Yeah I said it. The motion-captury type animation is creepy (not quite Polar Express creepy, but creepy) but the story seems cool and the gags make me laugh more than they probably should.

Fuck it, I'm seeing this.

The Onion's review got me interested. It compared the tone of the film to the kind of suburbia created in E.T., Poltergeist and Close Encounters. That is a G.O.A.T tone, in my book.

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/50661

One of Steven Spielberg's most enduring contributions to film is the mood of suburban-uncanny developed in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and E.T. Stuck in the middle of suburbia—like much of America—these films' heroes suddenly discover that extraordinary events can descend upon even the sleepiest cul-de-sacs. Spielberg developed a sideline producing other filmmakers' variations on this theme in the '80s, some dark (Poltergeist, Gremlins), some warm (The Goonies, Back To The Future). And apart from its pioneering animation, Monster House, which Spielberg co-executive-produced with Back To The Future's Robert Zemeckis, could be a lost product of that era.

In a nameless suburb, next to well-mown lawns and houses with much nicer paint jobs, sits a ramshackle dwelling occupied by an old man (voiced by Steve Buscemi) with a habit of scaring off anyone who sets foot on his lawn—even, as in the opening sequence, adorable little girls on tricycles. Across the street, an observant kid (voiced by Mitchel Musso) keeps a careful log of such occurrences, but nothing he's seen can prepare him for the weird way the house takes on a life of its own when an ambulance carries Buscemi away during a weekend when Musso is left with a none-too-attentive babysitter (voiced by Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Monster House uses some of the same motion-capture computer-animation techniques employed in Polar Express, but in spite of its horror-movie trappings, it's much less terrifying, since it replaces Polar's almost-but-not-quite-right simulation of flesh with a cartoonier look. More importantly, director Gil Kenan has a feel for dizzying "camera" work, and the screenplay (by Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, and Pamela Pettler) combines witty gags with a sweet, albeit familiar, suggestion that kids shouldn't be in any great hurry to be anything but kids. Maybe that's because then all those boring suburban corners start to look boring and suburban again, and you have to grow up and make movies to bring the magic back.

A.V. Club Rating: B

(You better not be YOUMAD'ding me right now!)

Although I might be a little guilty of MOHO'ing, a bit.

"You know what? If you do these drugs houses will look like monsters to you. There is too much drugs for these kids out here to be doing now. They really should have named the movie 'Crack House.' They just talking in codes so the government won't shut the movie down. That's what that movie is, a code name for the 'Crack House' where all the kids are going to be little crack heads doing crack and seeing monsters in the crib."
______________________________________________________________________
"Both teams played hard, my man."
-Rasheed Wallace, providing my new stock response to any future OKP "board beef" starters

That's a quote?

the L.A. Times, where they ask the "desired demographics" if they are going to see the latest film releases...
______________________________________________________________________
"Both teams played hard, my man."
-Rasheed Wallace, providing my new stock response to any future OKP "board beef" starters

Oh ok. Thanks for the info fam.

pure gold.
_________________________________

you used to be alright
what the hell happened?

______________________________________________________________________
"Both teams played hard, my man."
-Rasheed Wallace, providing my new stock response to any future OKP "board beef" starters

What is the link for that Focus Group. I fell out when he called The Little Mermaid the greatest movie ever made.

These are GOLD! Good looks on this, Zootown

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-spinoffs-focusgroup18jul18,1,4739742.htmlstory?coll=la-entnews-quicktakes

My Super Ex-Girlfriend:
GLC: "In my younger days of pimping I ran into a girl who had superpowers who held a blade at my penis, and ripped my new polo shirt with her bare hands. This was like in '96. She was wild. She broke CDs with her bare hands and (stuff). She was a superhero. Ate a lot of food and didn't gain no weight. That's superpowers. And she looked good. She looked good as hell. I will go see that. A lot of women have superpowers now. They will (mess) you up. It will be a wake up call for men."

hahahahahahahahahahah

are you guys mentally challeneged? because if you are im certified to teach you baseball....



that kills me...and i will see this movie because of that line

the guys behind Channel 101, Heat Vision & Jack and the new Sarah Silverman show on CC.

The story is solid and the laughs are legit. Just about every line Chowder said had me rolling.

"I love you, vacuum cleaner dummy"

and now i wish i had just stayed to see the rest of monster house.

the little fat kid said "i'm playing basketball!" and i cracked the fuck up.

"Ohhh, so it's a GIRL house"

"What??"

Go see this. Now.

I was pleasantly surprised at the humor in the film. It had me laughing the entire film, and the animation was astonishing at points. Great voice work too, Jason Lee's character was great, as were the cops.

for unauthordized appropriation of the likenesses of Spanky and Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.

And I've more-or-less given up on the the animation industry. I'm still not fond of most studios' 3D animation work, and the constant barrage of new material this year hasn't swayed my interest.

If and when I get the chance to do something film or TV-wise, I'm looking more closely at live action now. The animation inustry is shit, and people don't take "cartoons" seriously anyway.

>and people don't take "cartoons" seriously
>anyway.

Why can't that be enough, I wonder

and not to (b) enlighten or (c) exercise artistic creativity in addition to (a) entertaining.

Just look at PTP. People look for the deeper meaning in many live-action films, and hold the best of them up as excellent works of art. Whole posts are dedicated to analyzing single films. When's the last time someone other than me went into depth about an animated feature film in a post ("review" posts for newly-released films notwithstanding).

In America, cartoons are either for kids or for giggles. Very few people take animated properties seriously. Even the ones who appreciate, say, "The Simpsons" and "South Park" on a level above mere entertainment don't always have an appreciation for the (painstaking, expensive, and complicated) _art_ of animation.

On top of all fo that, CGI hasn't fully developed to where companies not named "Pixar" can create believable, full-bodied, well animated humanoids in 3D animation. Yet, when all those Pixar films made money, Hollywood threw the baby out with the bathwater and abandoned *all* American cel animation for CGI*.

I almost forgot to talk about the industry: it is probalby one of the worst entertainment industries to go into. Speaking to animation professionals has almost completely disillusioned me from wanting to go into animation: horror stories about long hours, mandatory unpaid overtime, the presence of hoardes of do-nothing execs who ruin the product with their "input", and the general lack of respect for animators and animation professionals in general.

Worse, animation is the type of industry where it's extremely difficult to survive as an "independent". Animation by nature is expensive and time-consuming, so it almost requires corporate backing (and tampering). Add that to the smaller amount of venues available to an independent animator vs. an independent live-action filmmaker, and you have even more of a problem.

All that shit isn't worth trying to fulfil an 11-year-old kid's pipe dream of working on a movie like "Aladdin". I dunno; maybe I'm just (finally) growing up. I'll always love and appreciate animation, but I don't have any "burning desire" to make cartoons anymore. (and I CERTAINLY don't have any burning desire to think, like an idiot, that I can make a cartoon series in my spare time with my own money. WHat a fucking idiot I've been for thinking that). I still have ideas for my characters, but if I ever get around to doing them (I have a fully involved and stressful full-time job), I want to go the (cheaper, less time consuming, and less idiotic) route of a webcomic. Either that, or live action. No animation.

Maybe this all just a frustrated rant because I'm now entering the third year following the collapse of Walt Disney Feature Animation as I knew it, and the destruction of my dream goal of actually being able to work there. Maybe I'm just tired and worn out from working all the time. Maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe, even, I finally matured enough to realize that (depsite the old Disney adage) dreams don't always come true, even if you put work into them. But whatever it is, it's how I honestly feel.

* For those of you unaware, TV programs are animated in foriegn countries.

With all do respect to your decision there, I do have the couple of thoughts...

1. Walt probably never gave a fuck about the art crowd or how 'seriously' his work was taken by academia.

2. Having people dissect your films on a message board isn't all that great an aspiration. I'm pretty sure a lot of that 'kid stuff' touched us in a far deeper way than Donnie Darko or City of God ever could.

3. I wonder how things would be different, if you had spent your energy chopping it up with the 3 or 4 people here who shared your love for animation, rather than arguing with hundreds of Transformers fans. Probably not at all, but I'm just saying.

4. Good luck!

>With all do respect to your decision there, I do have the
>couple of thoughts...
>
>1. Walt probably never gave a fuck about the art crowd or how
>'seriously' his work was taken by academia.

actually, Walt lobbied pretty hard for artistic recognition. Hence "Fantasia", Disneyland, and audio-animatronics.

>
>2. Having people dissect your films on a message board isn't
>all that great an aspiration. I'm pretty sure a lot of that
>'kid stuff' touched us in a far deeper way than Donnie Darko
>or City of God ever could.
>
Not just on message boards: in magazine,s in film class, and in general conversation without being dismissed as just "a goddamned cartoon".

>3. I wonder how things would be different, if you had spent
>your energy chopping it up with the 3 or 4 people here who
>shared your love for animation, rather than arguing with
>hundreds of Transformers fans. Probably not at all, but I'm
>just saying.

Not much would be different, unfortunately, aside from everyone being naive together. Talking to those people helped me realize just how out-of-touch I really was. I didn't realize to the extent that most people disreguarded animation. I don't know. I've just lost enthusiasm for animation and wanting to be an animator.
>
>4. Good luck!
>

I think it helped that A) the writing was so great and B) the characters, while human, were still somewhat stylized. Not quite to the extent that The Incredibles were, but much closer to that than the Polar Express side of the spectrum

sorry for sounding like the old washed up lost freamer up there. The restrictions of full-time employment do strange things to the mind. I just need to find some new inspiration to keep things going.

http://www.tvguide.com/NR/rdonlyres/308FA14E-4D85-4F00-8E43-374B8FA65130/11304/060720insider2.jpg

http://www.actwin.com/toaph/life/rascals/alfalfa1.jpg

...there's MORE than a passing resemblance there.

very solid kids flick. Not on the level of a Lion King or even a Shrek...but very deserving of its accolades.

My kids loved it.

I know you don't like animated features to be known as "kid's movies"

but the ones that aren't shouldn't be.

And, even for kids' movies, "the kids liked it" isn't a review indicative of quality assesment. Remember, kids will enjoy all sorts of things, good or bad (how else do y'all think Pokemon made money?)

Man, that was the best experience I have had in a movie theatre in quite some time.

I can't imagine seeing Monster House without the 3D effect... it just added a lot to the feel of the movie.

Just go to the Real D website and search for a theatre near you.

On a side note, they had a trailer for a re-release of Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D!

The characters, the humor, the story, the 80s-ness of it all... LOVED IT


Probably the best summer movie I've seen all summer as well.

I thought, "it's like a modern Goonies!"

I haven't seen the flick yet, am I way off there?

Not in plot necessarily (a couple points are similar though), but it definitely has the 80's kid 'horror' movie sensibility to it...

the 'burbs
complete lack of adult supervision
subversive humor
sexual subtext
actually kind of scary in parts
etc.

I could go into greater detail on all of those, but I think I'll wait till a few more people chime in. It's very much for kids, but at the same time it doesn't insult kids' intelligence/capacity for 'adult' themes and ideas. Very entertaining, and while I wouldn't say the animation is groundbreaking or even that great, I still think I'd put this above the Shrek franchise and even a couple of Pixar films.

It definitely seems like it was made for those of us who hold a special place in our hearts for Goonies and the other great kids movies of that era.

Monster Squad was my shit back in the day

I'm definitely gonna have to check this out

.

This is the what I hope all CGI horros films strive for....