Comments Off on An Unexpected Visit – Part 2
A little while ago, I posted about kids movies with intention of seeing Toy Story 3.
Well, since then I have seen Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, and How To Train Your Dragon, and I stand by that thought…not all kids movies are created equal.
First off, I need to address these three movies in particular.
Toy Story 2: Wow. I cannot believe I had never seen this movie. It was so good, clever, and creative.
Toy Story 3: WOW! This movie was incredible. It helped that watched Toy Story 2 right before I saw it, but it was really really good. It also may influence my perception of the movie that I’m a kid at heart with a wild imagination who still loves a trip to Toys”R”Us and plays with toys regularly. Basically, this was the best movie I’ve seen in 2010 (ahead of Inception), and it’s a good thing that I was wearing big 3D glasses because I may or may not have needed something to cover some waterworks at the end of the movie.
How to Train Your Dragon: This was a good movie that would’ve been better in my mind if I hadn’t seen it after Toy Story 3. It also didn’t help that I picture all the voice actors as Rated R comedy actors and not as family fun adventure movie actors.
Which leads me to my point of this post.
As we were leaving the theater after seeing How To Train Your Dragon, my wife and I were talking about the movie in the car (as I always do). She liked the movie, and I did to as it was the third best movie I’ve seen so far in 2010 (behind Toy Story 3 and Inception), but there was something about it that I couldn’t put my finger on. I was trying to talk through some nit-picky points as to why it didn’t live up to the standards of Toy Story 3 and Up, but she wasn’t having it. Until I finally said, “It just didn’t have the love that Pixar movies have.”
And that said it all.
It is not a secret that I’m a huge fan of the Pixar movies. But I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. After seeing the movies and watching a few documentaries and interviews with the Pixar powers-that-be, it’s obvious that these movies are crafted to be perfect. There really is care and love put into these movies.
That’s not to say that How To Train Your Dragon wasn’t good. It just didn’t make me feel wowed like a Pixar movie. That’s also not to say that a non-Pixar movie like Shrek can’t be as good.
I guess what I’m getting at was ironically said best by a friend of mine. “The music, movies, and books that become your favorites are the ones that say what you’re truly feeling in a way that you can’t put into words yourself.”
Comments Off on Not all Kids Movies Are Created Equal – Follow Up
A few weekends ago, my wife and I did something that took me back to when I was a kid. We rented a movie at Blockbuster.
I may be young by many people’s standards, but I’m old enough to remember when there were no Blockbuster Video’s. It used to be that most video rental stores were independently run, and there were “good” ones and “bad” ones depending on what they had in stock. Also, my family had a little different twist, since we had a Beta VCR and not a VHS VCR. Back then, my dad was on the cutting edge of technology, or at least he tried to be, since we had a Beta VCR and a Macintosh computer in the 80’s. Unfortunately, as history shows us, Beta lost the format war to VHS, and Apple lost to PC’s back then.
For a time, there were two video stores that had Beta movies to choose from. Then two stores turned to one store, and then one store turned to a couple of aisles, down to a shelf, down to nothing.
Dad had to break down and buy a VHS VCR.
About the same time, a new chain of video rental stores called Blockbuster Video came down from Dallas into Houston and into the rest of the country. This place was awesome. Blockbuster was clean and appeared reputable. They had more than one or two copies of a movie unlike at the other places where things were always rented out. In fact, Blockbuster usually had tons of copies of new releases and, for a time, they would guarantee new releases be in stock.
Now, as a movie fan, I’m well aware of movie-snobbery. At times, I’m guilty of such a thing. I know there’s an ambiance to the independent video store culture. And I know guys like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson became great filmmakers from working at dingy video stores.
But they worked there! They could watch movies whenever they wanted. Heck, they were probably the reason that the movies you wanted were never in stock.
Without debating local versus chain stores, as a regular dude from a regular family who just wanted to rent a movie on a Friday night and expect that it be available. Blockbuster had that.
Now things have changed again. There’s Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, On-Demand, Redbox and any number of movie rental and watching options that I don’t even know about. Blockbuster is still there, and they’ve got Blockbuster Online, but as they once changed the game from local shop to national chain, it’s now shifting from national chain to on-demand and digital download.
We’ll see if Blockbuster can keep up, but in the meantime, it was good to stop by the old Blockbuster and browse the aisles of a clean store (well, somewhat clean these days) with bright lights, decent prices, and a large selection.
It makes me long for the days when you could order a pizza from Dominos and get it in 30 minutes or less or it was free. Those were the days.
All I know is I had a blast drawing this comic strip, and I couldn’t help but keep laughing drawing the last panel. Enjoy!
Comments Off on An Unexpected Visit – Part 1
Be honest, isn’t this always our thought when we happen to read a review from a movie critic.