Tag: Jenny Slate

I knew I wanted to see Everything Everywhere All At Once when I saw the poster for it. It is full, vibrant, and wild. I didn’t care what the plot was. The title was good. The poster was good. Harry Shum Jr. from Glee was in it. Let’s go, I’m sold, let’s do it.

But then I saw that it was directed by The Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). They have only directed one feature film together before this one, and it was Swiss Army Man.

Swiss Army Man was easily one of my favorite films of the year it came out, and was in my top 50 of the decade. It was wholly unique, unlike anything else I had seen before. It took a ridiculous topic and made it WORK. It should be talked about more in cinema circles, honestly.

If that is what they could do on their first try, I was damn near giddy to see what they would do with an ambitious title like Everything Everywhere All At Once.

The third eye really brings up the extra levels of power.

Everything. A lot is happening to Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh). She is trying to run a laundromat. She is trying to have a Chinese New Year party for the surrounding area and community. Probably an idea to help their laundromat which isn’t doing great. And they are being audited by the IRS and have an important meeting today to show their receipts and prove their business expenses. Her father (James Hong) is here visiting and judges her family and everything about her.

Her husband (Ke Huy Quan) is a nice guy, but he seems a bit bumbling and she has to be the serious one to solve the problems in her eyes. Her daughter (Stephanie Hsu) is struggling with feeling accepted. She has come out as gay and Evelyn has said she is fine with, but refuses to tell the grandpa because she may be secretly ashamed. Evenlyn is also constantly nagging on her daughter, to fix things that aren’t actually big issues.

Things seem to be imploding on Evelyn today. And things get more intense at the IRS building. Because at some point she finds herself in a closet, suddenly an instantly. Her consciousness going between the Evelyn at the desk and the Evelyn in the closet. It seems like it is her husband talking to her, but he claims he isn’t her husband. He says she is needed to help save the universe. Shit is getting bad, and she might be the last hope.

Oh well, just pile that onto Evelyn’s plate why don’t you.

Also starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., Brian Le, and Andy Le.

I will not be taking questions at this time over this image.

I put off writing this review for so long. Not because I didn’t like it, because I loved it, I did. But because I knew I wouldn’t have the words to do it justice. I didn’t even know how I would go about describing the plot, because I didn’t want to give that much away. I decided to watch the trailer and base it on that, and still told a lot less information than the trailer, so I am comfortable on that front.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a masterpiece of cinema, that about sums it up. It is an incredible DENSE film for the subject matter, and it doesn’t hold anything back. A common complaint I give for films is when they “don’t go hard enough” and this movie goes hard enough. It goes off the deep end real early on, and gets the viewer to catch up along the way, not boring us with exposition to explain things necessarily before they happen. The actual beginning feels like it is going to be a stressful movie similar to Uncut Gems, but when it gets supernatural, the stress levels are amped up significantly.

It switches between so many time lines and events, and molds things into one that if you don’t pay attention you will be lost. And I love that. I love that the film rewards the audience for paying attention, for looking for clues, and for treating us like we are capable humans of following a narrative.

I can’t say I understand every movie, or that I even fully understand this one, but I get enough of it to love it and want to see it more than once. It is not going to be a movie for everybody, and likely the weirdest film I will see this entire year. It is a shame it is coming out so close to Dr. Strange 2, which will also go for some similar multi-verse themes. But I think Everything Everywhere All At Once will stand up on its own, and it will likely go a lot farther than a Disney backed super hero movie.

Finally, Yeoh is the main character of this film, and she does an amazing job, a character unlike one she ever really plays in my eyes. But Quan and Hsu are a big part of the heart and soul of the film. Because in the end, it is still a very touching family film, and like lots of other films recently, dealing with generational trauma and overcoming the sins of our ancestors. I hope to see big things from Quan especially in the future.

I Want You Back is by far, The Jackson 5’s best song release, and I will fight you over this statement.

It can be a good name for a movie too, but in 2022, it does have a creepy vibe to it. Winning back someone’s love is really something that should be reserved for a film, and probably not practiced in real life. If someone has moved on, we need to respect that, and they don’t need to be harassed by you.

Maybe I should reconsider the song being their best, given the message and what I know now, today? (Editor’s Note: Nah, I am fine with it being in a time capsule from the 1970’s. And I don’t want ABC to be the best song anyone’s done either).

With a name like I Want You Back, will a film do very creepy things and write it off because woo movie romances, or it will accept that times are a changing and acknowledge the awkward messaging behind that line? Well, let us go and see.

This is a scene where a break up happens! 

Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) are about to get DUMPED. They are in kind of long relationships, no engagements yet, but their partners are done. Peter’s ex girlfriend, Anne (Gina Rodriguez) acknowledges that Peter is charming and fun to be around, but she wants to have someone who is more experienced in life and is working on improvement, like the new drama teacher at her school, Logan (Manny Jacinto), whom she is going to start dating.

Emma’s ex boyfriend, Noah (Scott Eastwood), is a personal trainer, very athletic and outgoing, and is tired of Emma being at a stand still in her life. She has no direction, no drive, she is fun and funny, but she doesn’t seem to care about her future. The new person he found? Ginny (Clark Backo), has her own restaurant, meets with important people and has a big following.

So their exes have moved on, and Peter and Emma are left behind in a rut they did not see coming. They didn’t know each other, but they ended up meeting when they both went to a stair case to cry at, and hey, a friendship was born. Thanks to their similarities, they do find out about each other’s break up and hatch a plan to help win back their exes. Yep. Good idea. Emma is going to volunteer at the middle school musical rehearsals and seduce the drama teacher, so that Anne will think she made a mistake. Peter cannot do the same thing at all, so he will instead try to befriend Noah, become a client of his, and maybe convince him that his last girlfriend was clearly way better than his new one.

Nothing will go wrong, and everyone will get what they want and no creepy stuff at all, nope nope nope. Also featuring this kid, Luke David Blumm, in a weirdly more important role than anyone would have guessed.

This is a scene where a breakup happens!

The problematic nature of trying to win your ex back, I do believe, is noted in this film. At no point does a character say, “Oh wait, this is really toxic and messed up, lets stop.” No, not that. However, in the process to try and win them back, a lot of bad stuff does happen. And characters learn that what they did is bad. So for comedy sake, the things did have to occur obviously, but hey, the characters learned lessons, achieved growth in several different ways, in the process. That is a much better story than the classic win back your ex romcom of the 80s and 90s. Success!

Day and Slate are WONDERFUL together. Once I first saw the poster for this, I knew it would just work well. As far as I can tell, they haven’t worked together in the past, but they are both comedians, have played frantic characters, and have gone to the extremes. I knew their vibe and likely improv would play well together.

For the rest of the supporting cast, most of them do a great job as well. Eastwood is given the most time to really show off his own humor skills. This is only my second time seeing Jacinto in a role, and it is very different than his part in The Good Place. Both of the males of the new relationships are the focus, so the other women are given the least amount of time. Rodriguez has to play someone uncomfortable and nervous mostly, so it isn’t as strong as a role to remember as the rest, given her character is meant to not really stand out. And Backo, out of everyone, really plays the “straight” role here, for more context away from Slate, so they barely focus on her at all.

I did not expect there to be so much Little Shop of Horrors in this movie either. So that was a pleasant and welcome surprise. Hell, I cried during one of the scenes, because I love Little Shop of Horrors and because I am a basic bitch. Also one of my favorite jokes definitely came from a pun related to that show and its lyrics.

I think this movie is an example of a Rom Com that really dives into the comedy elements and goes hard for laughs, and definitely delivers. I chuckled to myself a lot, despite watching it by myself. The only part I really didn’t love is the last, 50 seconds or so. It makes sense for that scene to happen, and it is one of those that you could telegraph and guess before it happens. But still, it is a bit uncomfortable at the same time. Not enough to suddenly dislike the movie, but it is a definite eye roll.

Illumination entertainment keeps putting out movies, and they keep remaining less than stellar and below average, sometimes even bad and horrible. They rose to fame with Minions and forgot that if they want to compete with the big boys they need good stories, not just retreads of old movies.

The first Secret Life of Pets was basically just Toy Story, but with pets, and more violence to make it worse. Fun.

And in between the movies, we had all the bad Louis C.K. stuff, after they already announced The Secret Life of Pets 2! Oh no, will they recast the dog or replace him completely? They went with recasting. And they must have focused entirely on the recasting, because they couldn’t even come up with a single good story for this sequel to exist, with technically limitless possibilities.

Just dogs doing dog things.

Max (Patton Oswalt, a change!) and Duke (Eric Stonestreet) are now good pals, living together, being great. But there is going to be a change in the house. An addition??? Yes, a baby. Something that changes their lives, but something Max feels very protective over. And before the kid can go to school, they take the dogs to a farm to hang out? To have a vacation, I don’t remember at all.

While Max learns to be a better dog, he leaves a toy with Gidget (Jenny Slate) who has a whole big adventure with cats because of that.

And also Snowball (Kevin Hart), now a nice happy pet, likes to pretend he is a super hero. And by doing that, he has to help save a white tiger from a mean circus guy, which puts them on the run from these scary wolf guys who want the tiger back.

Also starring Harrison Ford, Tiffany Haddish, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Bobby Moynihan, Hannibal Buress, and Ellie Kemper.

Hey, that’s not a real cat. You’re a phony!

What do I mean when I say no single good story? Because this film needed to have three main stories instead, and loosely (read: Badly) bringing them together at the end to pretend this was a coherent thought.

It started off with our leads, but to be honest, the main story seems to really be about Snowball and the tiger. It is the plot that at least sort of brings everything together.

None of these stories on their own are enough to carry this movie. It keeps switching between plots, and honestly, the Max plot just feels like filler, and the Gidget plot has amusing moments, but not enough to be worth it. Hart’s character was the best part of the first film, and so it makes sense for him to have a bigger role, but he was less confident and exciting than the first film, for whatever reason.

I also complained that there was excessive violence in the first film, or at least violence being the solution to the problems. And well, same here. I also complained that we had too many pets driving vehicle ridiculousness, which was a theme for movies that year, and they only sort of did it this time.

Overall, this movie feels like they wanted to just make it a TV series, but were given a bigger budget and put a few ideas together. Gotta rush out those sequels, or else they might have to make more Despicable Me movies!

Hotel Artemis started advertising not that long ago and then went really hard at it. I avoided watching any trailers, but it did have a ton of posters, character spotlights, and general social media campaign.

I definitely thought and just assumed it was the same hotel in John Wick: Chapter 2, because again, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to it.

I also went in expecting a shoot out, broken rules, high famous people death count, and so on.

Really, the only reason I was interested in the movie was due to the people acting in it.

Including this formerly elusive fucker who is trying to be in everything the last year.

Hotel Artemis is less a hotel and more a hospital. It is in a penthouse of a large building in Los Angeles and it is a secret organization for criminals. After all, every hospital out there is for the good guys and regular guys, so why not a place for criminals. You cannot just be bad and get in, you have to join their club and pay your membership dues.

Basically, as long as there is an empty room and you are a member, you will have a place to go and get patched up without alerting the authorities. And this film starts with Waikiki (Sterling K. Brown) and his brother (Brian Tyree Henry) hurt after a robbery gone wrong making it over to the facilities. It is the future and LA is having big riot problems over clean water, so everyone is on edge.

Thankfully, they get patched up by the Nurse (Jodie Foster) just swell, and just have to wait for a new liver to be created for his brother. They find out that the current patrons of the hotel are not all there by coincidence, and that greater and more deadly stakes are afoot at this place they thought was safe.

Also starring Sofia Boutella, Dave Bautista, Charlie Day, Jeff Goldbloom, Jenny Slate, Kenneth Choi, and Zachary Quinto.

Finally, some hired help who can punch and sew.

Hotel Artemis is a film that has some cool and interesting ideas, but never really reaches its goals.

The plot is a bit shit. We have good reasons for future riots, those are believable, but the backstory for the Nurse takes too long to play out despite being one of our major points. The plot line with Boutella was average, and Brown’s was more fleshed out, but still didn’t feel really worth it. Tons of hype around Goldbloom, but in the end it also lacked a huge amount of oomph in the trunk.

It also didn’t have as much action as promised. Sure, we do get a few creative deaths and really well choreographed and decorated rooms, but the action itself is weak. Near the end it looked like there would be two different hallway scenes. One of them was interesting despite the many camera cuts, the other fell completely flat and denied the viewers of a great brawl aspect.

And yet, there are still elements to praise. For example, Foster was completely into this character. She had the quirks, the voice, everything felt unique. Foster transformed herself for this role and really, I couldn’t tell Foster was behind it at all. Probably her best role in over a decade.

Almost all the actors seemed to be acting in ways that were very uncommon for them. Brown doesn’t really play shooting criminal badasses, Day is generally spastic, but this time he was wormy and theoretically “cool” with a different voice, Quinto played a character who was definitely slow witted, and Slate wasn’t completely annoying.

The cast of characters is the reason to watch this movie, but it will unfortunately leave you just watching it once. Too many plot points that don’t go too many places will leave the story forgettable and the idea a wonderful dream.

In 2014, Gillian Robespierre directed a small indie film called Obvious Child, starring Jenny Slate.

And it frankly was the best thing Slate has ever done. She is in a lot of kid movies weirdly enough, along with voice roles, so those rarely are anything noteworthy. And then on the other end of the spectrum, she can be in these raunchy/annoying roles that make you remember her, but usually in a negative way.

Obvious Child was a nice balance between outspoken and notable in a good way.

So I was excited to hear that the pair had teamed up for a new movie, Landline, not at all related, but hey the same director and same star.

And hardcore tobacco use in a bathroom. Is this what Mötley Crüe was talking about?

Dana (Slate) is an adult, working a job, and living with her fiance, Ben (Jay Duplass), who is a bit boring. And by that I mean their life is routine, their sex doesn’t lead to climax, and every time they try to spice things up it goes wrong. Her younger sister, Ali (Abby Quinn) is almost graduating from high school and thinking about colleges. She is super smart, but she is getting into dumb positions and working with drugs, putting a strain on her future.

But we are really here to talk about their parents. Alan (John Turturro) and Pat (Edie Falco), who are going through weird times. Turns out that Alan might be cheating on Pat, thanks to Ali finding a disk with some erotic poems to a mysterious C. Oh yeah, I mean floppy disk, because this takes place in the mid-90’s.

While that is going on, Dana separates from her fiance temporarily to find herself, which she does in the arms of a friend from long ago, Nate (Finn Wittrock). Oh boy, time for everyone to have panic attacks about their lives and question all of their relationships!

Also starring Raffaella Meloni as “C”.

The face you make when you realize your dad was actually cheating with the hibachi chef the whole time.

Landline is going to be remembered as one of those movies that really just fit the okay rating. It had some things happen, some notable moments, but the whole thing failed to stick with me in anyway. I don’t even have any large complaints. No one acted terribly and no character felt badly written. Everyone in the family was pretty realistic, as were their relationships and attitudes towards each other. It just didn’t resonate.

And hey, I didn’t even find Slate annoying in this film, that is a first!

I was most impressed with Turturro, he did a lot with his face and body, despite a more limited screen time than the two lead actresses.

Also the ending of the film felt wrapped up too nicely. It ruined a bit of that realistic feel and turned back into a movie, but one that didn’t match the way one would assume with the choices a few characters had made.

The good news is it wasn’t terrible, so I would be more than willing to watch another team up with Robespierre and Slate. Unlike the team up of Wahlberg and Berg.

If you are new here, I have rallied against animated films so far this year. We just had a summer with Cars 3 and Despicable Me 3, both incredibly bad to super bad films. And these are our tent pole films for the year more or less!

There is very little hope of animated films saving it by the end of the year, but I openly acknowledge that I had not yet seen The LEGO Batman Movie. I know a lot of people enjoyed it, our first LEGO movie since The LEGO Movie.

But I am one of the people who only gave The LEGO Movie a 3 out of 4, it was no where close to being my favorite animated movie of the year, but it was quality and hilarious, I give you that. Despite that, I was never looking forward to this movie. I was disappointed to hear it as a sequel.

I want some new original LEGO content, not relying specifically (mostly?) on pop culture content from a single established franchise. I also acknowledge that the previous LEGO film was FULL of pop culture content, but it wasn’t entirely. This just feels…well, unoriginal.

Now that brightly colored chap, he seems like a great way to take any brooding franchise.

Ah yes, Gotham, city of villains and crime and 1 super rich dude and some vigilantism. Batman (Will Arnett) is the best and everyone loves him! But he lives a life alone, mostly hanging out in his house, sometimes interacting with Alfred (Ralph Fiennes). But you know, just being a lone with all his money, cool gadgets, and lobsters.

He is still really good at fighting crime though, and even when the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) gets a shit ton of villains to work together to blow up the city, Batman still stops them. Even worse, Batman refuses to acknowledge the Joker as his greatest villain, his foil, his reason for Batmanning. So now the Joker feels bad. Batman just shuts the door on everyone!

However, with a new commissioner in Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), they are going to focus less on Batman and more on actually catching these bad guys who still terrorize the streets. And you know, maybe focus on getting them fixed instead of just imprisoned. And shit, it starts to work, so Batman has even less to do and no one to hang out with in his increased downtime. Except for Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), whom he accidentally adopted.

Of course eventually some stuff happens and things get really bad, but Batman has to learn to work with others if he is going to defeat this new threat!

Featuring an incredible slew of famous people doing extremely minor voices, because YOLO. Seriously, most of these people have like, 1-2 lines, or grunts, or one scene.Again most, there are like two people thrown in here who have slightly more lines. Totally pointless for the most part still, so, whatever. We got Adam DeVine, Billy Dee Williams, Channing Tatum, Conan O’Brien, Doug Benson, Eddie Izzard, Ellie Kemper, Hector Elizondo, Jason Mantzoukas, Jemaine Clement, Jenny Slate, Jonah Hill, Kate Micucci, Mariah Carey, Riki Lindhome, Seth Green, and Zoe Kravitz.

And just think, that wall of text is just the famous people you know who did voices.

Right away in the film, we get introduced to the Joker and his plans to take over Gotham once and for all, with a giant team of villains on his side, which are all presumably real Batman villains. Action, fighting extreme. I was shocked it happened so early, but since this film mostly deals with Batman’s loneliness, we needed to just get him doing Batman stuff, so we could see him existing waiting to do more Batman stuff.

And that part was just…okay. It didn’t connect with me on an emotional level or anything, because this is a film focused on comedy, so it went for quick jokes instead. And to contrast the opening, the ending is long and even more action packed. Even more villains, many more than you’d expect in a Batman movie, and explosions, and action and…

Being overwhelmed. That is what this movie felt like. It went to the extremes early on, then it went to the extremes in the end. In the middle, it is mostly lowkey, plot stuff. My body didn’t enjoy the “rollercoaster”. It failed to find a middle ground, and frankly, basically all of the action felt so excessive that it was not enjoyable from my point of view.

The best parts of the film were just Batman interacting with Robin and Barbara, regular dialogue for regular jokes. But the majority of the plot was off, along with my earlier complaint. It was an okay film when it comes to entertainment, but not one I am rushing off to buy and talk about over and over, like The LEGO Movie.

And now, also this year, we have The LEGO Ninjago Movie? This is based on their own IP, so hopefully they stick to their own stories to give a good film and don’t rely so heavily on other franchises pop culture references.

Oh my damn. Here we go. A continuation of a bad franchise, hitting its trilogy mark after an equally bad spinoff. Does that sound familiar? This summer is Deja Vu-ing.

I will be honest when I went in with the lowest of expectations with Despicable Me 3. I mean, how could it get worse? It really couldn’t. It would just be more of the same, probably.

But it was announced over a year ago that Trey Parker, of BASEketball, Cannibal! The Musical, and yes, South Park fame would be voicing the villain. Parker! Crude humorist! Apparently it is something a lot of R rated people do, voice a kids movie so that their kids can finally see something that they have done.

At first I thought it was just another rando-celebrity signing instead of a nice voice actor. But then I remembered that Parker is a voice actor, he voices a shit ton of characters. So it won’t just be his regular talking voice, but an actual character! Hooray!

And that character ends up sounding up mostly like Randy Marsh.

And if you look closely, it should look a bit like a Randy too.

For whatever reason, this franchise still exists with the title of Despicable Me, because as we all know, Gru (Steve Carell) is now a “good guy” taking care of his girls and his wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), who needs no taking care of. They are both members of the Anti-Villain League, and you know, trying to stop the bad guys.

After a failed encounter with Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), an 80’s kid TV star whose show was cancelled due to puberty, and now world villain playing his character as an adult and relying on 80’s themed reference weapons, Gru and Lucy are fired from the AVL! Boo new director (Jenny Slate).

Sad times, being fired and jobless. But he promises to not resort back to villainy, for his girls (Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel. Note: the last one is new, Agnes used to be Elsie Fisher but I guess she got too old). Also, hey look at the timing, he gets a notice that his long lost twin brother is looking for him. Apparently his parents got divorced when they were babies and they decided to break up the twins. The fuck, right?

Blah blah blah, his brother is Dru (Steve Carell), super rich and lives in a land that is like Denmark, or Northern Europe. It is time for Gru to learn about the family business…being a bad guy! His dad was a famous bad guy, and now Dru wants Gru to teach him how to be bad. Oh no.

Also featuring the voices of Steve Coogan, Julie Andrews, and Adrian Ciscato.

Don’t worry, Dru also speaks in a high pitched voice to help tell them apart.

Despicable Me 3 is basically as bad as I had imagined, but not worse. For those keeping track, I am saying that Despicable Me 3 is a better movie than Cars 3. It had issues, but not as many. It had some better moments, but not too many.

It is another franchise that decides to keep adding permanent characters to keep things interesting, instead of just making an interesting story with the characters we have. Last one we got Lucy, now we have a now twin brother Dru. However, having Gru’s father being a very famous villain/criminal who was super successful, is shit. They show photos of him in the new lair, and yes, he looks like Gru. So somehow Gru, master villain himself, has never heard of another bad guy who is older than him but looks almost identical? Unheard of. It is such a cheap cop out to introduce sudden new family members, and quite lazy.

Speaking of characters, there are too many and therefore not enough plot for all of them. Like poor Edith, I think that is the middle kid. She just exists in this film. She has a handful of lines, but doesn’t have her own story like the other two girls. Their stories Margo and Agnes, are incredibly minor though and just feel like filler because of too many characters.

The movie has the minions leave Gru, because they need to be bad things and need a villain, but he doesn’t want to. Hooray less minions right? Nope. Two of them stay behind so we get to have them with Gru still, and we get to see their minion adventures as they wander the town and prison.

I guess I don’t have a lot more else to say. With Despicable Me 3, you get a lot more of the same. The plot is weak, the sideplots are weak, some catchphrases to get people quoting the film, the animation is kind of shit (where the characters are all extremes, like too thin, too fat, etc), but that has been the norm. Just another bad animated film in the year with a lot of bad animated films.

To be gifted in academia, it can mean a lot of things. It does NOT, however, have to mean you are immediately great at math or science. You can be gifted at drawing, music, analytical thinking, synesthesia, you name it. It is a common misconception that gifted students have to be good at common school subjects.

When I was in NC, it was called AG then AIG, Academically Intellectually Gifted, but apparently in Texas it is just GT, for Gifted and Talented. The same key word is there, and it is supposed to give you a harder program to really test your limits and get more out of your education. For the most part, it is really just slightly harder material and doesn’t do a lot of training.

Being a gifted student and now teaching gifted students, I was very interested with what the hell the movie Gifted would be about. Would it be accurate? Would it show the appropriate struggles? Would the main character wear glasses?

Oh thank goodness, no glasses.

Our story is about Mary Adler (Mckenna Grace). She is 7 years old and about to enter the first grade. She doesn’t want to go, though, because she has been living with her Uncle Frank (Chris Evans) most of her life and she has been home schooled. Not fancy tutors, just good old fashioned books and practice. Sure they live in a small trailer, in a poor area, with Frank working as a boat repairman, but they are happy.

But she doesn’t want to go into a regular school. It will be too slow for her! And when she does advanced multiplication in her head to her new teacher, Ms. Stevenson (Jenny Slate), they know something is up.

Turns out she is the daughter of Pat Golding (Julie Ann Emery), a very famous young mathematician, who was close to solving the Navier–Stokes equations. It is part of the Millennium Prize Problems (Not Yu-Gi-Oh related), a series of problems that will help revolutionize math if anyone ever can prove them. And Pat killed herself when Mary was 6 months old, leaving her in Frank’s house.

But it turns out that Franks family is kind of crazy. Notably, his mom (Lindsay Duncan), who attempts to gain custody of Mary once she finds out how gifted she is. Frank doesn’t want to put her in a fancy academy school for high level training, he wants her to grow up normal, with friends her age. And thus, a nice legal battle is actually the main focus of the film. Woo, lawyers!

And Octavia Spencer is in here too, of course, as wise next door neighbor and friend.

Now picture the lady who starred in Obvious Child as an elementary school teacher. Yeah, I can’t either.

Gifted is okay, in almost every front. The acting, the story, the feels. I only cried once, which is surprising, given it being about a dad like figure with a young daughter. There was an incredibly cute scene where the girl was having a crisis, thinking that she was never wanted by anyone in her family and her mom, so Frank took her to a hospital to see baby announcements post births. To show happy families and to relate how it made them feel as well. It was touching and powerful.

But this film isn’t great at the same time.

We have handfuls of math problem montages, close ups of symbols and numbers that I guess most people won’t understand, close up of the girl’s face, and back and forth, with some nice chipper music. The worst was when she was doing an advanced math packet in her first grade class. Because that montage included Jenny Slate looking longingly at her while she sat at her desk.

And it still had some nice jokes though. Jokes about math teachers and beards. Jokes about how less civilized people will use the word irregardless. Those cracked me up, which made the movie a bit more bearable.

Gifted is a relatively simple film about an extraordinary, fictional character. Watching a first graded do differential equations isn’t exciting, because this is a movie and the actress could be doing anything. In real life, if this was a real story, it would be amazing. Oh well!

The Secret Life of Pets is just one of those animated movies coming out this year that I gave absolutely, positively, no fucks about. There are animated movies all the time and all of them are competing to be the best.

I wasn’t apathetic because it wasn’t Disney or Pixar. I like a lot of other studios, I am not some weird populist. No, I am apathetic because it is being made by Illumination Entertainment. Before this film, they have made 5 movies and they are all objectively bad. Despicable Me, its sequel and Minions were bad, The Lorax was bad, and Hop was racist and bad.

I only saw the original trailer for The Secret Life Of Pets a few months ago. Outside of the awkward title, it just didn’t look like it would be an original movie. Oh, talking pets? That hasn’t been done before. (Cough)

Now a 25 minute scene on venom drugs in a kids movie? That is new.

The movie takes place in NYC, big place, lot of people, lot of animals. And pets can talk and understand each other. Not just pets, all animals. They have some universal language despite not having the same noises.

Max (Louis C.K.) is a loyal house pet, taken as a puppy from a box for free by his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper). He is greatful for her and waits almost all day in front of the door when she leaves. He has a ton of friends in the apartment complex and across the way who like to hang out while the owners are away. There is Chloe (Lake Bell), a fat cat, Mel (Bobby Moynihan), a pug, Buddy (Hannibal Buress), a dachshund, and a bird Sweet Pea who I guess doesn’t talk, just chirps.

But then Katie comes home with a surprise. She comes home with Duke (Eric Stonestreet). He is big, he is wild, and he is taking over the alpha dog status from Max. So Max wants to get rid of him. He wants to destroy the place so Katie will take him back to the pound. They begin to fight with each other more and more, and sure, yeah, somehow it ends up with them both now out of the apartment, collars lost, just trying to get back home.

And they are in New York City. Everyone knows it is a rough and tumble place for strays. You all saw Oliver & Company. On the streets they have to deal with animal control, the League of Flushed Pets (run by a bunny voiced by Kevin Hart), and shit like water.

Also featuring Jenny Slate as the puffy Gidget who lived across the street and was in love with Max, Albert Brooks as Tiberius, a hawk, and Steve Coogan, Dana Carvey, Tara Strong, and Michael Beattie.

Duke could straight up eat Max. And Katie. And me.

Like I had feared, The Secret Life of Pets doesn’t offer a whole lot to the animation genre. The animation isn’t state of the art, with the quality looking more or less the same as the first Despicable Me film. This time there are only four or five important human characters, so their awkward proportional bodies isn’t super distracting like it is for other films. We just get slightly exaggerated pet bodies, which is a bit easier to accept.

About half of the film reminded me of Toy Story, the first one, the one that came out 21 years ago! New pet (toy), they argue and fight, both pets (toys) get lost from home and face near death to get back. Hell, there are a couple of scenes where they even have to chase a car where one or the other is trapped.

Nothing was surprising about this movie. It is incredibly simplistic and places where they could have added conflict and a bit of emotional connection are just nothing. Duke had an older owner and they attempt to find them during their time in the city. Without spoilers, things don’t go the right way. Perfect time for a nice emotional scene, but it is rushed through and another bullshit conflict is added. Bullshit conflict to move the plot is lazy, and this film is full of it.

One more complaint paragraph before some pros, don’t worry. The ending was a complete mess too. From the quickest phone call animal control response ever, to the unnecessary all out brawl between pets, to a no real stakes rescue, to the third or fourth time of the animals driving crazily vehicles, it just ended on so many bad notes. And yes, a brawl to solve a big issue is shit. Grown Ups 2 did it, and this movie did it just for a quick joke. Especially when an easy explanation could have fixed everything and taught some better morals.

Unrelated fun fact: An Andrew WK song appears in this movie. Party, party, party!

“But why with all these issues did you give it an average rating?” Well, surprisingly the voice acting saved the shit out of this movie. Kevin Hart as a bunny? I didn’t know I needed that in my life. His voice works great in animated films and his antics get less annoying when he isn’t the lead. Jenny Slate has been annoying to me in her last few films, but her as the Gidget was also pretty great. Albert Brooks as a hawk is the final amazing aspect of the voice acting. All three brought their A-game and brought it on hard.

The animation wasn’t completely average in every area either. The scenes with the snake, both seen above and as a sort of password felt really cool. They worked the 3D really well to make these animals pop out in unique ways. And shit, there was a dream sequence about sausage featuring the finale song from Grease, and it was a visual explosion of wonder.

The Secret Life of Pets won’t win awards for story, visuals, or make a lot of money. But the cast do the best with what they are given and technically make the best film Illumination Entertainment has ever made (in my eyes).

I still don’t want a sequel, because the entire idea behind all of this is just so uninspired. It feels like a straight to DVD animated film, just with some top tier celebrities to voice the animals.

2016 has a sizable collection of animated movies coming out this year. I’d list them, but that makes for a boring read.

A common theme I see is the classic “Animals doing human people things.” We technically had it with Kung Fu Panda 3, but it was at least set in the past. This year there are at least three major films with this theme in modern times. Zootopia, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing. It seems excessive, so it probably is.

Needless to say, this made me worried for Zootopia. I had only seen the first teaser trailer, and a lot of posters. It looks un-original. It looked like last year’s The Good Dinosaur. Something they slapped together after a few years, but instead they are anticipating their other film to win awards. That one being Moana.

But then again, Walt Disney Studios hasn’t let me down since The Princess and the Frog. Clearly I should just shut up and watch the movie.

Obligatory Non-Animated Sloth Related Clip.

Despite most of the advertisements I have seen, our main character is not the fox, but actually a bunny! A female bunny, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), with big dreams and aspirations. She wants to leave her farm and small village and become a cop! She wants to work in Zootopia, the main mammalian metropolis where so many life forms come together to live and work together to build something great. Of course there has never been a bunny cop before and her parents (Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake) will miss her a lot, but she wants to help other animals!

You see, in this world, humans never happened, all the mammals evolved to be human-esque and resist those primal urges to kill or be killed. Somehow still, despite the hundreds of years, stereotypes still exist for predators and animals. Go figure.

Well she makes it, but Chief Bogo (Idris Elba, an Ox) doesn’t care and makes her a meter maid. After getting herself into trouble and being extremely pushy, she is eventually able to join the big case. Quite a few animals, all predators have gone missing and no one has any leads on any of them. So Judy has only 48 hours to try and find Emmett Otterton, or she will resign from the job. Sucks.

To help her, she blackmails a fox named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to help her follow up on some leads. And of course, they become a completely opposite duo that is able to miraculously solve the case and do what no one imagined they could do.

And of course this is a big cast. So let’s not ruin it by talking about who does what and just give the list of names: J.K. Simmons, Jenny Slate, Kristen Bell, Raymond S. Persi, Maurice LaMarche, Nate Torrence, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer, Shakira, and of course Alan Tudyk,

And this guy is our new Olaf/Baymax/Horse from Tangled.

Somewhere, a little cartoon mouse with ears as as big as his head is slowly lighting a cigar, laughing to himself. Walt Disney Animation studios has been in the game for eons at this point and they know what they are doing. Sometimes their advertising may be suspect, but their current main line of films since the CGI era has not had a bust yet, and it was apparently wrong for me to think otherwise.

Zootopia for the most part was a very well done and enjoyable film. Scenes were incredibly detailed, especially during a night time rain storm in the jungle. There was incredible detail put into the streets of the main city and from what it looks like, they may have gotten an accurate scale of all the animals big and small. That is a huge undertaking in a film, instead of everyone just being of similar height ranges to human, a rhino or ox or giraffe appear much larger than our normal bunny point of view. In fact, I first thought something was wrong and things were being exaggerated by the animators because the reality is quite jarring.

Better yet, Judy Hopps is an awesome character. She is inspiring, she is funny, she does more than what anyone expects of her. And hey, Nick Wilde ends up being a complete character as well. A great dynamic duo, both with their own dreams and goals and neither being a cheap stereotype (although, yes, a lot of characters are cheap stereotypes).

Your mom’s a cheap stereotype.

And the movie is funny as well, it had jokes for everyone. Meta Disney jokes were there, especially when it came to Alan Tudyk’s character, movie/TV references (Breaking Bad!) and clever puns. I was almost dying during the Sloth scene, but apparently they turned 80% of that entire bit into a trailer. I’d suggest not watching that and letting it happen naturally during the movie.

It also happens to be about racism/prejudice or even a poor/rich sort of dynamic. It handles the topic with care and kids will be able to understand what is going on and the consequences of these sorts of actions.

Despite how much better it was than my imagination, it did still have some annoyances. The Gazelle played by Shakira, named Gazelle, felt incredibly cheap every time she was on screen or playing the new song just for this movie. More of a money grab than the Trolls from Frozen, but they were mostly just boring. The twists in the plot are relatively easy to catch far in advance. Not the minute small details, but figuring out who is behind the disappearing animals. A disappointing amount of time is spent pre-reveal, when an earlier reveal would have done wonders for building up the bad animal.

CGI movies take a long time to make and come out. But I don’t want to wait a long time to see more of these characters. They should turn this into a TV show, but not a cheaply done one. And fast. It easily works as a police procedural, and they’d have great content for years. Zootopia on its own is definitely recommended, and gives me a small amount of hope that maybe some of the other animated films this year won’t suck too much.