My Experience With… Surf’s Up.

I know that I’ve mentioned that I would be doing a Peanuts series. And I will. I’m just going to do two weeks’ of blogging about CGI’d surfing penguins. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, and any pets with a stunning ability to read, Surf’s Up.

Now, there was a long stretch I had when I was a youth of going to practically every animated and family film, accompanied by a parent, with both of us getting tickets for the price of a single standard ticket.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it at least

three times here: I love inexpensive

entertainment. It works either way.

If I saw a good film at a low price, I got a great deal! If the film bombed, oh, well, we didn’t even waste $10. In this case… it was average. Slightly above average. It’s a good film.

Since I will be reviewing the sequel to this next week, there will be spoilers.

In a nutshell, there’s a penguin named Cody Maverick, who comes from humble beginnings in Antarctica, where nobody really surfs. His mom is widowed, due to his dad being eaten by a whale while he was fishing. Cody also has a brother who constantly picks on him, as Hollywood thinks older brothers often do.

Cody’s beyond-mundane and lackluster life is changed when a legendary penguin surfer named Big Z...

(You know what, I’m gonna hold

my bad joke for later.)

…makes an appearance at his home land and unintentionally inspires Cody to become a surfer himself. He practices using ice and whatever waves come his way. Years pass, and Cody gets picked up by a recruiter for a massive contest. Along his trip, he meets a way far-out rooster called Chicken Joe. Like Cody, Chicken Joe lost his dad at a young age. Unlike Cody, Chicken Joe’s dad was lost to what I can only assume was Col. Sanders.

As cruel as those untimely demises were,

I found the second one particularly hilarious.

During the tournament, Cody and Joe come up against 9-time champion Tank Evans, who is very skilled, but is a huge bully.

At first, Cody is very clumsy in the tournament, considering he is out of his element. Then one day, Cody comes across an old, washed-up penguin who seems to know a lot about surfing. Yup, it’s Big Z, who was presumed dead after his last match against Tank Evans. It turns out that Big Z chickened out when he realized he was old news and could not keep up with the young talent, so he faked his own death and lived in hiding, with his niece Lani, who was the only one who knew of the secret. Lani and Cody do fall in love, by the way. Kind of a no-brainer there.

When the old penguin is realized to be Big Z, Cody (of course) wants him to be his trainer. Or rather… his coach……. ready for my bad joke?

HE BECOMES HIS “COACH” Z!!!! ^_^

 

Why yes, I do still have my day job.

Why do you ask?

At the finals, it’s Cody, Chicken Joe, and Tank. They duke it out over the waves, with Tank being as big a bully as ever. When he’s after Chicken Joe, Cody disqualifies himself by taking out Tank, making Chicken Joe the champ. Big Z returns to the public eye, and everybody lives pretty much happily ever after.

Right?

You’ll read more on the details next week.

Now, this was just a bare-bones look at the movie, and it does seem rather cut-and-dry. However, one thing I (and my mother, who went with me) really enjoyed about Surf’s Up was the fact that it was well-done in a kind of reality show/documentary footage. This included little interviews with main and side characters, and steadicam was also done nicely… that’s a compliment from me. I can’t STAND unnecessary steadicam. I deliberately never watched The Office because of its constant steadicam. I don’t care how funny Steve Carrell is, there is no reason for every moment of an office building to feel like an intense moment!

I digress.

It was funny. It was cute. It wasn’t the most memorable, especially since I watched Happy Feet not long before that one. Plus, it’s kind of a Robots + Cars plot line, and neither one were bad movies. If you want to spend time watching a half-decent movie and you don’t know what to watch, definitely give this flick a rent from your local library.

Plugging time!

YouTube Page

What’s your favorite outdoor sport?

My Experience With... "Michael Jackson's Halloween"

***Caution: Mild language in one video.***

Happy New Year! I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Didja miss me????

Okay, I’m rested, hope you all had a great couple of holidays (share your story with me in the comments, if you wish), and let’s kick off the end of the Christmas season with… [drumroll] …a Halloween special featuring virtually nothing but Michael Jackson music!

Okay.

Michael Jackson is no stranger to posthumous success. His estate’s currently making hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Also, he’s released his second – yes, second – album since his death in 2009, Scream. Which is pretty much just a mix of classic Michael Jackson songs.

Michael Jackson is also no stranger to movies. He’s got the film Moonwalker, the kids’ film Captain EO, and the short film Ghost, not to mention his classic music video, Thriller.

I guess that’s to be expected of a man

whose entertaining career spanned

for literally half a century in his lifetime.

Well, in 2017, the world was graced with an hour-long special featuring his hits, Michael Jackson’s Halloween. The special is rated PG, but that may be for the kiddie horror elements, the main villainess being a tad short of half-dressed, and the fact that they don’t edit some of Michael Jackson’s lyrics.

The special is short and sweet,

and the plot is kinda predictable,

so spoilers will be provided.

The main characters are Vincent, a wannabe-DJ who is a grocery store heir to an abnormally-passionate-about grocery-stores dad, and Victoria, a wannabe-dancer who works as a doormat an intern for a very demanding boss at MegaCorp. Meanwhile, a monkey lackey named Bubbles (who sounds like a slightly Brad-Garrett-y talking version of Mr. Bobo)…

…is driving Michael Jackson to his home, and orders

bananas from the local grocery store.

Also, Victoria is commanded to watch her boss’s Dog, Ichabod (whom she nicknames Icky for his natural “going” behavior – I have 4 dogs, I’m used to that). The two kids run into each other, which causes Victoria to lose Icky, but leads them to the exact place of residence – 777 Jackson Street.

(Nice one, guys.)

From there, they go down an elevator which is an interesting combination of what I can only guess is Dr. Who, The Great Glass Wonkavator, and that portal scene from Barbie in the Nutcracker.

This leads to a pumpkin patch of enormous proportions, where a bunch of groundskeepers, led by a fleshed-out Jack Skellington named Hay Man (voiced by Jim Parsons), are dancing to Dangerous / Jam. They freak out and flee temporarily upon spotting the kids. They explain that they’re having fun, when the boss and villainess, Conformity (Lucy Liu) arrives. She turns one of the groundskeeper into a zombie. Yeah, if you’re a Michael Jackson fan in any capacity, you can see where this is heading. By the way, her theme is Dirty Diana. WHAT!

They follow the music (and Michael Jackson insignia) to a room full of spiders who entrap them. Victoria challenges the leader to a dance-off, which leads to their escape, and a battle between Conformity and her Crows and the spider army.

The two kids eventually get caught by Conformity, and are mistaken as rebel leaders against her machine. A scientist cat plans on stealing music and destroying it all forever, until the kids talk some sense into him. He, in turn, grants them his old musical inventions to battle against her. One more Michael Jackson pose brings the kids and Icky back to the elevator, where Bubbles is waiting for them. They return to the foyer, but instead of running for the hills, they instead decide to battle Conformity in a showdown.

The kids collected musical amulets from their newfound friends, and they install them into the machine that was meant to destroy music, reverse its effects, and with Vincent’s mixing, combine the three friends into surprisingly black Michael Jackson – well, I guess not surprising, since Thriller’s being played here -- who reverses Conformity’s spell. Conformity returns, however, stronger, and in a live gargoyle formation. She re-enslaves her zombie subjects, and just as it seems Michael is captured, he puts a hand on her, and reverses her magic again, this time turning her into a good girl. They then dance together to Thriller, along with the two kids, and the unzombified inhabitants. And let me tell you, CGI Michael Jackson does NOT have nearly as impressive moves as the real McCoy.

Of course, all of this ends up with this being “possibly a dream,” Michael and the Monkey going to their next mission, Michael Jackson’s face appearing in the moon and winking at us, and Victoria and Vincent being a couple and a DJ/Dance duo that everyone (including the dad and the boss) all enjoy. Don’t ask where Victoria’s parents are, clearly nobody knows!

There is a TON of Michael Jackson-esque music and dancing, which I found great, because my Daddy made me into a mini-fan myself – and trust me, he’s a HUGE fan… he bought TWO Thriller vinyl albums because he wore one out. Now, this special does fall privy, as I said before, to “rude humour” that is oft found in children’s / family media these days, not to mention that the plot is semi-pointless and really hastily thrown together, but I still enjoyed it. It doesn’t top The Great Pumpkin, in my opinion, but it’s a nice thing for the Michael Jackson geek in me to get a few bars and dance movements out. Honestly, it reminds me of one of those old PC games I used to play as a kid, where there’s really no way you could lose, the characters look a little stiff, but you enjoy it, anyway, in all its cheesiness.

This was fun to write. I think I’ll try a new series out, actually. I mentioned The Great Pumpkin, so… how about the Peanuts holiday specials?

What a way to ring in the New Year! Hoping the best for you in 2018! Bye!

Plugging Time!

YouTube Page

What’s your favorite Michael Jackson song? Mine would have to be Beat It. Check out why below!

--- Sorry, guys, very serious moment coming up ---

This past Christmas, a friend of mine died and went to be with the Lord. I remember meeting him in theater, as well seeing him in a part of college ministry. He was a good friend, and I'm going to miss him, although I am happy that he's gained eternal life. I'll see you in Heaven, Hunter! ,^_^,

- In memoriam, Hunter Gillette -

1994-2017

Thanks to my friend Emily for not

being upset about my using her photo.

My Experience With... The Lego Batman Movie (LAST POST OF 2017!)

Awww, yeah, here we go!
Out of the disappointments and into
what we've been waiting for!

As you may have read previously (specifically in the Lego’s Batman: The Movie review), I am not much of a superhero-genre-watcher. It’s interesting, just not my immediate style. I do like the How It Should Have Ended series, mainly for its comedy, and the fact that these superheroes often stay in their superhero form. Speaking of comedy and superhero genre, I finally got my hands on a free rental for The Lego Batman Movie.

While Princess Unikitty is without a doubt my absolute favorite character from The Lego Movie, Lego Batman was probably the coolest, and my second favorite. When I first heard he was getting his own movie, I was ecstatic! My poor parents did not share in my excitement. Oh, it’s not that they disliked The Lego Movie, there’s just a generation chasm. My mom is not necessarily one for Legos or modern animated films, and my Dad is not necessarily one for Legos or post-Adam West Batman. I’d heard it was a good movie, and after the *mild* disappointment from what I thought was The Lego Batman Movie, I suddenly became more excited than ever.

To make myself even more appropriately excited, I watched The Lego Movie before The Lego Batman Movie… well, technically. There may or may not have been a viewing of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in between the two movies. I was still excited!

THIS HAD ME LAUGHING FROM THE FIRST LINES. Oh, man! It actually starts with a Batman voice-over critique and a Michael Jackson quote! I was dying!

The story starts off about as basic superhero folklore as it gets. The joker wants to take over Gotham City…

I know how that meme is supposed to

be used, but I feel it still applies here.

…using an admittedly overcomplicated bomb and a ton of Batman Supervillains (Apparently, there are many; I don’t know how many were legit, but the movie claims they’re real. I’m not Googling them.) under the city to do so. With the city somehow surviving as a bunch of Lego-like plates over no actual foundation, just an abyss, plus the fact that Batman cannot be reached. the town is in real trouble.

Batman, however, inexplicably arrives on the scene. And of course, Batman defeats the Joker… but not without a – what I like to call – Nemesis Lovers’ Spat. In order to understand what I mean, think about when Dr. Doofenschmirtz had a minor falling out with Perry the Platypus when he was secretly fighting Peter the Panda on the side.

Hmm. P-names… everyone has a type, I guess.

Anyway, the Joker not only thinks that Batman’s obsessed with him, he also thinks he’s Batman’s greatest enemy! Batman gives Joker a MAJOR shutdown, leaving Joker a bit… deflated. For those who saw the movie….

If you’ve been reading my blog as well,

you knew that meme would be back.

Batman in this movie is comically full of himself, as he was in The Lego Movie, and to a lesser extent Lego’s Batman: The Movie. He’s still insanely rich, with a lair that would be the ultimate man-cave, and he frequently visits the orphanage to give out Batman merchandise. There is one bespectacled boy there who is obviously Batman’s biggest and shyest fan. The only thing Batman lacks is friends/ / a stable family…. unless you count his computer, and his butler, Alfred.

You wish.

This movie is incredible. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t realize just HOW good this was. It shows a (somewhat predictable) journey for Batman and his inner quest to open himself up to let people into his life… and save the world from one of cinema’s best crossovers. I did NOT, however expcect a Bat-fax to be included. I guess Hobbes was right on his prediction.

Hey, it was still amazing!!!

The best part about this movie is that, like The Lego Movie, it included a ton of material for a huge age range. It has a ton of charm, and excellent geeky references for both the amateur and extreme. I’d recommend this for ages 8 and up, but I guess a 5-year-old could watch it, too, depending on the parent’s discretion. This was simple an amazing film.

Plugging time! YouTube Page.

Well, as I mentioned in last week's post, this is the last post I have for 2017. I'm taking an extended holiday break to recharge. Hope you enjoy the rest of 2017, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2018!

Bye!

If you had to hug a flower, what would you hug? And what would your superhero alter-ego be?