Hotel Transylvania & Wreck-It Ralph
So, I haven't posted in a really long time! Not much has been happening, which is good because the first half of the year sucked. A lot.
I just let me paid LJ account expire. I'd forgotten how few icons you're allowed (15) and about the ads, which reminds me that I need to download Ad-block on one of the computers I regularly use.
Went and saw two movies this weekend: Hotel Transylvania and Wreck-It Ralph. The first I went to see only because my mother really wanted to see it. My husband and I had been anticipating the second for a long time.
Hotel Transylvania was awful. I was astounded that my mom liked it. The tone was really inconsistent, and instead of the story focusing on the love between the vampire daughter and the human boy, it was almost entirely focused on Adam Sandler's Dracula character. To the point were there were more scenes between the human and Dracula (and their budding bromance) than the boy and girl who were supposedly falling in love, and when the two are separated it's the father who chases after the human to save the romance.
The outright statement that you can only have one true love (that you "zing" with at first sight) that you're stuck with for life, or screwed to be without if you lose them, was disturbing. None of the relationships in the movie seem healthy or happy: Dracula has lost his wife, with the implication there's no chance of ever having another relationship, and is creepy and over-protective of his daughter. The few married couples--the Frankensteins and Wolf-man family--seem to be in that middle-age can't-stand-each-other place. The Wolf-man family especially, with the constantly pregnant wife, the uncountable passel of unruly brat children, and the miserable husband who only has one child that "respects him" and this child is the only one coded as female. It all seemed...off.
That the vampire daughter and human boy had purple glowy eyes when they met--their zing--means that they are their only possible partners. That one is 22(?) and the other 118 (but clearly that's monster for developmentally 18) and according to the end-credits song expected to wed and be together forever also seemed...off.
'Cause when you zing you better know one thing,
The only thing you're gonna sling is a wedding ring
The combination of immature man-children and harpy, deceased or quite literally barefoot and pregnant wives creeped me the hell out.
Some of the visuals were nice, but--especially when they were trying to take advantage of 3D--they fell flat with frenetic over trying. As one reviewer I saw quoted on rotten tomatoes said, it's "somehow dull and exhausting all at once." Beyond one or two humorous lines, the rest of the film was unfunny and tedious. The potty humor fell flat every time, the lecherous moments felt out of place in a kids movie. I sat their waiting desperately for the film to end. Much of the film seemed like a Sandler ego-trip: Dracula busting out a guitar for a horri-bad song for his infant daughter, the over-focus on the Dracula character, his weird relationship with his future-son-in-law, his secondary role as another character who ate various objects then said "Wasn't me" in some pathetic attempt at a running gag. Attrocious. Combine that with the bizarre underpinnings of one-true-love and a skewed view of gender roles and relationships, and it made the film disturbing and unfun.
~~~~
Wreck-It Ralph was lots of fun. They did a good job tapping into my nostalgia for old-school games, and though I wanted to see more of the characters of those games, it made much more sense for them to confine the story to their original characters and plot and use the other game characters in cameos. You really feel for Ralph and his loneliness, and I like that every decision he made was the best decision he could from his point of view. The main female character, Vanellope, paralleled in him clever ways, and while I started out not liking her, she won me over and I really enjoyed their friendship. Fix-it Felix and the commando woman character, Sergeant Calhoun, were great in supporting roles, and had a sweet romance while still letting her character be bad-ass. There were a couple twists that really surprised me, and were subtly set up. One of the best scenes (used in the trailer) is the Bad Guys Anonymous meeting, and the Bad Guy affirmation is repeated later to tear-inducing affect. Great movie, lots of fun.
This entry was originally posted at http://jenna-marianne.dreamwidth.org/28176.html. Comment there using OpenID wherever and whenever you want.
I just let me paid LJ account expire. I'd forgotten how few icons you're allowed (15) and about the ads, which reminds me that I need to download Ad-block on one of the computers I regularly use.
Went and saw two movies this weekend: Hotel Transylvania and Wreck-It Ralph. The first I went to see only because my mother really wanted to see it. My husband and I had been anticipating the second for a long time.
Hotel Transylvania was awful. I was astounded that my mom liked it. The tone was really inconsistent, and instead of the story focusing on the love between the vampire daughter and the human boy, it was almost entirely focused on Adam Sandler's Dracula character. To the point were there were more scenes between the human and Dracula (and their budding bromance) than the boy and girl who were supposedly falling in love, and when the two are separated it's the father who chases after the human to save the romance.
The outright statement that you can only have one true love (that you "zing" with at first sight) that you're stuck with for life, or screwed to be without if you lose them, was disturbing. None of the relationships in the movie seem healthy or happy: Dracula has lost his wife, with the implication there's no chance of ever having another relationship, and is creepy and over-protective of his daughter. The few married couples--the Frankensteins and Wolf-man family--seem to be in that middle-age can't-stand-each-other place. The Wolf-man family especially, with the constantly pregnant wife, the uncountable passel of unruly brat children, and the miserable husband who only has one child that "respects him" and this child is the only one coded as female. It all seemed...off.
That the vampire daughter and human boy had purple glowy eyes when they met--their zing--means that they are their only possible partners. That one is 22(?) and the other 118 (but clearly that's monster for developmentally 18) and according to the end-credits song expected to wed and be together forever also seemed...off.
'Cause when you zing you better know one thing,
The only thing you're gonna sling is a wedding ring
The combination of immature man-children and harpy, deceased or quite literally barefoot and pregnant wives creeped me the hell out.
Some of the visuals were nice, but--especially when they were trying to take advantage of 3D--they fell flat with frenetic over trying. As one reviewer I saw quoted on rotten tomatoes said, it's "somehow dull and exhausting all at once." Beyond one or two humorous lines, the rest of the film was unfunny and tedious. The potty humor fell flat every time, the lecherous moments felt out of place in a kids movie. I sat their waiting desperately for the film to end. Much of the film seemed like a Sandler ego-trip: Dracula busting out a guitar for a horri-bad song for his infant daughter, the over-focus on the Dracula character, his weird relationship with his future-son-in-law, his secondary role as another character who ate various objects then said "Wasn't me" in some pathetic attempt at a running gag. Attrocious. Combine that with the bizarre underpinnings of one-true-love and a skewed view of gender roles and relationships, and it made the film disturbing and unfun.
~~~~
Wreck-It Ralph was lots of fun. They did a good job tapping into my nostalgia for old-school games, and though I wanted to see more of the characters of those games, it made much more sense for them to confine the story to their original characters and plot and use the other game characters in cameos. You really feel for Ralph and his loneliness, and I like that every decision he made was the best decision he could from his point of view. The main female character, Vanellope, paralleled in him clever ways, and while I started out not liking her, she won me over and I really enjoyed their friendship. Fix-it Felix and the commando woman character, Sergeant Calhoun, were great in supporting roles, and had a sweet romance while still letting her character be bad-ass. There were a couple twists that really surprised me, and were subtly set up. One of the best scenes (used in the trailer) is the Bad Guys Anonymous meeting, and the Bad Guy affirmation is repeated later to tear-inducing affect. Great movie, lots of fun.
This entry was originally posted at http://jenna-marianne.dreamwidth.org/28176.html. Comment there using OpenID wherever and whenever you want.