Review – Monsters University

Movie Title: Monsters University

Director: Dan Scanlon

Date Released: June 21st, 2013

Date Seen: June 24th, 2013

Seen with: Dad, Marcela

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

Sully and Mike are back – but this is a time before they were ever friends – at Monsters University.  We follow the boys over the course of their first year at school and the story of how they became friends and eventually scare-ers.  We see some familiar people such as Randall, Roz, The Abominable Snowman, etc., while also get introduced to a number of  cool new monsters.  My favorites were the Oozma Kappa brothers – particularly Art and Squishy.  Also, Dean Hardscrabble (voiced by the amazing Helen Mirren) is an extremely frightening creature herself.

While not as good as the original, this movie is a still awesome fun for the whole family movie.  It will have you laughing, a lot, but doesn’t have the same feel-good quality that Monsters Inc. did.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some feel good moments, but nothing as powerful as when Boo is saved by Sulley, or when he opens the door in that final moment of Monsters Inc and you hear her say “kitty!”  But this movie was still pretty funny.  One of the characters, Art, is a pretty interesting monster, because he’s one of the few non-traditional monsters (in the more humanoid like stance), but then he’s just hilarious.  I laughed at his character a number of times.  If you go see the movie – during the hide and seek scene, I actually laughed out loud.  Then Squishy is pretty hilarious as well.  His character is just weird and you want to know more about him – like why is he so squishy – and is he like a wet squishy? You never know.

If you go see this – you will have fun, laugh, and be entertained the whole time.  You won’t cry, and won’t come out with memorable lines like you did with Monsters Inc, but you’ll still have a really great time.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

During some parts of this movie – especially with just typical college life, I was thinking “oh my god, this is just like real college.”  For example, the insanely creepy, overly happy RA/enrollment people.  Why are they so peppy? Lord knows.  Also, I liked that all the clubs on campus, some were actually cool, and some weren’t – and not just talking about frats, but about the Astronomy Club, Improv club, etc.

I loved when Squishy got his moment – more than any of the other brothers of Oozma Kappa (which I just now realized is abbreviated as O.K.).  Yes, he grabbed the flag in the sneaking challenge – but when he scared in the scaring room was pure gold.  That would scare any kid, no matter what, just having someone (monster or otherwise) stand creepily next to your bed like that.  I loved it.

If you’re wondering by what I mean by “feel good” moments – it’s just that there wasn’t really any I could think of, at all, except after much thought.  The scene where Mike takes all the O.K. brothers to the scare floor and they all realize that scare-ers look different, and everyone can be a scare-er, etc.  Other than that though, there weren’t really any.  You KNOW that Sully and Mike are going to become friends, you know that they’re going to become scarers, you know they’re going to win that competition (and that Sully was going to cheat), so, it just lost some points for that.  I liked that Monsters Inc could make you laugh hysterically, while also make you cry, and then feel amazingly happy all in a period of about 15 minutes.  But alas, this movie does not have that.

 

Overall: 7/10

Almost as good as the original, hilarious, not as adorable, but fun for the whole family.

Trailer Reviews 8

Monsters University

I was excited out of my mind for this movie at the teaser trailer, then from the first trailer, and I continue being excited during this trailer.  While I do now essentially know the ENTIRE plot, I don’t care, it’s a kids movie, it’s not going to be that hard to figure out anyway.

 

The Philosophers

Despite the fact that this trailer pretty much tells you the whole movie – I don’t care. I want to see it.  I like the psychological mind game type things, and my sister and I always talk about our post-apocalyptic or zombie apocalypse survival plan (basically, she’s screwed), so I will love this movie.  Of course, my sister and I will both be yelling as to who they should/should not take the whole movie, but whatever.

 

Planes

I normally like animated kids movie but have zero desire to see this one.  Looks like Cars (obviously).  Might be good for people with kids that like planes….  but I won’t be seeing it.  It’s Disney trying to make a Pixar movie, without Pixar (ie like Cars 2, which didn’t do so hot).  So, I call skip.  Also, I just noticed who a ton of the voices are…. which should be… interesting…. Val Kilmer, Dane Cook (the main one, actually), Brad Garrett, John Cleese, Gabriel Iglesias, Cedric the Entertainer… very random assortment and I’m not sure I like it…

 

Prisoners

This trailer essentially tells you the whole movie, and looks really good, until about 1 min 50 seconds in.  It does take the completely predictable and been done way too many times turn at that point, but it doesn’t matter, I will still see it.  Paul Dano looks incredible as the creepy kidnapper.  I love the very psychological movies and watch people crack under pressure and how things effect them.  So I would have liked it better if they didn’t take the predictable route (one parent goes rouge and kidnaps the kidnapper)…. but still, I’ll see it because of how amazing the cast looks.

 

We’re The Millers

This looks hysterical, and I normally don’t like funny movies.  I will definitely be seeing this movie.  Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis? Yes.

Review – God Bless America

Movie Title: God Bless America

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Date Released: March 9th, 2012 (South by Southwest Film Festival)

Date Seen: March 27th, 2013

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

A dark comedy some will enjoy and some will absolutely hate.  Full of political messages, social commentary, and rampant violence, there’s a lot that can be said about this movie.  The movie follows Frank (Joel Murray) who has just lost his job and found out he has a terminal brain tumor.  He goes on a spree killing everyone that is “mean”.  Along the way, Roxy (Tara Lynee Barr), a 16 year old high school girl with issues of her own, joins Frank on his adventure.

I think there are two ways to go about watching this movie – for the pure enjoyment factor in that the movie looks funny, or for the social/political commentary fact.  I went about it because I thought it looked liked it’d be a hysterical satire of the US with some guns and shooting involved.  Because of that – I took the movie at pure face value entertainment and I enjoyed it.  If you go looking at it from the social and political point of view, the entire way though, you’re not going to find it as funny.  In fact, you might not find it funny at all, especially if some of the politics/commentaries mirror your own views.  Look at the director – Bobcat Goldthwait.  He’s a comedian – who has directed episodes of “The Man Show”, “Chappelle’s Show”, and over 250 episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”.  In my opinion, you’re not meant to take this movie *too* seriously.  Just like stuff they say/do on those shows.  It’s just one person expressing their views in a comedic way.  Yeah, some people might not find the movie funny, but I did.  So, I liked the movie.  There are tons of people if you just go to the imdb.com forums who don’t find it that funny or just didn’t like the movie or even over-analyzed details.  It’s a very dark satire, people. Let it be.

There is a fair amount of gun violence in this movie and a couple of times the blood is SUPER over exaggerated.  My sister and I, both being messed up human beings laughed our asses off at these parts.  Especially because a couple of the scenes you weren’t expecting to happen (ie who they shot in the room) so it made it even more funny, again, to our demented little minds.  I thought the acting was great, especially by Tara Lynne Barr, who plays Roxy.  She’s slightly annoying herself at times and you just want her to shut up – and because of that, I think she played the part of the 16 year old quite well…. probably because she was only 17/18 herself when the movie was filmed. The plot was very straight forward and slightly predictable but with more than enough hilarious scenes to keep you going.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

Again, realizing that I didn’t try (or really want to) over analyze this film.  I took it for what it was at face value.  Yes, sue me for not looking deeper into the movie!  I just don’t care to because I enjoyed it enough without doing so.

What was slightly pathetic is that nearly every show they made fun of or commented on, I’ve seen and/or like.  I mean, a couple were obvious, such as the main two parodies being clearly of American Idol and My Super Sweet 16.  Another one they clearly parody that I recognized was the “Bad Girls Club” and various political talk shows and morning shows.

Some people comment that this movie had no character development and no real clear direction.  Or that halfway through the movie it started to get messy.  I agree that there was no character development, but I also don’t think it was necessary.  On a related note, I disagree that there was no direction or that the movie started to get messy and not thought out.  Go back again to our director and writer, Bobcat Goldthwait.  Remember those shows he directed?  Remember what his previous job was (stand-up comedian).  He made the movie with a clear intention – an extended, dark satire of the American society.  Yes, there wasn’t any character development – but there didn’t need to be to get his point across.

 

Overall: 7/10