Monster House

Not Quite Scary Enough to be Really Therapeutic

DMR Gives Monster House a B

My Scoutmaster growing up had a little bit of Ol’ Nick in him and he liked to scare us. He was a cop and we made an annual field trip to the municipal jail. That put the fear of God into us! I remember a camping trip to an honest-to-Pete ghost town when he told us murder stories before forcing us to… one by one… touch the Victorian-era iron fence that surrounded the tiny weed-choked graveyard.

Ah, there’s something so therapeutic about a good scare when you’re 12.

I was hoping for something like that from Monster House. I anticipated a nice taut preteen scarefest from Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, the film’s executive producers. Instead I got something a little more slack from Jason Clark and Ryan Kavanaugh, who also shared executive producer’s credits.

The story takes place on Halloween and the day before. It opens when crazy Old Man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) falls dead (apparently) onto D.J. (Mitchel Musso) after coming unhinged in a fit of anger. D.J, who lives across the street, has allowed an object to trespass on Nebbercracker’s lawn and Nebbercracker really lets him have it. D.J., who had long watched the suspicious goings-on across the street, confesses to his best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner) and the sophisticated love interest Jenny (Spencer Locke) that he’s killed the old man.

Kids in the neighborhood always knew about Nebbercracker and his home. No trike, no kite, no ball is safe anytime it gets near the sidewalk or the trees of the Nebbercracker home, Old Man Nebbercracker would see to that. More strangely still, even the grass seems to suck down mislaid objects.

The day before Halloween, D.J.’s parents (Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara) head for a dental convention leaving Zee (Maggie Gyllenhaal), an irresponsible babysitter in charge. With Old Man Nebbercracker apparently dead, the house seems to be coming viciously alive, just in time for trick or treaters.

Monster House makes use of the motion-capture technique used to such great effect in 2004's The Polar Express, which was directed by Zemeckis. Motion-capture involves actors putting on suits studded with sensors that digitize their movements, including even facial expressions. The intent is to give movement a more human-like look and to simplify the animation process.

But oddly it’s the ‘human interactions’ in the movie that are sometimes less than compelling. There’s a strangely stilted scene between D.J. and Chowder playing basketball early in the movie. Twelve’s an awkward age, but not that awkward.

That’s not the fault of the technology, of course, but of the writers. That scene is balanced by one in which D.J. and Chowder, competitive for Jenny’s attention, dash into the house to save her. Man if I had a nickel for every time I dreamed of saving a girl when I was 12!

Monster House is rated PG for “scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language.”

DMR grades Monster House a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Monster House was graded straight up.

Worth Watching Press Release

Hey gang:

Here's my first press release for the blog. Let me know what you think.

Warm regards,
Paul


DollarMovieReview.net Launches With Backlog of Dollar Movie Reviews

Cheeky, valuable, interesting, and loaded with links to dollar and first-run theatres and other critics, DollarMovieReview.net is a reliable guide to what’s really worth watching at the nation’s dollar theatres.

SALT LAKE CITY---DollarMovieReview.net… the first website devoted to reviewing movies showing at the nation’s dollar theatres… is now live with a backlog of movie reviews including Talladega Nights, Invincible and How to Eat Fried Worms.

“Dollar Movies reward the patient with a big screen experience for a fraction of what they cost only a few weeks before,” says Paul Jones, the Dollar Movie Reviewer.

Reviews at DollarMovieReview.net are quick-reading, with an easy-to-understand letter grade. DollarMovieReview.net includes links to the nation’s main Dollar Movie chains, along with the major first-run chains. There are also links to other reviewers including Movie Mom, Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert.

“All these movies have been reviewed before, of course,” says Paul Jones, the Dollar Movie Reviewer. “But DollarMovieReview.net brings a fresh voice, a blogger’s sensibility… and because Dollar Movies are particularly popular with children and families… a family-friendly eye.”

Just because these movies have a second life, doesn’t mean they’re worth watching. “Cheap doesn’t necessarily mean good,” Jones says. “The highest praise you can give a dollar movie is that you’d come again, because your time is more valuable than the dollar. The most disparaging thing you can do at a Dollar Movie is to walk out on a movie. You’re saying it’s not worth your dollar, and worse, it’s not worth your time.”

DollarMovieReview.net’s review criteria is entirely subjective, but there are some hallmarks. “I love movies,” says Jones. “And like any critic I look for movies with artistic merit. But I’m also a father of young children. So I grade these movies on a curve. Elements in movies like sex, violence, profanity and the like (all things that, frankly, didn’t bother me as much when I was still single) don’t fare as well in my reviews. Moreover, kid-friendly movies will get the benefit of a doubt in my reviews; a kind of ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy.”

DollarMovieReview.net believes that it’s possible to make movies that are engaging and entertaining without being course or debasing. “Pixar has done it with every release,” Jones says. “I see part of my job as to encourage better movies.”

“I once heard Gerald Molen talk about his experiences as a Hollywood producer,” says Jones, “and he mentioned that the only R-rated movie he'd produced was Schindler's List (for which he won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1994). Someone piped up and said, what about Rain Man? He said, when he started the movie, it was a PG or PG-13 movie, not an R movie. The director, Barry Levinson, had made choices during the course of the production that turned it into an R movie.”

“I believe Hollywood is capable of producing splendid movies,” says Jones. “But too often the first sensibility of modern Hollywood screenwriters, directors, producers and actors is to make movies that cheapen and degrade. When filmmakers make those kind of choices, DollarMovieReview.net will say so.’

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Everyone's Hero

A Swing and a (Near) Miss
DMR Grades Everyone's Hero a B

For about 12 years I worked for two different media-savvy children's charities. During that time I spent more than a few hours brainstorming ideas for bringing to the world an animated children’s movie or TV series that would feature those charities. It never worked out. We had some interesting ideas, especially when it came to the charity tie-ins and promotions. Our problem was the stories that came out of development just weren’t up to snuff. We were forcing it. Our second problem was that we didn’t have a force of nature like Christopher Reeve driving it.

Everyone’s Hero, directed by Reeve, was his last project before his unfortunate and untimely death. As a movie, Everyone’s Hero has some of the same earmarks of the stuff I was involved in. It’s a tad on the precious side and the story tries too hard. It’s a nice movie, but not a great one.

That said, my 4-year-old loved it. She laughed, she was sad, and she was triumphant, all at the right moments. This is a G movie intended, and best suited, for younger kids.

Everyone’s Hero is about a 10-year-old boy named Yankee Irving (Jake T. Austin) who lives in the Bronx and is a huge Yankees fan. It’s the Fall Classic and the Yanks are facing the Cubs in the 1932 World Series. The Yankees are led by Babe Ruth (Brian Dennehy) who has a favorite bat named Darlin’ (Whoopi Goldberg).

The owner of the Cubs determines that the difference maker is Darlin’ and he orders his conniving pitcher Lefty Maginnis (William H. Macy) to steal the bat. Yankee’s father Stanley (Mandy Patinkin), who works for the Yankees, is accused of the theft and is fired by the manager (Joe Torre). But with the help of a talking baseball named Screwie (Rob Reiner), Yankee figures out that it was Lefty who stole Darlin’ and proceeds to Penn Station to track Darlin’ down so his dad can get his job back.

Yankee does just that, but how to get it to the Babe who's now in Chicago for the rest of the Series?

Like I said, Everyone's Hero tries too hard. There’s a scene with good-hearted hoboes, for instance, that really doesn’t advance the movie. And another one with the family of Negro Baseball League player Lonnie Brewster (Forest Whitaker), that seemed forced. Another scene that features Brewster’s team The Cincinnati Tigers and a lesson for Yankee on how to hit a ball, is much more fun.

Everyone’s Hero is rated G for all audiences.

DMR rates it a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Everyone’s Hero got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a C+.

Invincible

Invincible with Mark Walberg

A Touchdown for Cynical Times

I needed a little pick-me-up when I walked into Invincible, a little go-juice, a tonic, a bracer, a cordial for cynical times. And I got it. Invincible is an inspiring movie, well-told.

It concerns Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), an underemployed substitute teacher and bartender in South Philly having a hard time making ends meet. One night after he stops to play a little mean-street tackle football with his buddies, his wife (Lola Glaudini) up and leaves him. Her note, revealed late in the movie, is as cruel as a Philly winter. When his meager teaching contract is not renewed, Vince is forced to borrow from his dad to meet rent.

At the same time, the Philadelphia Eagles are coming off a miserable season and they hire Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) away from UCLA. Vermeil announces in his first press conference that the Eagles will hold open tryouts, gambling that that sounds inspirational rather than desperate to the tough Philly fans, who notoriously once threw snowballs at Santa Claus.

The people that show up are a motley bunch; too old, too slow, too fat, too inept, too stupid. “More stupid than I’m used to,” one TV sportscaster remarks to his cameraman. But there is one bright spot, Vince Papale, who runs a remarkable 4.5 40. All the more remarkable because Vince, who is 30, never played a down of college ball, and just one year of high school football.
At the end of tryouts Vermeil asks only Vince to come to summer camp.

In the neighborhood bar where Vince works the regulars go wild.

Like Philly fans, film critics are a fickle lot and inspirational movies don’t always fair well with them. But I like to be inspired. It’s only when someone does the impossible that we realize it can be done. The sports world has treasure trove of these kinds of stories and Disney is making its way through them one by one with Remember the Titans, Miracle, The Rookie, Glory Road, and now Invincible.

There’s a formula in each of these movies to be sure, but for my dollar none of them ever turn formulaic. The Beatles made a lot of great music with just three chords and a steady beat. The mark of a good movie isn’t originality, per se, it’s whether or not the story invites you in and the characters make you care.

Invincible made me care. Wahlberg still has some growth ahead of him as an actor, but his charisma is undeniable. Max, who owns the bar where Vince works, is delivered with masculine compassion by Michael Rispoli. Scenes with love interest Janet Cantrell (Elizabeth Banks) were clean, with only implied sex.

Invincible is rated PG “for sports action and some mild language.”

DMR rates it an A-.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that choose to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Invincible got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B+.

How to Eat Fried Worms

A Tasty Dish of Fun for the Young and the Young at Heart

DMR Grades it a B+

When An Inconvenient Truth came out, Roger Ebert wrote, “You owe to yourself to see this film.”

In that spirit I say to all the 7-11 year old boys within the reach of this blog: “Don’t miss How to Eat Fried Worms or Hallie Kate Eisenberg will come to your school and kiss you on the lips in front of all your friends!”

That’s right, it’s that good.

Poor Billy (Luke Benward) is the new kid in school and he’s taunted from the first moment he arrives by the class bully Joe (Adam Hicks). In a moment of bravado, Billy flicks onto Joe's face one of the worms that just tumbled out of his lunch thermos. The worms in the thermos, of course, came courtesy of Joe and friends.

Joe wouldn’t be any kind of bully if he took that insult lying down, so he intimidates Billy into a contest of worm eating the following Saturday. Billy must down 10 worms in disgusting concoctions by 7 pm or the loser has to walk the school’s hallway the following Monday with their pants full of worms. Yech!

Joe doesn’t know it, but Billy has the world’s weakest stomach. He vomits in car trips, on waterslides, when his pre-school brother has food on his face, everywhere. The contest begins and Billy manages to will himself through, even though Joe’s team finds new and ever-more disgusting ways to prepare the worms.

There’s worm omelets, flattened-worm PB&Js, green worm spinach slop, spicy stewed worms, marshmallow worms, and the namesake fried worms. Ah, the inventiveness of boys with time on their hands.

As Erika (Eisenberg) says, “boys are so weird.”

There’s lots of kids in this movie and Benward and Hicks are particularly good. Some of the young supporting actors were less so, but in a kids’ movie I usually blame that on the director.

The movie is fun and funny and it ends in honor. I’m no longer a boy, but I found the worm-eating stunts surprising easy to stomach. Adult actors included Tom Cavanagh and Kimberly Williams as Billy’s parents, Clint Howard as an uncle to one of the boys on Billy’s team, plus James Rebhorn, a veteran character actor, as Principal ‘Boiler Head’ Burdock.

How to Eat Fried Worms is rated PG “for mild bullying and some crude humor.”

DMR rates it a B+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. How to Eat Fried Worms got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.

The Ant Bully

A Cub Scout-Ready Romp
DMR Grades it a B+

Fellow blogger and new friend Rob Merrill described The Ant Bully as a boy’s movie. “I should take my scouts to see it,” he told me.

With that framing I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. 'Tom Sawyer' was a boy’s book. The fine 2003 movie Holes was a boy’s movie.

But for every Holes or Tom Sawyer, there’s 10 pieces of schlock passed off as boy ready. So what kind of movie would The Ant Bully be, Holes or a piece of schlock?

Well, neither, actually. The Ant Bully is a nice dollar movie, worth your buck and your time.

It’s the story of Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler), no longer the baby his mom thinks he is, but not yet a teen either, and harassed by the local bully and his geeky gang of toadies. After the bully takes a chunk of Lucas’s underwear in a vicious wedgy, the friendless Lucas turns his squirt gun on the ant hill in his front yard in frustration.

By contrast, the ants aren’t friendless. Instead, they live in a colony with a rich heritage, a spiritual grounding, its own culture, and a complex social order where everyone has a respected role. After Lucas attacks a second time with the hose, the colony’s leadership asks Zoc, the colony’s militant wizard what he would do. Zoc (Nicolas Cage) suggests a counterstrike at Lucas, who the ants call The Destroyer. They get the OK from the Head of Council (Ricardo Freakin’ Montalban!) and they make a strike on Lucas that night in a way that recalls Hamlet, believe it or not.

Using his own potion, Zoc shrinks The Destroyer down to ant size and he’s brought to account before the colony and the Queen Ant (Meryl Streep). Zoc is calling for Lucas’ thorax, but the Queen instead counsels mercy; Lucas, she rules, must instead become an ant under the tutelage of Hova (Julia Roberts), whose approach to The Destroyer is tender and motherly.

Much peril lies ahead for human and insects and many lessons are learned. The boy part of the movie is especially pronounced in the final reel when boy and insects join forces to battle a overzealous exterminator (Paul Giamatti).

The Ant Bully’s animation is first-rate and well imagined. The only that keeps it from being a top-rated movie is that the story is a little loose and the editing a little haphazard.

The Ant Bully is rated “PG for some mild rude humor and action.”

DMR gives it a grade of B+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. The Ant Bully got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.

Barnyard

Farmland Fun for the Whole Family
DMR grades it a B+

Barnyard is a surprisingly tight, funny animated film for the whole family built on the premise that once the humans aren’t looking, the animals are walking on two legs, talking, making fun of us, and partying like it’s 1999.

Barnyard wasn’t particularly well reviewed, but the rule of thumb with dollar movies is that the longer a film stays in first run, the better the audience likes it. Barnyard opened August 4, the same day as Talladega Nights, and came to the dollar theaters about 60 days later. Someone besides the critics liked this movie.

The story involves a barnyard full of animals overseen by the gravel-voiced Ben (Sam Elliot) a male cow with udders. All the other cows… male and female… had udders, too. Critics have drawn all kinds of conclusions about those udders, but rather than see them as a sign of some kind of transgendered farm I just sorta went with it.

Ben has an irrepressible adopted son named Otis (Kevin James) who’s feeling his oats. By day he’s out ice block surfing and by night he’s ‘boy tipping’ or fronting the house band in the barn and flirting with Daisy (Courteney Cox), the cute widow with a calf on the way. Meanwhile, dad is leading by example, taking responsibility and keeping watch for a pack of junkyard coyotes under the leadership of Dag (David Koechner).

Circumstances force Otis to assume responsibility for the first time, much as they had for his father before him. As Ben reminds Otis, “A strong man stands up for himself. A stronger man stands up for others.” Much as I admire the sentiment, that sentence is anthropomorphic nonsense given the situation, but again, I let it slide.

I won’t reveal any more of the plot, but the movie is basically ethay ionlay ingkay in overalls.

The movie has an astonishing amount of singing and dancing, enough so that Barnyard could have been a musical. Most of the music isn't on my iPod, but it did include Sam Elliot crooning Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” during a crucial sequence. Curiously, (for a kids movie) the movie makers chose to include the lyrics, “you can stand me up at the gates of hell..."

The cast, which also includes Danny Glover, Wanda Sykes and Andie Macdowell, does fine, but Koechner deserves special notice because he brings unusual menace to his character.

Like I said, critics weren’t kind to Barnyard, but I liked its message of personal responsibility, teamwork and, for that matter, the joys of adoption. But it is edgy in places and tends towards political-correctness.

Barnyard is rated “PG for some mild peril and rude humor.”

DMR gives it a grade of B+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Barnyard got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Not so much a guilty pleasure as a guilty laugh.
DMR gives it D.

Like anyone, I have regrets.

I regret that I don’t already have a graduate degree. I regret that I don’t eat more fruits and vegetables, and I regret laughing so hard during Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Talladega Nights is surely a crowd pleaser, but it’s only an OK movie. The pacing’s often episodic, and there are plenty of strained or false notes. The language, which includes the “R-word,” is bad. And if the movie would have made as much fun of Muslim prayer as it does Christian prayer, there would be riots in the Arab street.

Yet still I laughed.

The movie is about Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell), born in a muscle car as his daddy sped past the county hospital. His father is an irregular presence after that, but after an appearance at career day at Ricky's school, he tells young Ricky that “if you’re not first, you’re last.” Ricky, along with his childhood friend Cal Naughton Jr (John C. Reilly) make that their life's code and as adults they find themselves as NASCAR teammates.

With Cal’s help, Ricky wins races and endorsement deals, including one for the official tampon of NASCAR! But Ricky’s aggressive way of winning doesn’t bring a NASCAR team win, and the owner (Greg Germann) is upset. On the same night Bobby gets unceremoniously fired for totaling a car… and deliriously stripping to his tighty whities because he thinks he’s on fire… his wife (Leslie Louise Bibb) leaves him for Cal.

The question becomes, can Ricky make his way back to the winner’s stand?

Talladega Nights is an equal opportunity offender. Although it's not really mean-spirited, it takes aim at homosexuals, heterosexuals, NASCAR fans, NASCAR crews, the French, the Waffle House, concerned grandparents, Tom Cruise, untamed grandchildren, dodgy fathers, and darn near everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line.

And still, I regret to say, I laughed.

Talladega Nights is rated PG-13 for “for crude and sexual humor, language, drug references and brief comic violence.” And believe me, it’s a well-earned PG-13.

Dollar Movie Review gives it a grade of D.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Because of its language, situations, and numerous course moments, Talladega Nights was downgraded. Without the downgrade, I would have given it a B-.