You can always tell a Milford man
SPRING BREAK PENNSYLVANIA started this weekend with a trip to Milford, PA. It's only about 80 minutes away once you get out of the NYC traffic; I didn't know you could get to anywhere in Pennsylvania that quickly from here. It's kind of a cute town. We saw some kayakers go over some falls and I took like twenty pictures of that alone. My unofficial goal is to take at least one roll of film every month for at least the rest of the year. I couldn't, however, take pictures of The Lincoln Flag at The Columns Museum in "downtown" Milford. (Actually, it's a good half-mile or so away from the town's single, as far as we could tell, traffic light, so maybe that's considered the outskirts of Milford.) (Actually, Milford's outskirts, like the outskirts of most quaint and/or tourist-friendly towns, are dotted with cheap motels obviously put up in the hope that the hotels in [whatever town] proper will often be booked, and/or that visitors without reservations will stop at literally the first place they see.) As the web page implies, The Lincoln Flag isn't 100% absolutelydefinitely stained with Lincoln's blood. But it may be. So I may have seen Lincoln's dried blood. But I couldn't take a picture of it, nor could I poach a sample for my cloning experiments. Another day, sweet Zombie Lincoln.
By about 3:30PM on Saturday, Marisa and I had eaten several comped meals, been to most of the weird-quaint-crap stores in Milford, and, as such, almost completely exhausted Milford's resources, so after dinner we drove back over state lines to the closest movie theater, in Middletown, NY. Clearly, Blades of Glory was the priority. It's not as excellent as the Ferrell/McKay comedies, and in fact feels something like a couple of younger guys trying their hand at a Ferrell/McKay comedy with a less particular sensibility, but that just means it's funny rather than hilarious. Usually, a silly comedy getting in and out in about 90 minutes is admirable, but here I wish they'd allowed more characters and scenes and subplots to play a little more; the whole movie feels cut down to the bone, unnecessarily. Insane digressions are a Ferrell trademark, and with a cast this packed full of comedy people, you can afford to play around a little. A lot of laughs remain anyway, but Amy Poehler & Will Arnett (as a brother-sister skating team) in particular could've used more screentime. It's kind of a stopgap comedy for all involved -- I'm assuming Knocked Up and maybe Super Bad will be the real comedy-nerd events of the year -- and Ferrell oughta quit the sports-comedy thing (he's got a basketball comedy in the works, but that gets a pass because it also employs Will Arnett), but you know, Blades of Glory, you buy your ticket, you laugh, you look at Jenna Fischer acting goofy in lingerie, you get your money's worth. Plus we got a free full-size movie poster for some reason.
After that we snuck into Meet the Robinsons. It's an odd little movie. In contrast with A.O. Scott's assertion, it's far from the worst cartoon Disney has ever put out, and I think kids will probably enjoy it. It's visually inventive and often amusing with a sweet message, but the filmmakers don't let any of that speak for itself, cluttering the movie with excess dialogue, most of it not very good. There have been some really funny recent Disney movies; The Emperor's New Groove has the kind of energy and humor that movies like Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons (both of which share creative teams with Groove)seem to strain to imitate. I think Meet the Robinsons would've been more than intermittedly delightful if they didn't try so damn hard. I'll have more on this later in the week when a full review goes up on PopMatters. In the meantime, this week's column is about crappy Hollywood thrillers.
By about 3:30PM on Saturday, Marisa and I had eaten several comped meals, been to most of the weird-quaint-crap stores in Milford, and, as such, almost completely exhausted Milford's resources, so after dinner we drove back over state lines to the closest movie theater, in Middletown, NY. Clearly, Blades of Glory was the priority. It's not as excellent as the Ferrell/McKay comedies, and in fact feels something like a couple of younger guys trying their hand at a Ferrell/McKay comedy with a less particular sensibility, but that just means it's funny rather than hilarious. Usually, a silly comedy getting in and out in about 90 minutes is admirable, but here I wish they'd allowed more characters and scenes and subplots to play a little more; the whole movie feels cut down to the bone, unnecessarily. Insane digressions are a Ferrell trademark, and with a cast this packed full of comedy people, you can afford to play around a little. A lot of laughs remain anyway, but Amy Poehler & Will Arnett (as a brother-sister skating team) in particular could've used more screentime. It's kind of a stopgap comedy for all involved -- I'm assuming Knocked Up and maybe Super Bad will be the real comedy-nerd events of the year -- and Ferrell oughta quit the sports-comedy thing (he's got a basketball comedy in the works, but that gets a pass because it also employs Will Arnett), but you know, Blades of Glory, you buy your ticket, you laugh, you look at Jenna Fischer acting goofy in lingerie, you get your money's worth. Plus we got a free full-size movie poster for some reason.
After that we snuck into Meet the Robinsons. It's an odd little movie. In contrast with A.O. Scott's assertion, it's far from the worst cartoon Disney has ever put out, and I think kids will probably enjoy it. It's visually inventive and often amusing with a sweet message, but the filmmakers don't let any of that speak for itself, cluttering the movie with excess dialogue, most of it not very good. There have been some really funny recent Disney movies; The Emperor's New Groove has the kind of energy and humor that movies like Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons (both of which share creative teams with Groove)seem to strain to imitate. I think Meet the Robinsons would've been more than intermittedly delightful if they didn't try so damn hard. I'll have more on this later in the week when a full review goes up on PopMatters. In the meantime, this week's column is about crappy Hollywood thrillers.