Tag: Steve Buscemi

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.

Oh heck yeah, it is October now! That means we get some Halloween themed movies, and of course, an increase in horror films. I am not as excited about those, but it comes with the territory.

I was a bit apprehensive about Hotel Transylvania at first. Is this just another quickly made CGI movie with a group of characters going on a journey? They have a lot of those. But then I found out it was being made by Genndy Tartakovsky, who brought us Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack. This can only lead to good things.

Like in real life, diversity in friendships is expected, with only one of each type of creature/race allowed.

Dracula (Adam Sandler) is a pretty big deal. But now he finds himself a single father, with his wife being killed by those gross mean humans in the 1800s. Well, he vowed to never let the mean old humans mess with his daughter or friends ever again. So he decides to build an enormous fortress, hidden from society. Heck, if he can also scare his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) into staying there forever, it’d be perfect. He also decides to run this place as a hotel, a premier destination that has never seen the likes of a human since its creation!

The movie takes place in modern times, the eve of Mavis’ 118th birthday! She was told she could go out and see the world at that time, which Dracula lets happen. But he sets up a fake village to scare her into believing him about the horrors of humans, which works very successfully! Unfortunately, it also gets the eye of Jonny (Andy Samberg), a human hiker (stoner?) who is able to stumble upon the Hotel and ruin its perfect streak.

Dracula has to go into a panic! He can’t just go and kill him, that would set back monsters hundreds of years, they are over that stuff. Instead he has to hide him, eventually in plain sight as a Frankenstein like monster. Too bad he is also the only one “around Mavis’ age”, and she kind of falls for him. Whoops. Can he hide the human and protect his hotel’s record, while lying to his daughter and guests? Huge cast of people at the hotel, including his friends the Mummy (CeeLo Green), the Wolfman, wife and kids (Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon), Frankenstein and wife (Kevin James, Fran Drescher), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz).

You can’t even handle the amount of celebrity voice actors!

Goods news, adults who read this (because I clearly have a large child readership base), you won’t be bored by this family movie! That is always a plus. It also isn’t full of fart jokes, only about one, which is strange for something with Sandler involved.

It had a lot of things working for it. The quick Dracula explosions, the voice acting (most characters you couldn’t identify right away their actor, except for Invisible Man), the animation, the plot. All pretty decent. I didn’t like the Jonny character at all, his voice annoyed me and his actions. I was kind of hoping Dracula would just hide him in a dungeon the whole time and be good to go, but eh, it happens. Was just a bad stereotypical modern hippie traveler.

The only other issue for me is that I just know I never really want to see it again. I don’t think it will be interesting a second viewing. Very strange, I know. But I think its just a one and done type of deal. So if you are going to go see it, might as well wait til closer to Halloween. Worth a gander, but not a buy.

The Messenger is a movie by those Oscilliscope people. If you know anything about bad DVD cases (And Blu-Ray) you know these are some of the worst. Complicated fold out mazes, and in the middle you put the disk in a sleeve. Gross. And different. I hate different. Also some of their other movies I have loathed (Meek’s Cutoff), thought were Okay (Howl) or thought they were wildly original (Rare Exports).

Don’t act too surprised. Yes that last paragraph sentence was pointless.

Ben Foster (Who you may remember as that annoying character in Six Feet Under or the lame character in the Worst X-men Movie) is in the army. But he got injured in the war! He is young and only has a few months left on his original enlistment, where he plans on probably leaving. But hey, since he is back home, time to get back with his old fling Jena Malone!

Oh. She found someone else during it and is getting married. Well shit. Oh well, he is leaving the army soon. Not like they will put him in a high pressure job like killing people right?

Right! Its the opposite! He gets assigned to the Casualty Notification Unity for his area. Aka the guys who get to go to the house and tell someone their loved one died in combat. Well. Damn.

Not his ideal position. He has to work with Woody Harrelson who has been doing it for a long time and is in the AA. Easy enough rules to follow. No contact with the people they are talking to. Have to make sure the word killed or deceased are used, to avoid confusion, and can only speak with the assigned person. No neighbors, no friends. No dawdling/waiting. No midnight calls. Etc.

So by now you will realize, man, this is going to be a sad movie. And it definitely is. We get to see them make quite a few calls to quite a few different types of family members, spouses, parents, etc. We get to experience their reaction to all of the civilian reactions. One visit they go to is Steve Buscemi, who does not take that news well. They also meet Samantha Morton, who is now a single mother. And for some reason (probably losing his ex), Ben Foster seems to develop feelings for.

If you think that is fucked up, that is because it is. Starting to like someone after telling them their husband died? Yeahhh. No way it works out.

But hey, free temporary taxi is part of the service?

Besides the sad, its obviously pretty emotional. Just watching the reactions from the parents and loved ones at the news, and en route to receiving the news is probably worth the price of admission. Receiving the news sucks, but being the guy to tell the news can’t be the best job in the world, and this movie gives an interesting perspective that is pretty widely overlooked.

Foster is the main guy, but I think Harrelson’s performance overshadows him. You can tell that the years of the job have really wore the character down, along with the guilt that other people put their lives on the line, while he is the guy who tells others, his life never in danger himself. Surprisingly very well done piece. Glad I bought it, too bad the Blu-Ray case sucks.