t think that counts as a prequel, I think that is just a different movie.

But hey, at least it ends with the US coming out on top. That is the take home message, right? Right?!

“What the fuck is this shit?”

That might be you, if you had a vulgar filthy mouth. But I heard someone say that when I first saw a trailer for A Haunted House. “Did they forget to name it Scary Movie 5?!”

Of course not, it isn’t the same franchise. Especially since Scary Movie 5 is coming out in April. I am sure you know that after Scary Movie 2, the Wayans brothers left the franchise (As the major writers/producers) and went on to do their own thing. That explains how bad the rest of them were, and five will probably be.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t do horror spoofs, even though this one is jut Marlon Wayans, damn it. Sucks to be Scary Movie though, since both of these are parodying Paranormal Activity.

“All of these parodies make me so angry!”

Malcolm (Wayans) is pumped. The woman of his dreams, Kisha (Essence Atkins) is about to move into his house. Life couldn’t be better. Until it immediately suck. Living with a woman isn’t as sexy as he hoped. Plus, she hates his maid, poor old Rosa (Marlene Forte).

But then weird things start to happen. Meaning her keys weren’t where she left them. OH NOESSSSSS. So they install nice cameras, from Dan the Security Man (David Koechner) and his assistant Bob (Dave Sheridan). They also happen to be ghost hunters.

Why the fuck am I still describing this? We know the plot, its a parody. Who is what though may matter. Nick Swardson plays a psychic, Cedric the Entertainer a priest, and Andrew Daly / Alanna Ubach play a couple who might be into some extra curriculars.

I labeled both pictures as Ahh Ahhhh. AHH is the movie acronym, and ahhhh describes each one. Hooray!

A Haunted House was exactly what I expected. As a bonus, it was also rated R. The first two Scary Movies were also rated R, and I didn’t hate them. But when the Wayans left and it went PG-13, I thought it was pointless drivel.

Does AHH have a lot of that too? Yeah maybe. But also a few amusing scenes. Sure, there are some art jokes, ome thug jokes, some joke about a gay man hitting on a straight man. But hey, these can be guilt pleasures. I generally did laugh out loud at certain scenes, and thought there was at least a couple of unexpected scenes. If you are going to watch this movie, you know exactly what you are going to get.

So yeah, fuck it, have an average rating. Welcome back Marlon!

Not going to lie. When I first saw the trailer for Gangster Squad, I thought it might be interesting. But I was worried based on the dialogue given it might all be cheesy. But I do love vigilantism. Especially real vigilantism. But above all of that, the thing I liked most was just the music featured in it. Made me all sorts of pumped up. But I learned long ago that if I hear a song in a movie trailer, it most definitely won’t be in the movie.

Bitches, yo.

It is amazing that he picked such a diverse group of guys too. I had my money on all white all middle aged!

In the late 1940s, the city of Los Angeles is under siege. Not by the Russians or Germans. Nope, by Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). From New York, he is now the most powerful criminal in LA, having bought cops, judges, you name it. No one can touch him, not even the mobsters in Chicago. Not everyone is corrupt though. Once Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) sees that Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) has brought down an illegal brothel by himself, he enlists him on a secret mission.

There is no way to get Mickey Cohen legally. Killing him wont do anything, someone will just take his place. No, he needs to leave his badge at home, recruit a team (or squad, if you will), take down his entire infrastructure, and sure, maybe kill a bunch of gangsters.

Fuck the law, do what is right!

Well, he gets a team of mostly cops, people who aren’t as worth being bought off who all have special skills. Conway (Giovanni Ribisi), an intelligence expert, Coleman (Anothony Mackie), who grew up on the streets and is one of the few who cares to fix them, Max (Robert Patrick), a fabled cop who has quick hands and can hit anything, and Navidad (Michael Pena), his Mexican partner who is willing to do anything.

Oh, and of course another detective Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) who has a personal vendetta against Cohen, and not just because he is sexing up his current fling (Emma Stone).

Cohen is going to get those coppers, so hard they don’t even know it yet.

Whew. Well, if you watch the trailer, you are going to get exactly as it shows. The lines are unfortunately mostly cheesy. The “No Ma’am, I was just hopin’ to take you to bed.” Imagine a whole film of that.

I think the movie is a bit of a shame. A lot of great actors involved, but it felt a lot like a no emotion cartoon. I didn’t feel sad when they wanted me to, nothing really resonated. The chemistry is really what was missing here. Between everyone, but especially between Stone and Gosling, who had an unbelievable romance going on. We know they can do that too, since they were together in Crazy, Stupid, Love. So I guess it is a director issue?

Another reason it felt cartoony to me was the filter they used to film it. I don’t know what it was, but look at the second picture. It has a yellow/orange tint almost, but something about it just really turned me off from the whole movie.

The fact that this is based off of a true story seems like a farce as well. It might actually be that Mickey Cohen existed only, in which case, fuck your true story tag lines.

Action was okay, acting was mostly forgettable, except a few Sean Penn moments. It was weird seeing Giovanni Ribisi as a good guy finally, so I am glad he can not be type casted (so much) anymore.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a movie I had heard about, and then promptly ignored. Eh, sounded like a foreign flick. One of the critics I follow raved on it, best actress, etc, a few months ago, and I just shrugged. I will get to it eventually. Maybe.

But then it went and got itself nominated, not ONLY for best actress, but for best film as well? Damn. Not to mention all the buzz about the main actress girl, the youngest to be nominated at 9. Pretty intense. I just think they have been afraid of nominating kids before. After all, they called Hailee Steinfeld a supporting actress in the movie True Grit, despite being the main character. Oh well, Academy is stupid. Just please don’t be a white guilt movie…

Well, right now it just looks like the Life Of Pi.

In the world, there is an island community that calls itself the Bathtub. Away from the rest of the world, they tend to keep their own traditions and way of thought, never once considering leaving their paradise. Heck, they have holidays all the time, and it is relaxing. But factories are on the horizon, and with the talk of levees and the map, it is clear that are just south of Louisiana.

Young Hushpuppy (Quvenshane Wallis) is a six year old girl, learning about the world from this new school thing and her bipolar dad, Wink (Dwight Henry). Sure he is an alcoholic who sometimes beats her in their strange half house, but he also can be really kind!

Hushpuppy learns of the ancient Aurochs that are frozen in the ice caps. According to her teacher, if the ice caps melt, the Aurochs will be unleashed to reign control of the land again, and only the strong can survive it. But if they melt, heck, the Bathtub will just become flooded anyways.

Speaking of that shit. Ice caps melt, aurochs on the move. Giant ass storm, flooding, death! Levee is destroyed! Flooding recedes, but salt water envelopes their land killing the fish and crops. Can they leave their homeland from the prodding of the health people coming to save them? Or would they prefer to rough it on their own in the face of certain doom?

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, chicken phone!

I have been told before that if I rate movies low because I don’t like them (aka, a reason to give it a low reason), I am an ass for not taking into account cinemetography, well shot scenes, lightning, music, all that. So I will take them into account this time. This movie was super fucking grainy. It also employed a shaky cam, maybe to imply poverty or whatever, but I didn’t like it. Especially not the grainyness.

I understand that this film has a lot of metaphors in it. Clearly it represents New Orleans, a specific way of life, and Katrina. It is about a young girls reality as she sees it, which includes some weird shit happening. Aurochs and other crazies. It is hard for her to cope, I get that. But I don’t really care.

Personally, I thought the acting from Dwight Henry was great. He toed the line between abuse and caring really well, playing off his bipolar nature. But personally, I don’t see what is the big deal from Miss Wallis. Her character acted like a 6-8 year old girl. She is 9. I don’t really call that acting, that just seems like it is being yourself, being a kid. I could probably act really well if someone needed a big guy who bitches about movies on the computer, because that is what I am. I’d make a statement about boycotting the Academy Awards if she won, but I know I wont. I will just shake my head, like I do every year, wondering how [insert random shitty/weird thing] won.

FINALLY.

That is all I can really say about Silver Linings Playbook. From the first time I saw this trailer, I knew I wanted to see it, and I wanted it to see it hard. Why? I mean, shit, look at the Trailer damn it. It has everything I’d want in a movie. Laughter, probable good acting, trashing books, serious shit, and a Jennifer Lawrence jiggle.

Well, and the rest of her too, I guess.

Pat (Bradley Cooper) is a pretty normal guy. Exercises, interacts with his friends, and sometimes talks to a wall. Oh whats that? He is in a mental institution? Alright, that isn’t normal at all. But he seems to have it all together. The courts seem to agree (despite the doctor warnings), and he is released to his mother (Jacki Weaver) after eight months in to live with his family.

Pat sees this as the opportunity of a life time. He has been getting fit, taking good care of himself, and now he plans on reading a lot of books to impress Nicki. Who is Nicki? His (ex?) wife of course! Before “the incident” they were in love, and damn it, they will be back together soon. What’s a restraining order anyways? His dad (Robert De Niro) has his own history of anger, along with some minor OCD when it comes to luck/fate with the Philadelphia Eagles.

But while working on improving his mind and body for Nicki, his friend (John Ortiz) invites him to a fancy dinner with his wife (Julia Stiles), a good friend of Nicki! But why did they bring Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) to the dinner? She had her husband die, and is kind of slutty. Clearly she is the crazy one of the group, not Pat.

But is she crazy enough to help him get around the restraining order by delivering a letter to his love? Maybe! Only if he does something for her first. Also featuring Chris Tucker as a new friend of Pat’s from the institution.

Presenting for the first time ever, my Halloween costume for 2013.

I am almost certain I didn’t decide this before watching, but I loved this movie. Basically everything about it was top notch. The storyline, the acting from our leads and De Niro. Hell, Mr. Tucker, who only does a movie every 5-6 years now, once the highest paid actor in Hollywood, he was pretty great in his supporting role as well.

When ever Jennifer Lawrence popped out of the bushes to surprise Cooper, I could only think of Navi, but in the nicest way possible.

The movie also did a fine job of riding the line between comedy/drama and going into a romantic comedy. First, it kept the comedy up the whole movie, and the dramatic parts were also throughout. Some Comedy/Dramas like to split the movie in half, not this one. Closer and closer to the end, it was able to get an ending that was great, without being entirely cliche. That means only about 40% cliche, for those counting at home.

This movie has officially restored my faith in Bradley Cooper, that was nearly diminished after All About Steve and The Words.

Alright movie theaters, I am going to need you to calm the hell down. I want to watch some of my own dvds damn it, but its hard to do that when I see 4 new movies a week in theaters. Taking up all the review spots! So sometimes, I just have to put my foot down and say no. I am watching American Dreamz damn it. Err, it came out in 2006? Shit, I thought it was newer. My bad. But I am still writing this dang review!

Hmm, Hugh Grant looks kind of like an evil genius here.

The President of the United States, President Staton (Dennis Quaid, definitely not a Bush parody), is having a nervous breakdown. He just got reelected, but now he is reading the newspapers, first time in years, and people don’t like him or his war! What! He just refuses to leave the White House or do anything, hanging out in his pajamas. But he does like the TV show American Dreamz. What is that? A singing competition, where a group of singers move on round after round, and the winner gets a contract! (Definitely not a parody of any other American show).

Speaking of American Dreamz, they are in a pissy. They are the top rated show, but they want even MORE ratings. The showrunner/main judge, Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant) demands that they get something unique, not more of the same. An egotistical southern girl who sings decently, Sally (Mandy Moore)? That is boring. But if she has a boyfriend in the military (Chris Klein), that makes it a bit better. Maybe get a middle eastern guy too, like Omer (Sam Golzari). Who cares if the singing is shit, diversity like that can build ratings!

Know what else can build ratings? Convincing the president to be a guest judge on the season finale of the show. The president loves the show, maybe it can be enough to knock him out of his funk and be liked again? Hopefully no terrorist attack will ruin the occasion either. >.>

Also featuring Willem Dafoe, Seth Meyers and John Cho.

Will most of America find themselves Omar-sexual?

The problems with Satires is that if you don’t understand the satire, you won’t get it and probably hate it. But if you do get the satire, you will find yourself nodding in agreement and enjoying it, but you are already converted, so to speak. No one gains any new information really, so if it is satire to send a political message, you aren’t actually convincing any one of anything. Your side agrees, the other side doesn’t get it. Then that is it.

American Dreamz is a very silly film, and it isn’t subtle in the slightest what it is going for. It has some comedic potential, but I personally found a lot of it to be bland.

The ending, was both shocking and amazing. I didn’t see it coming, and was also over the top ridiculous.

No one really shined in the movie, and I can’t ever see myself wanting to see it again.

Promised Land, on first glance, looks like your typical Oscar Bait movie at the end of the year. After all, it had a super limited release on December 28, but didn’t get widespread release until January. In addition to that, you can tell right off the back it has a high chance of being a super liberal movie with a clear message. We’re talking George Clooney amounts of liberal here. Oh well, maybe it will be subtle about the whole thing?

Fuck.

Steve Butler (Maaaatt Damonnnn) is a closer for a natural gas company. Along with his partner, Sue (Frances McDormand), his job is to go into a community and buy the mining rights on property from the farm owners. They get a set price per acre, and a fraction of the profit they gain, while getting to keep their land for farming. Pretty sweet deal.

Heck, Steve came from a farming community himself in Iowa (what what). But once a local plant went under, the community died, their town crumbled and all was lost. He is providing these communities a safety net, and he is good at it too. But what happens when shit start to hit the fan?

A lot of negative talk about fracking in the news, and now everyone has google, so it is hard to tell who is telling the truth about the risks and why. Steve accidentally lets the community hold a vote on fracking, thanks to a persistent science teacher (Hal Holbrook). Because of that opening, all of the sudden there is an environmental group in town, trying to persuade voters just the same (John Krasinski).

Will Steve lose his mind trying to help the small town? Can he get the girl (Rosemarie DeWitt)? Why does Rob (Titus Welliver, aka The Man In Black from Lost) sell Guns, Groceries, and Guitars?

Do you really not know how this thing will end?

For a movie about fracking, this film took the strange route of not really ever talking about fracking. Heck, Damon’s character is a self claimed not expert on the science, he just buys property and answers questions. They made his character not perfect, not the best speaker if he is nervous (or hungover) to give it a nice realism, but also to make it a crutch. I guess they wanted to make him look like a puppet to the man in the grand scheme of things.

The anti-fracking side doesn’t do much in the use of actual science to defer the town either, both sides using specific tactics to get people trust them. Does that mean this is a fair and balanced movie on the subject? Heck no, and you shouldn’t expect it either. There was a big surprise near the end, but not the ending itself. Everything I expected to happen, did happen. But the surprise I both loved and hated. It was an interesting way to take the movie as a drama, but I hated it because it felt like a cop out and a grossly inaccurate portrayal of real life, which was great up to that point.

I am almost certain this movie won’t go anywhere in terms of awards, was just a meh movie by the end of it. Come on Matt, I expected better of you!

Texas Chainsaw 3D? Fuck it, lets go.

Okay, so far not disappointed.

Like most of the movies after the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this one takes place after the first one and ignores the rest. Like, directly after the first. Didn’t see it? Well don’t worry, in the intro credits, you will see flashes of the first, a lot of the kill scenes, and the main heroine escaping covered in blood in a pick up truck.

Well she called the cops, and one Sheriff Hooper (Thom Barry) is the first on the scene. He convinces the family, who are fully stocked with ammo, to send out Leatherface (Dan Yeager) and he will get a fair trial. But then the townsfolk show up, lead by Burt Hartman (Paul Rae). They don’t give a fuck about the law right now, that family is fucked up and evil. So they torch the place and shoot it down. Everyone is dead, they are heroes!

Except one yokel finds a woman and his baby escaped to the barn. The baby is fine, but the woman is close to death. So he finishes her off and takes the baby as his own!

Twenty or so years later, Heather (Alexandra Daddario) is finding out she has a dead grandmother, even though she thought she was out of them already. AND THERE IS A WILL? IN TEXAS? WHAT?? She is adopted, whoa whoa whoa.

Good thing her friends were already going to New Orleans for a trip, so they are willing to stop by that small Texas town to sign the will papers and move on. This includes her boyfriend (Trey Songz), her slutty friend (Tania Raymonde from Lost), and her new boyfriend/friend of other guy (Keram Malicki-Sanchez). Heck, they even pick up a friendly hitch hiker Darryl (Shaun Sipos) who pays for gas and food and everything! What can go wrong!

Oh shit, free house? Hells yeah. It is a mansion. But is she really the last of her original family alive still? Will she find the truth about the incident all those years ago? Will bitches be killed by chainsaws? How about that cute new cop Carl (Scott Eastwood)? What is his deal? MORE QUESTIONS?

If the movie can exploit T&A then so can Gorgon Reviews.

I feel like going the PRO/CON list.
PROS:
The movie ties itself into the original movie, and ignores the previous fails, nice.
Alex Daddario and Tania Raymonde are hot.
I really would not have expected the ending or the second half plot of the movie. Trailer did a nice job of leaving a lot of surprise.
It is a bit humorous at parts, the death scenes never feel scary. Hard to really make a straight scary one of these movies now a days.

CONS:
Gratuitous teasing. No nakedness in this film, just a lot of closeness. Come on people, an R rated slasher flick, someone needs to get naked. It’s a rule.
3D was bad, very bad. Had no real purpose, was pretty shitty. Not Silent Hill: Revelation shitty, but close.
Bad acting throughout.
Questionable main character motives. At the end of the movie, the main characters decision doesn’t make a lot of sense. Her friends are dead and killed! Why would she do /that/? Come on now.

Despite that, I still think the movie was average and not just a shit storm. Definitely had some entertaining moments, and it really doesn’t take that long to get into the killing.

Normally I do my movie prep right before I see a movie, not months. But hey, turns out I never watched Monsters Inc., and some other variant of the movie is coming out this summer. But it was in 3D!…Which kind of makes this a new release…which means I can review it. Kind of like how I did a review for Cars, despite having no good reason for that one.

THREE DIMENSIONS THOUGH. WHY NOT.

Imagine this face popping out at you.

Monsters Inc. is the dark and twisted tale, of transdimensional travel and the energy crisis. Thanks to the onslaught of violent video games, tv shows, and the moral fabric of society falling, kids have become emotionless zombies that can no longer react to fear as a stimuli. This has a big effect on the Monster society, another dimension away from the human world.

They have not only perfected transdimensional travel between the worlds, but they can go to any home in which a closet exists, and have each one labeled and organized to go wherever they want. They have also figured out how to refine the screams of children into portable energy. But as I already stated, the screams are lowering. Sure, some monsters, Sully (John Goodman) and Randall (Steve Buscemi) are approaching record breaking numbers, but it is probably due to the apathy of the other workers realizing their jobs are at risk and their world as they know it is crashing around them.

Mike (Billy Crystal), Sully’s partner is too engulfed in the race to notice the crisis, and to smitten with a receptionist Celia (Jennifer Tilly) to realize the changes.

The drive for more scares engulfs Randall and Sully, so much that they end up doing whatever they can to get ahead of the other. Randall, the lesser scarer of the two being born with a smaller frame, has to rely on his intellect to give him an edge, much like the common ancestors of our past began to make tools to fight off the mammoths. He is smart enough to realize that the human kids are not actually poisonous to touch, but that was instead a message spread around just to increase work performance in these tough times. If you are scared of them, you will be more willing to try and scare them as much as possible.

Randall actually invents a machine to extract and force screams from not only children, but any source, monsters, whatever. Presumably beta testing is over, and now he has one test subject less, a girl who is named Boo. Boo is immune to fear in the traditional sense, referring to monsters as kitties. If his machine can work on her, it can work on anyone, and Monstropolis can continue to be prosperous.

But Sully, for whatever reason, is afraid of change. He made his record, and he doesn’t believe in that new form of science. Maybe because he hasn’t tested it himself. Either way, despite not knowing the full story, he decides to do everything in his power to get Boo back to her room, because that will protect her somehow.

It isn’t until he discovers and alternative form of energy from the children, through laughter, does he begin to accept change. It is stronger than the average scream, but is it easier to get laughs through the same manual labor process versus machine work? Does he really only care about the laugh method because he found it out first? Or maybe he is going around his boss, Mr. Waternoose (James Coburn), just to take over his job by the end?

Is Monsters Inc. really a story about how unions are a good thing, and that innovation through technological advancements leads to loss of jobs, in order to be more efficient?

For whatever reason, she reminded me of Katy Perry.

So why not talk about Monsters University? Seems like an odd direction to take the franchise. A prequel, 10 years before Inc. This will be a movie about how all the characters we know learned about each other and developed friendships. I am expecting it to be 100% Monster, 0% Human. After all, humans will still be poisonous or whatever. I think it would have a bit more interesting have a real sequel, what that would be about, I have no idea.

I think the over all plot was a fine one, minus a lot of instances where I didn’t understand the character actions. Such as taking Boo from the Sushi shop, when they could have left here there, ran away and been done with the problem. Or the door factory chase scene.

The 3D was good and felt natural. Since the movie was made in 2D, it was just there for rounding, not having shit fly at you, which was nice. Billy Crystal made his character his bitch, like normal. The rest of the voice work was relatively okay.

Over all, I don’t see the hyper I originally heard from the movie. Way better than Cars though.