Read This

The editors are at Rolling Stone are sadists, so they assigned Matt Taibbi to do a review of the new HBO hagiography of Senator John Sidney McCain III's life, and he is brilliant and savage:

I hope my editors boil in oil in the afterlife for asking me to review John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls, the new HBO doc that premieres Memorial Day and stars David Brooks, Henry Kissinger, George W. Bush and a succession of other wax-museum escapees who line up to evade and prevaricate about things McCain-related and not.

The review copy might as well have been titled, Go Ahead, Say Something Bad About a Terminal Cancer Patient. I felt like a monster 20 seconds in.

It is a beautiful take-down, with quotes like this:

So McCain brought in Sarah Palin, who was a hell of a change, all right, with the IQ of a cheese-wheel – she made Dan Quayle sound like Spinoza. McCain's campaign was cooked from that moment, because as the months passed, he couldn't conceal his growing contempt for his own decision, leading to a fracture within the party that has persisted to this day.

This review is a thing of beauty, and you need to read the whole thing.

Some Commentaries on the White House Correspondents's Dinner

First, read Matt Taibbi, who unloads a righteous can of whup ass on the chorus of whines from the "elite" press that must be read, and while both the New York Times and the Washington Post published articles that similarly extolled the virtues of comedy and the condemned the general uselessness of the establishment press.  (Here and here)

Basically, it's the same pathetic self important hurt feelings that we saw after Stephen Colbert cut the White House press corps(e) a new asshole in 2006.

If There Were a Nobel Prize for Snark………

Then I know who would win the award this year.

Emmett Rensin decided to write a review of Hillary Clinton's campaign memoir, What Happened, as if she had never heard of either Hillary Clinton or the 2016 campaign.

It is an inspired bit of sarcasm, and it is absolutely brutal.

I cannot excerpt it in a way to justice.

Just read it.

Deep Wisdom

In his review of the Clinton campaign tell all Shattered, Nathan Robinson and he provides a potent insight, specifically that there a number of factors that had to coincide for Clinton to lose the election, and that the Democratic Party political establishment needs to focus on the ones that are they have control over, and those factors are the fault of the Democratic Party political establishment.

The alleged Russian meddling in the election and Comey's behavior are both unlikely events, while the fact that the party establishment went all in on the worst possible candidate, and the party's consultants ran the worst possible campaign.

The last two items are something that could be fixed the next time around, though it's clear that neither party establishment, and the consultants who feed off the party apparatus want this to happen, since it means less for them.

The problem, much like the sitcom Seinfeld, the Democratic conventional wisdom calls for the party to be about nothing, and a bad something with bad hair and bad ideas still beats nothing:

………

First, let’s be clear on what we mean by identifying something that “caused” the result. Because the election was extremely close, and well under 100,000 people would have had to change their minds for the result to be different, hundreds and hundreds of factors can be identified as “but for” causes of the result, i.e. but for the existence of Factor X, Clinton would have won. So, say we narrow our 500 “but for” causes down to 4: the Clinton campaign’s incompetence, the Russian leaking of embarrassing internal documents, obstinate voters who refused to come out for Clinton, and James Comey’s letter. If we assume for the moment that we think each of these had an equal effect, we can see how it’s the case that in the absence of any one of them, the result would have changed:



That means that the decision of which factor to pick out for blame is subjective. Since both Comey’s letter and Clinton’s incompetence are equal causes, in that without one of them the result would have tipped in the other direction, the person who blames Comey and the person who blames Clinton are equally correct. Again, the actual chart would have about 5 million causes rather than 4. But the point is that we have to decide which of these causes to focus our attention on.

Thus the statement “The Clinton campaign lost because it lacked vision, authenticity, and strategy” is consistent with the statement “If it wasn’t for James Comey’s letter, Hillary Clinton would have won the election.” But personally, I believe it’s far more important to focus on the causes that you can change in the future. You don’t know what the FBI director will do, and you can’t affect whether he does it or not. What you can do is affect what your side does. So the Democrats cannot determine whether James Comey will choose to give a damning statement implying their candidate is a criminal. But they can determine whether or not to run a candidate who is under FBI investigation in the first place.

Note that even if you think Comey was the major cause of Clinton’s loss, it still might be advisable to turn your attention elsewhere:



If you fix the other things, then even a highly impactful Comey letter won’t tip the election. And correspondingly, even if you prove that Clinton’s own actions were 99% responsible for her loss, a Clinton supporter would be technically correct in identifying Comey as causing the outcome:


In any scenario, it’s probably best to figure out what your party itself can do to address the situation. After all, if we’re really adding up causes, Donald Trump himself is probably the primary one, yet it would be a waste of time to sit around blaming Donald Trump, if it’s also true that you ran a horrible campaign that alienated people.

You can also think certain things acted as precipitating causes without necessarily being at fault. For example, you might think that WikiLeaks was a direct cause of the result, but not think them at fault because it’s their job to post the material they receive. The same goes for the New York Times covering the email story; it might have contributed to the outcome, but you might think this isn’t their fault because they’re journalists and that’s what they do. Likewise James Comey; you might believe he was doing his job as he saw fit. And Bernie Sanders: Clinton may have lost both because she gave speeches to Goldman Sachs and because Bernie Sanders repeatedly criticized her for it, but you might think that one of those things is more justified than the other. There’s a question of which things you can change to improve outcomes, and then there’s a question of which things you should change. In 1992, for example, Bill Clinton realized that Democrats could win more elections if they adopted the Republican platform of slashing welfare and locking up young black men. This did change outcomes. But it was also heinous. And personally, I think you’re changing something about the party, you should change “Democrats enriching themselves from Wall Street speeches” rather than “people pointing out that Democrats are enriching themselves from Wall Street speeches.”

Shattered is both tragic and comic. It’s tragic because Donald Trump becomes president at the end. But it’s comic in that it depicts a bunch of egotistical and hyper-confident people arrogantly pursuing an obviously foolish strategy, dismissing every critic as irrational and un-pragmatic, only to completely fall on their faces. There was, Allen and Parnes tell us, “nothing like the aimlessness and dysfunction of Hillary Clinton’s second campaign for the presidency—except maybe those of her first bid for the White House.” And however horrible it may be to have Donald Trump as commander in chief (it is incredibly, deeply horrible and threatens all of human civilization), reading Shattered one cannot help but get a tiny amount of satisfaction from the fact that Mook and Clinton’s cynical and contemptuous attitude toward the American public didn’t actually produce the result that they were certain it would. One wishes they had won, but one is also a tiny bit glad that they lost.

Vision, authenticity, strategy. You need to have clear sense of what you want to do and why you want to do it. You need to show people that you mean it and believe in it. And you need to have an idea of how to get from here to there. The Clinton campaign had no vision, was inauthentic, and botched its strategy. But that’s not a problem unique to Hillary Clinton, and singling her out for too much criticism is unfair and, yes, sexist (especially because Bill is much worse). This is a party-wide failure, and it will require more than just banishing the Clintons from politics. If the Democrats are to have a future, they must offer something better, more honest, and more inspiring. With Republicans dominating the government, we cannot afford to end up shattered again.

Charlie Played the Lead in Little Shop of Horrors Tonight

He played Seymour Krelborn.

He did a very good job, and his portrayal was remarkably dark, at least as compared to my recollections of the original Broadway show that I saw many decades ago.

He mentioned to me that he was channeling his middle school experiences, and I saw that.

He and Natalie clearly got their singing voices from my mom, because neither my wife or I can carry a tune.

According to the Customs of My People, Chinese and a Movie on Christmas

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Cast:
Harrison Ford ... Han Solo
Mark Hamill ... Luke Skywalker
Carrie Fisher ... Princess Leia
Adam Driver ... Kylo Ren
Daisy Ridley ... Rey
John Boyega ... Finn
Oscar Isaac ... Poe Dameron 

Director: 
J.J Abrams

This is a spoiler free review, so I will not go into the minutae of the plot.

I think that J.J Abrams did a thoroughly competent job in this movie.

As my son said, no one is going to call J.J. Abrams "Jar Jar Abrams" after this.

It was worth watching in a movie theater.

That being said, I was not as impressed as my wife and kids were.

The original Star Wars was very consciously following anthropologist's Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

George Lucas has been very explicit about this.

The nickel tour of the Hero's Journey is:
1. Ordinary World
2. Call To Adventure
3. Refusal Of The Call
4. Meeting The Mentor
5. Crossing The Threshold
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies
7. Approach To The Inmost Cave
8. Ordeal
9. Reward (Seizing The Sword)
10. The Road Back
11. Resurrection
12. Return With The Elixir

Campbell posits that this is at the core of most, if not all, hero stories and myths.

I don't think that J.J. Abrams did this. I think that he was looking at doing Star Wars.

I got the sense in a number of scenes that Abrams was marking the checklist. I found it a bit distracting and I found the film derivative.

As to the performances, I thought that Harrison Ford was more playing Harrison Ford than Han Solo, Carrie Fisher was a clenching her jaws throughout her performance a bit too much .

As to the newcomers, both Ridley and Boyega did well.  Neither of them were overawed by the shoes that they had to fill.

They were both fun to watch, particularly Boyega, who has a flair for playing a flawed character finding himself.

Oscar Isaac's performance was good, but basically he was just playing the eye candy hotshot pilot.  It was kind of a throw away role.

That being said, of the 5 Star Wars movies that I've seen, I've not seen the Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, it is firmly in 3^rd, behind the original and The Empire Strikes Back, and well ahead of Return of the Jedi (I hate Ewoks) and Revenge of the Sith (I hate Hayden Christenson even more than I hate Ewoks)

I would give it 3½ out of 5 stars, but as I noted, my wife and kids all thought that it was the best thing since light saber sliced bread.

Minor Freakout at the Saroff Household

It was a good one.

I was channel surfing, and saw that The Princess Bride was about to start on one of the cable channels.

Neither of the Saroff children had ever seen this film in its entirety, so I ran around like my hair was on fire getting them down to the TV.

We also made grilled cheese sandwiches and from-scratch tomato basil soup (this started before I saw the movie).

They enjoyed the film immensely. For them not to do would be ……… Inconceivable!!!

I expect to hear quotes from the film incessantly for the next few weeks.

Something is Wrong on the Internet

As you are no doubt aware, the film Guardians of the Galaxy opened this weekend.

As the archetypal summer blockbuster, it got a lot of reviews, and one, at the Village Voice, Stephanie Zacharek, was less than charitable, which resulted in a torrent of sexist abuse directed her way:

"She's just pissed because she lives in the Village full of gay men and no one wants any of her old, dried out pie."

………

"We live in a world where 1000s of people are being beheaded and murdered throughout the world each and every day and this harlot has the nerve to knock it because it's too fun?"

Harlot? Seriously?

"She should stick to reviewing chick flicks only."

What is wrong with these people?

You can castigate a movie critic, or for that matter any critic for being unfair.

In fact the (sometimes delightfully and sometimes tediously) bitchy Rex Reed has made a career out of being this.

But simply posting misogynist rants sucks wet farts from dead pigeons, or, as Guardians of the Galaxy writer^* Brian Michael Bendis observes, " You love Captain America? Well, you know what Captain America would never do? Go online anonymously and sh$# on a girl for having an opinion." (%$ mine)

H/t xkcd for the top comic.

^*To be clear, Bendis writes for the comic book, he did not do the screenplay.^†
†Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sharon's* Birthday Movie Review

Her birthday was today, so last night, we saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

I am going to try to avoid spoilers, so the cast list is after the break, but I will be putting my guesses as to future movies (when not spoiling this one) above the break. 

First, this is a good movie.  In some ways, the best of the Marvel movies, though as I have said before, I would pay money to listen to Robert Downey Jr. read the phone book.

Captain America is simply more compelling than Iron Man, more relevant than Thor, and less contrived than the Hulk.

This movie deals with a lot of things, but at its core, it is the story of an alien, by which I mean Steve Rogers/Captain America.

He is very from another world, one which has ceased to exist, which from that perspective, is rather a lot like Superman, only Cap is far more aware of this than the guy in the red and blue PJs.

Chris Evans is good as Captain America, and Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson reprise their roles as Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow.

It introduces some new characters, most notably Anthony Mackie who plays Sam Wilson/Falcon, a kickass vet with a flying suit who I think that we will be seeing more, and Emily VanCamp as Kate/Agent 13, in what seems like a future role (if the movie follows the arc of the comic books) as Captain America's off and on love interest. (Though there is also an indication of some future fireworks between Cap and Black Widow)

Interestingly enough, the movie is rather topical, and fairly explicitly offers a critique of our wonderful world of pervasive digital surveillance that Edward Snowden confirmed to the world.

It does all this while it dealing with the issues of loss and friendship that are inherent in Captain America's back story.

I would give the movie an 8 out of 10.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.


Cast:
Chris Evans     ...     Steve Rogers / Captain America
Samuel L. Jackson     ...     Nick Fury
Scarlett Johansson     ...     Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
Robert Redford     ...     Alexander Pierce
Sebastian Stan     ...     Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
Anthony Mackie     ...     Sam Wilson / Falcon
Cobie Smulders     ...     Maria Hill
Frank Grillo     ...     Brock Rumlow
Maximiliano Hernández     ...     Jasper Sitwell
Emily VanCamp     ...     Kate / Agent 13
Hayley Atwell     ...     Peggy Carter
Toby Jones     ...     Dr. Arnim Zola
Stan Lee     ...     Smithsonian Guard
Callan Mulvey     ...     Jack Rollins
Jenny Agutter     ...     Councilwoman Hawley

Father's Day Movie Review: Iron Man 3

As I've noted before, I would pay to listen to Robert Downey, Jr. read the phone book, so we went to see Iron Man 3, in 3-D.

Robert Downey Jr. ... Tony Stark
Gwyneth Paltrow ... Pepper Potts
Don Cheadle ... Colonel James Rhodes
Guy Pearce ... Aldrich Killian
Rebecca Hall ... Maya Hansen
Jon Favreau ... Happy Hogan
Ben Kingsley ... The Mandarin
James Badge Dale ... Savin
Stephanie Szostak ... Brandt
Paul Bettany ... Jarvis (voice)
William Sadler ... President Ellis
Dale Dickey ... Mrs. Davis
Ty Simpkins ... Harley Keener
Miguel Ferrer ... Vice President Rodriguez
Xueqi Wang ... Doctor Wu

This movie will not be a surprise. It's a part of the franchise, and largely true to the conventions of that franchise.

The downside of the movie is the plot, which is overly complex, and it has problems with coherence and consistency.

This was the same problem with Iron Man 2, which I also enjoyed.

Downey is a joy to watch, but the best performance of the movie is by Sir Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin, which I cannot even begin to describe without spoiling the plot.

The dialogue is punchy, and frequently amusing, much like the two previous sequels, though the best single line comes from neither Downey nor Kingsley, but from an unnamed minion of The Mandarin, who behaves in a way in which minions would in reality.

What I can say is that the film was set around Christmas, which is rather odd for a Summer blockbuster, and a child has a rather prominent role, Ty Simpkins as Harley Keener, and he does not suck.

I also found that Gwynneth Paltrow was a lot less annoying that in the last movie.  She had less hand wringing, and did things, as opposed to being an object to be acted upon.

As to the 3-D, except for explosions and action sequences (admittedly half the movie) it was relatively understated.

I would give it a 7 out of 10.

I Saw Skyfall Tonight

Family was in town for Thanksgiving, so we all went to see the new Bond film, Skyfall

Daniel Craig ... James Bond
Judi Dench Judi Dench ... M
Javier Bardem ... Silva
Ralph Fiennes ... Gareth Mallory
Naomie Harris ... Eve
Bérénice Marlohe ... Sévérine
Albert Finney ... Kincade
Ben Whishaw ... Q

Skyfall is a very good movie, though I'm not sure that it's good Bond per se.

It does not feel like a Bond movie. It feels more like a police procedural, with a bit of John Le Carre and the Bourne movies.

It's very well done though, and much more character driven than any other Bond movie that I've seen. We do get a much more complete picture of James Bond, who he is, and why he is who he is than we have ever gotten before.

My initial impressions:

• Daniel Craig is magnetic. 
• Javier Bardem was wonderful to watch, but I wasn't impressed by the character. As a Bond villain, he was a bit "meh", and the attempt to graft in some sexual kinks seemed forced.
• Albert Finney had a relatively small role, but it was important all the same, it provides a lot of the insight into Bond's character, and he's just plain fun to watch. (He is also clearly enjoying himself while on camera)
• Ben Whishaw was good as a very geeky "Q".
• Ralph Finnes was a complex and watchable character.
• Judy Dench was kind of playing Judy Dench more than she was playing "M".

Recommended. I'd call it 8 out of 10.

No other blogging today.

I Would Pay Money to Hear Robert Downey, Jr. Read the Phone Directory

I watched The Avengers last night.

Seeing as how it was written and directed by Joss Weadon, there are a lot of good one-liners, but I think that it (barely) remains on the right side of the action-movie/action-movie parody line.

As to my favorite line, it's Downey's, "Better Clench Up, Legolas."

Movie Reviews

Over the past few days, we've seen a fair number of DVDs and one in theater movies, so here are my reviews:

Captain America:  

It's still basically a lead-in for the upcoming Avengers movie, but it is a lot better than Thor.

That's because whole Thor was about the character's back-story, Captain America is about his story.

Captain America has what the oldest story of any of the Avengers, beginning in 1941, and it ran for nearly 10 years before being folded in the early 1950s.

The Nazis, the Red Skull, etc.  are all a part of the original story arc.

What this means is that we have a real story here, as opposed to Thor's, "How did this Asgardean get to earth?" tale.

It also helps that Chris Evans gives a very down to earth performance as Steve Rogers.  He sells it when he says, "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

Iron Man and Iron Man 2:

The best part of both Iron Mans is the performance of Robert Downey, Jr.

He's fun to watch, and he is believable as a dissolute character who eventually finds redemption.  (Unsurprising)

One little detail that I loved is from the 2^nd movie, when he is going through his father's notes on a power supply, and we see a sketch of a representation of a 3D shadow of a tesseract.

The 4-dimensional hypercube figures prominently in the technology used by the Red Skull in the Captain America movie, and the (not entirely clear) fate of the Red Skull in that movie points back to the interdimensional "bridge" used in Thor.

It's something you pick up on DVD or PPV, but might miss in the theater.

One thing that I have noted in all of the super-hero movies is that the villains tend to seize whatever scene they are in, and they have many of the best lines, the Red Skull's, "Not a scratch" is prize.

That being said, Micky Rourkes Ivan Vanko/Whiplash is kind of flat, and I found Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2 to be far more engaging and funny, as is Gary Shandling's appearance as a self serving and fatuous Senator.

As to Scarlett Johansson's introduction as Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, it's Scarlett Johansson in a cat suit. What more do you need?

The Adventures of Tintin:

This movie is fairly true to the original comic book/graphic novel serials, and it was a rollicking good time, with a clear sequel in the works, which is also very much in the spirit of the original.

It's light and fluffy fare, and relishes that fact, which makes it a pleasant diversion.  It's a well acted adventure fantasy.

I'm not entirely sure why they went with CGI based on motion capture, rather than live action, except for the fact that it allowed them to create the rather caricature like faces of some of the main characters to better match those of the original Hergé comics.

We all saw the film in 3-D, and the technology is much improved over the last 3-D film that I saw in theaters, 1983's Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn.  Once the glasses were on, it just worked, even though I wear glasses myself.

It worked better, and was less obtrusive, at least when the director wasn't intent on showing it off.

One interesting note here about our theater experience, was that there was something near half an hour of coming attractions, largely also in 3-D, which I rather enjoyed.

Pay Per View Review

Well, we got around to seeing yet another movie on PPV, Thor (2011).

Chris Hemsworth … Thor
Natalie Portman … Jane Foster
Tom Hiddleston … Loki
Anthony Hopkins … Odin
Stellan Skarsgård … Erik Selvig
Kat Dennings … Darcy Lewis
Clark Gregg … Agent Coulson
Idris Elba … Heimdall
Colm Feore … King Laufey
Ray Stevenson … Volstagg
Tadanobu Asano … Hogun
Josh Dallas … Fandral
Jaimie Alexander … Sif
Rene Russo … Frigga
Adriana Barraza … Isabel Alvarez

This really isn't a film. It's a lead-in to the upcoming Avengers movie. Barely worth it as PPV, but I'm really glad I didn't drop 40+ dollars on a movie tickets for the family, and lord knows what on drinks and snacks.

The two best performances are from Stellan Skarsgård, who does a really good job of portraying a Swede (go figure), and Kat Dennings, who embraces her inner sidekick when her wailings for her lost iPod sounds just like my daughter.

Chris Hemsworth's Thor is an affable, though rather a thick oaf, which suits the script.

Natalie Portman is winsome and smart love interest, which is kind of her sweet spot of acting.

One of the truths of these movies is that the really interesting character is the villain.  Well, not this time.  Tom Hiddleston's Loki is just weak.

I'm not sure how much of this is the script, which cannot decide whether or not he is misguided or malevolent.

Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony Hopkins playing Odin.  (Meh)

The movie takes place in two places, Earth and Asgard/Jotunheim.

The Asgard/Jotunheim bits are dull. It's stilted, and dull. At least they don't to the "thee" and "thine" bit that I remember as the speech of Asgard when I last read the comic in the 1970s.

Basically the lands of the Gods and the Frost Giants seems to be little more than an excuse for excessive CGI.

There are a couple of funny bits, some car accidents and what can only be described as a "hammer time" party.

For most of the movie, S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be more sinister than benevolent.

Overall, I would give a 5.5 out of 10, a firm "Meh".

Pix after the break:

Well, This is a Pleasant Surprise

Not much to watch, and Maddow was interviewing some 'Phant, so I was flipping and AMC was showing Kill Bill.

After all the hand wringing I read over the violence, I find it stylish and quite watchable.

Meh!

Sharon^* had a conference today so I took the kids to a movie.  Because of the schedule, we saw Hop.

It's not even worth a write up. 

It was completely unmemorable, with a standard "Santa Claus faces an evil elf revolt" and "Two slackers come to responsibility" themes intertwined.

It was simply unmemorable and inoffensive, and you already saw most of the good bits in the coming attractions.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Add Him to the List of People That I Do Not Want to Piss Off

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, who is just a bit displeased at the fact that took 12 years for Duke Nukem forever to come out.

Theatrical Run Review

Well, it's Christmas, and we are Jewish, so that means Chinese food and a movie.

We got the (Kosher) Chinese food yesterday, in addition to the stir fry that I made (with hearts of palm instead of bamboo shoots), and we went to see a movie in the theater.

We was the latest Jack Black vehicle, Gulliver's Travels.

Jack Black ... Lemuel Gulliver
Jason Segel ... Horatio
Emily Blunt ... Princess Mary
Amanda Peet ... Darcy Silverman
Billy Connolly ... King Theodore
Chris O'Dowd ... General Edward
T.J. Miller ... Dan
James Corden ... Jinks
Catherine Tate ... Queen Isabelle

It's pretty much a piece of fluff, with Jack Black playing Jack Black, but Jack Black is amusing.

The plot bears a reasonable relationship first two parts of the book, though it lacks the social and political satire that John Swift put in, but considering that the original was written in 1726, this is unsurprising.

While a Jack Black vehicle, the best performance is actually by Chris O'Dowd, who is the heavy in the film.

Additionally, Amanda Peet gives a good performance, and is just plain hawt in this, though without showing any skin.

A special shout out to the send up of giant robots.

It's interesting to see the effect of CGI here, because one of the old school, and rather convincing, techniques used in such films, forced perspective, would have helped to make it more realistic.

It was a fun movie, but I would have preferred to see it on pay per view for about ⅕ the price.

Click on the pictures for full size.

Pay Per View Review

It was time for another family movie night, and Charlie chose Up (2009).

Edward Asner...Carl Fredricksen (voice)
Christopher Plummer...Charles Muntz (voice)
Jordan Nagai...Russell (voice)
Bob Peterson...Dug / Alpha (voice)
Delroy Lindo...Beta (voice)
Jerome Ranft...Gamma (voice)
John Ratzenberger...Construction Foreman Tom (voice)
David Kaye...Newsreel Announcer (voice)
Elie Docter...Young Ellie (voice)
Jeremy Leary...Young Carl (voice)

There are some parts that are very funny, but at its core it's not a funny film, it's melancholy.

The issues that are significant parts of plot are about infertility or the loss of a child, the loss of a spouse, the abandonment of a child by his father, and the descent of a childhood hero into murderous obsession.

It is well scripted, well animated, and visually arresting, and it is in its own way rather sweet and touching, but I found it to be a basically sad film.

It's a good film, but it's much darker than the normal animated fare.

Pay Per View Review

Well, it was time for another family movie, and it was my choice, and my Sharon absolutely put her foot down about the Simpsons Movie, so I chose Monsters vs Aliens.


Reese Witherspoon...Susan Murphy / Ginormica (voice)
Seth Rogen ... B.O.B. (voice)
Hugh Laurie ... Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (voice)
Will Arnett ... The Missing Link (voice)
Kiefer Sutherland ... General W.R. Monger (voice)
Rainn Wilson ... Gallaxhar (voice)
Stephen Colbert ... President Hathaway (voice)
Paul Rudd ... Derek Dietl (voice)

It's an old story, girl is going to get married, girl gets struck by meteor, girl grows to humongous size, girl gets imprisoned in a secret government facility....

Actually, it is an story. It's the Wizard of Oz story with a bit of a twist.

I realized this about ¾ of the way through the movie.

That being said, it is well animated, well acted, and well scripted, and rather enjoyable.

It's also a movie that does well with the pause and rewind buttons, because there are a number of fractured takes on old SF films and film conventions.

The big surprise here are appearances by Stephen Colbert as the president of the United States, where he most amusingly chews scenery.

Watch through the credits.

Recommended, with one caveat: If you love the golden gate bridge, you may cry at one point.

Pictures after the flip.