3 Best Movies To Watch After Monsters Inc. (2001)
Neighbors
Josh Forbes’ uneven horror-comedy goes nowhere after a while, but has fun getting there. Apartment life means having to give up most expectations of peace and quiet. I’ve had a neighbor who spent most of his days listening to disco music set at eleven on the volume dial, occasionally letting out a joyful “woo!” Another would tunelessly noodle on a keyboard for hours at a time. A third sounded as if he offered Irish step dancing lessons for extra income. Some people talk a good game about not putting up with noise, but most of us just learn to deal with it, usually by grumbling about it and making our own noise to cover it up. Every now and then, however, a person will just snap, and then you end up with Destroy All Neighbors, a likably silly horror-comedy that compensates for a lack of plot and character development with gory practical effects and a memorable performance by Alex Winter. Continue Reading →
Trolls
The Trolls movies continue to indulge in their best and worst impulses in a third installment. The poster for this past summer's R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings had a reasonably clever tagline to explain the strained dynamic between the film's two leads. Against an image of Jennifer Lawrence squeezing Andrew Barth Feldman's cheeks, a single word is placed on top of each person's face: "Pretty" and "Awkward." Nothing revolutionary in design, but it gets the job done. Best of all, that tagline also makes for an apt descriptor for Trolls Band Together. The third entry in the Trolls trilogy (based on the popular 80s dolls), Trolls Band Together does indeed live up to the phrase “Pretty. Awkward.” The animators at DreamWorks keep coming up with gorgeous-looking environments for the titular critters to inhabit that look like they emerged from the wreckage of a craft store explosion. Unfortunately, the writing remains as stilted as ever. Continue Reading →
The Garfield Movie
When I was around thirteen, two classmates, Christina and Taylor (their real names, it’s not like they’re going to read this), played a prank on me that resulted in my eating dog food. In retrospect, it could have been worse: nobody else saw it happen, and for whatever reason they kept it to themselves. But when I think about my teenage years (and I try not to much at this point in my life, other than at a superficial pop culture level), my mind often goes to that moment. Continue Reading →