Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

  Thursday was my 31st birthday.  My mom got me Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Since I had watched Mr. Fox with her in the theater, I decided to give Cloudy a shot.

It is way cuter than I thought it would be.  It is geared firmly towards children as far as plot and dialogue, but adults won't be bored into a drooling coma. 

The tiny island town of Swallow Falls is tired of eating sardines left over from when the cannery company went out of business.  Inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) decides to come up with a machine that will transform water vapor into any food desired.  He calls it the FLDSMDFR because he is terrible with naming things.  His father (James Caan) doesn't understand why he can't just come work in the family bait shop but Flint is determined to make something so awesome the entire town will love him.  He accidentally crashes the mayor's (Bruce Campbell) presentation of a Sardine World theme park trying to get his machine to work, and gains the eye of weather intern Sam Sparks (Anna Faris).  When food begins raining from the heavens, Flint finally gets the recognition he has longed for.  Then, of course, it all goes horribly wrong.

I have to say, Steve the translated monkey (Neil Patrick Harris) was my favorite character.  Normally the animal sidekick is merely an annoyance but Steve consistently steals the spotlight.  From his fascination with mustaches to his love of gummi bears, everything he did was hilarious.  The sequel is due out later this year and I may just have to brave the knee-high crowds to go see it. 

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

  I loved the original Cloudy and I was really looking forward to watching the sequel, even though most critical reviews said it wasn't as good.  They were right, but I still enjoyed watching it.

The island of Swallow Falls is evacuated after the FLDSMDFR is deactivated in order to facilitate cleaning up all the random giant food.  Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is offered a job by his idol, inventions guru Chester V (Will Forte), at Live Corp, but finds it frustratingly difficult to get his new mentor's approval.  Then, Chester informs him that Live Corp's scientists on Swallow Falls have all disappeared while searching for Flint's machine.  He volunteers to go back and find it, bringing Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), Manny the Cameraman (Benjamin Bratt), Earl (Terry Crews), Brent (Andy Samburg), his dad (James Caan), and Steve the Monkey (Neil Patrick Harris) with him.  They discover that the food has evolved into hybrid animals, but there are other dangers lying in wait, as well.

The food puns start to get a little old after about thirty minutes but there's no denying the visual beauty of the film, and the inventiveness of the animation.  Some of the foodimals look good enough to eat, although since this is a children's movie nobody actually eats anything.  The replay value here won't be for the story or even the humor, but for the sheer amount of things to look at once they get to the island.

And Barry.  I'd watch it again just for that little guy.  He looks adorable and I bet he would smell amazing while being cuddled.

And now I feel like a monster for the sliced strawberries in my fridge.  Dammit.

Swiss Army Man (2016)

  This is the Christy pick for February, if you can believe it.  That's how far behind I am on everything.  I still have to watch her pick for March before she'll even name ones for June, July, and August.

Hank (Paul Dano) is lost on a deserted island about to hang himself out of loneliness when he sees a body (Daniel Radcliffe) washed on shore.  At first crushed that his only company is a corpse, Hank soon realizes that the gas-filled body is his ticket back to civilization.

So, when I read about this film I had assumed that Hank would use the body as a makeshift flotation device, which is gross but semi-plausible.  Nope.  He rides it like a fucking Jet Ski.  And the movie only gets weirder from there as Manny (as the body is christened) becomes a font of clean water, a compass, a grappling hook, and many other multipurpose functional tools, as well as a sincere if naive confidant for Hank to work out his many issues.

It's sweet, in a way.  Also gross and batshit insane.  It's definitely an original concept.  For pure entertainment value, it's a solid watch but I'm not rushing to add it to my collection.  Tyler wanted to rename it "Harry Potter's Hairy Butthole" because there are an inordinate number of shots of Radcliffe's ass.  Also, I could have done without the dick compass gag.  It's a little passe.  I have to give it up for the totally nuts ending and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.  She comes across as the most relatable character in the whole film and she's in it for maybe five minutes.  That's gold.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

This movie was so sweet it gave me a headache. Seriously, I thought I was going to have a fucking aneurysm. I love Pixar. They have never made a bad movie. I liked Cars the least out of all their releases but it was still hilarious.

I read four or five reviews of this movie on Friday. It was sitting at 100% on RT at the time; I haven't checked back since. It takes a lot to get me to see a movie aimed at children on a weekend where I will most likely be forced to interact with them. I still shudder when I think of A Series of Unfortunate Events back in 2004. But universal critic rating? That'll do it.

So I went on Saturday night. There were a number of children, but more annoyingly, there were tons of tweens. Who the hell let these little monsters run around unsupervised? They already skew the votes on all the reality shows, can't we not let them decide box office choices as well? Whatever.

The movie starts with a short called Day and Night and it was the first time I have ever thought 'This would be amazing in 3D.' THAT'S how good Pixar is! Thank God they seem to only use their powers for good...so far. I don't think it was quite as good as the short Partly Cloudy before Up but it was very cute.

The only negative thing I read about the movie itself was that the first 20 minutes dragged before the action really kicked in. I don't know what kind of ADHD people major publications have reviewing movies nowadays, but I didn't get that at all. The first 20 minutes were probably my favorite. I don't want to give up any real plot points because they've been discussed multiple times on other sites.

This was the first villain I felt was a little flat. He didn't have any really good lines like Syndrome from The Incredibles, and he seemed the most out-and-out malicious versus misunderstood or misguided. Maybe it's because I missed all the early promotional fake commercials Pixar released, but Lotso Huggin Bear was just as boring a villain as he was a toy. Plus he had that super-creepy John Huston-from-Chinatown kind of vibe. It made me wonder exactly what he did to Big Baby to keep him around. Blech. That's the first toy that seems like it shouldn't be allowed within 500 yards of a daycare. I'm just sayin'...

Everything else about the movie was pitch-perfect. All the new (good) characters are great without being overbearing and the ending... well, it's worth it. It'll make you remember that moment in your own childhood. At least it will if you happen to be part of the 33% of audience that passed puberty. Everyone else: it's coming. Look forward to it.