I Wish I Had a Monster in My Closet!

I have yet to see Chicken Little. I’m not sure it’s going to happen, at least in the theater; I suspect it would not be an appropriate use of a trip to the big screen. Quite frankly, Disney’s latest computer animated effort looks scary, in more ways than one. It’s left me longing for the most endearing of the Disney-Pixar collaborations, most especially Monsters, Inc. How can a movie about monsters be so adorable? Why hasn’t any Disney flick since achieved that level of brilliance? (Actually, Finding Nemo came close, but no others have.)

I know Epinions needs another review of Monsters, Inc. like an ostrich needs a swimming pool, but I couldn’t resist. The premise is very clever. While the Toy Story movies imagined the everyday activities of toys while their owners aren’t looking, allowing for all sorts of creative possibilities, Monsters, Inc. subverts the old idea of the monster in the closet by showing us a world in which the monsters are just ordinary folks who provide electricity for their town by collecting the energy given off by the screams of children. The bulk of the film takes place in the titular factory, which contains a dizzying array of doors – one for every child’s room in the world. (Toward the end of the movie, we actually get to see the inner workings of the factory in a scene that reminded me both of Star Wars and The Emperor’s New Groove.) The monsters take their job of scaring the children seriously but are in fact terrified of the kiddies, as evidenced by the hilariously omnipresent task force responsible for decontaminating areas that have been touched by anything from the human world.

The variety of life in Monstropolis provides a feast for the eyes. The animators must’ve had a lot of fun with this one. Each character is distinctively freakish, with multiple eyes or limbs, fur or scales, snakes for hair or the plump body of a slug to shimmy along the floor. And yet very few of these characters seem sinister at all – the exception being Randall (Steve Buscemi), the sneaky chameleon-like rival of the film’s heroes, buddies with the incredibly working-class names James Sullivan (John Goodman) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Sulley is a warm and fuzzy gentle giant, the steady, dependable top scarer at his company who finds himself inexplicably becoming attached to the child who mysteriously turns up in Monstropolis. Short, squat, one-eyed Mike has all the frantic energy of Donkey in Shrek. He’s sarcastic and neurotic and can’t seem to stop talking. The two make a great team, playing off one another perfectly as they strive to return the little girl Sully dubs “Boo” (Mary Gibbs) to her rightful bedroom before anyone finds out what they’re up to. Pixar still hadn’t quite perfected its portrayal of humanity yet at this point; she’s a cutie, but she seems far less realistic and vibrant than her monster counterparts. Nonetheless, she’s adorable, and the relationship that develops between her and Sulley becomes the heart of the film. Meanwhile, her antics ring amusingly true for anyone who has ever had to babysit a toddler.

Though Mike and Sulley get the most attention, there are a number of monsters to whom we are introduced. There’s Roz (Bob Peterson), the slug-like, grating secretary always after Mike to complete his paperwork, and Celia (Jennifer Tilly), his easily offended girlfriend whose snake-filled hair rattles when she’s angry. There’s the apparently paternal boss, Henry J. Waternoose III (James Coburn); the nerdy and servile Fungus (Frank Oz); the obligatory John Ratzenberger character (the gregarious Yeti) and plenty of other amusing characters. While the inclusion of Boo and the rampant slapstick are appealing to the youngest crowd, there are plenty of jokes and references especially for adults. The absolute silliness of the child contamination task force allowed an opportunity to laugh a bit at the anthrax scare that had the country in its icy grip when the movie came out. Monstropolis’ energy crisis also hits close to home; if only the solution for us were as simple as the one Sulley hits upon!

Monsters, Inc. is hilarious and heart-warming, one of the best animated movies I’ve ever seen. Let’s hope there are still a couple more where that came from.

Hide Yourself from Hokey Horror

I rarely post negative reviews here on Epinions, so I figured I was about due to come up with a movie I can genuinely say deserves a low rating. I caught Hide and Seek on TV one night a while back just as it was starting. If there's one kind of movie I hate, it's horror, but there was nothing else on and my parents and I decided to leave it on for the time being. We wound up watching the whole thing, though I nearly gave up on it several times. Besides being grotesque, it is one of the most absurd movies I've ever seen.

The film stars the usually gorgeous Daryl Hannah as Anne, a most unfortunate woman who spends most of the film looking - and feeling - half-dead and utterly wretched. This is with good reason, as she is kidnapped at the beginning of the film by Frank (Vincent Gallo), a quiet surgeon with a sadistic streak and a fierce fear-driven loyalty to his wife Helen (Jennifer Tilly). Having rendered Helen unable to give birth after a botched abortion, Frank selects Anne to be an unwilling surrogate, intending to keep her chained in the basement until she gives birth.

Though at first Frank seems the movie's villain, it becomes increasingly clear that Helen is the one to watch out for. When she flies at Frank in a rage and bashes him to death with a baseball bat, it seems like a fortunate turn of events for Anne, but in reality Helen is much harder to handle alone than when Frank is there to keep her somewhat grounded.

Watching the film, I was quickly reminded of Misery, though I think that movie was done much better. Hide and Seek is uncomfortable to watch, focusing as it does on one extremely bedraggled woman desperately fighting to stay alive and another who is nothing short of psychopathic. Moreover, she seems to be indestructible and conveniently surrounded by people who are either to stupid or too scared to put an end to her reign of terror. As her hysteria increases and she pursues Anne out of her home to a desolate truck stop and a hospital, the scenarios become more and more absurd. It is Tilly who carries the film, leaving the audience aghast at her freakish antics.

This does not strike me as the type of movie that would have appeared in theaters. It plays like a low-grade made-for-TV movie, complete with gaping plot holes, especially toward the end. While not as patently ludicrous as Critters 3, it is just over-the-top enough that it's never really scary. Seek this movie out for Tilly's psychotic performance, then hide it away where no one will ever see it.

Yodeling Rustlers and Udderly Tasteless Jokes

There was a time when my family never missed a Disney feature animated film in the theater, but lately we’ve been more likely to catch their latest movies on video or DVD. There are still a couple I haven’t watched at all. So I was glad when I was presented with an opportunity to go see Home on the Range with my brother last week. Dad came along, and the three of us made up half the audience in the dollar theater, leaving me freer to react to some of the film’s wackiness in kind.

The first striking thing about Home on the Range is the animation. It was the animation style, along with the Disney name, that most attracted me to Brother Bear as well, though that animation is much more lush and realistic. Home on the Range has a retro look reminiscent of 101 Dalmatians or The Aristocats but even more exaggerated. The characters, particularly the barnyard residents of the ranch known as Little Patch of Heaven, are stylized with lots of distinct shapes and bright colors. The soundtrack appropriately features a number of country stars, and it was nice to see music a bigger part of this movie than it has been in most recent films.

The story focuses on three heroic heifers: Mrs. Calloway (Judi Dench), the stuffy matriarch of Little Patch of Heaven; Grace (Jennifer Tilly), a timid and gentle cow with a fondness for singing off-key; and Maggie (Roseanne Barr), the spunky newcomer to the ranch who hatches their plan. Little Patch of Heaven is about to be auctioned off because the owner, Pearl (Carole Cook), can’t afford the $750 payment needed to keep it. Everybody in these parts is suffering because a low-down cattle rustler named Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) has swiped everybody’s herds. When Maggie learns that there’s a $750 reward out for him, she’s all too eager to make chase. Not only would the money save the farm, she would have her revenge on the man who ruined her former owner.

The three cows are different enough that there is plenty of opportunity for some entertaining banter among them. They also have a friendly rivalry with Buck (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), the self-important horse belonging to the kindly sheriff (Richard Riehle) who idolizes bounty hunter Rico (Charles Dennis). Other characters include Lucky Jack (Charles Haid), a peg-legged jackrabbit who helps the ladies in their rustler-catching endeavors; Audrey (Estelle Harris), an abrasive chicken with a tendency toward panic; Jeb (Joe Flaherty), an ornery old goat who fights with the barnyard youngsters, particularly the adorable triplet piglets; and Junior (Lance LeGault), a deep-voiced buffalo who guards the entrance to Slim’s lair. The film is mostly comedy, with plenty of pratfalls and fast-paced action, particularly a sequence toward the end in a mine shaft. It’s hard to take a movie with martial arts-performing cows too seriously.

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that Disney seems to be moving away from G-rated films. There was a spattering of adult humor in Home on the Range, just enough to move it out of the G range. Is it really necessary to have cheap shots like udder jokes? I don’t think they enhanced the movie at all. Probably I got the biggest laughs out of the villains. I loved the Willies (Sam Levine), Slim’s identical triplet sidekicks with blond bangs covering their eyes. These three don’t talk much, and when they do they tend to say the same dumb things over and over. They are clearly not very bright but they don’t seem to be malicious either. They’re just working with Slim because he’s their uncle. Slim, meanwhile, threw me for a loop. The first impression of him is of a menacing, glowering presence, nobody you’d want to cross paths with. He comes across as a pretty intimidating villain until he unexpectedly breaks out into exuberant yodeling while psychedelically flashing, googly-eyed cattle parade across the screen. This musical sequence struck me as so ludicrous that I found myself in tears, falling off my chair, while my dad and brother looked at me worriedly.

I don’t think Home on the Range is going to go down in history as a great Disney classic. It lacks the fluid animation and emotional resonance of The Lion King and other animated features whose place in the Disney canon is assured. But it was an entertaining film, certainly worth the dollar we paid to see it. And any movie that includes a psychedelic yodeling sequence is okay by me.