Space Camp

Space Camp is a movie that I grew up with. I used to watch it all the time, I had recorded it from HBO on this thing called a VCR tape. I liked the movie so much, I even took the time to put a label on it.

The movie had everything, coolness, comedy and smoking hot chicks. I used to watch All the Right Moves for all the wrong reasons and became a huge fan of Lea Thompson in the process. Kelly Preston was smoking hot in Space Camp as well, but she's been smoking hot in everything for 20 years. I'll bet that I wasn't the only kid who spilled some semen thinking about what space camp was like.

I was flipping through channels the other day with the kids around and decided to give Space Camp a little viewing through my adult eyes. What a load of horseshit this movie is.

First off, they're training these kids in the movie as though they're actually going to pursue a career with NASA. And that what they do in space camp at age 16 is actually going to dictate how their career with NASA will go. Like I'm so sure when Tate Donovan is interviewing with NASA after a 4 year stint at Cal-Poly they're going to bring up the time he was caught out after curfew with Lea Thompson that time at Space Camp.

Second, they would never ever ever allow kids on the fucking space shuttle while they were test firing the engines. But, you know, I can let that slide because it's the only plausible way to get the fucking kids in space which makes the movie. It's like the opposite of Full Metal Jacket, the second part in space is the most watchable part. The only interesting thing in the first half of the movie is the possibility that Tate Donovan is going to get in Lea Thompson's pants and recreate the stripping of the band uniform (only this time it's the sexy little fake NASA jumpsuit). But, it never happens.

Third, what's up with the space station? Wouldn't they have put the oxygen tanks in storage somewhere near the living area? I don't know if you know this or not, but it's kind of a hassle being outside in space and you want to avoid it if you can. Why would you put the oxygen cans so far from the living space and then make it hard to get to them? Not every space mission is going to have a little fat kid on it to squeeze into little places.

Tom Skerritt and Kate Capshaw do an admirable job of overacting in the movie which I always enjoy more than actors mailing in a performance. Locke from Lost has hair in this movie, see if you can pick him out (he's also in All the Right Moves and The Cutting Edge). It's always fun finding Locke in a movie.

Aside from the bad acting and plot devices that make no sense, Space Camp is at least watchable for an adult. I'd like to see a Space Camp reunion movie to see where these characters ended up. I'd bet that Lea Thompson is a driven career gal with a wife and adopted kid. Kelly Preston is a sex worker with a PhD in psychology. Tate Donovan would be a college professor making his way through several sets of undergraduates' panties and Joaquin Phoenix would be the inspiration for Leonard on the show The Big Bang Theory and Larry Williams would be an everyday schmoe with a knack for getting in trouble.

Synedoche New York

What the fuckity fuck was that? Do we need to stage an intervention with Charlie Kaufman? This movie barely made any sense. I absolutely loved Adaptation. and Being John Malkovich and the Kaufman style of adding layers to the story and life is greatly appreciated by me. But Synedoche had one too many layers and my feeble mind just couldn't keep up.

I knew nothing of the movie going in and was surprised by the pacing of the movie at the beginning. I think when Jen from Dawson's Creek says "It's been a year" was meant to shock the viewers because we believed Caden when he said "it's only been a week". I wasn't expecting a movie that takes place over 50 years and I think Kaufman designed it that way. But, I think it would have been better if we would have been let in on the secret a little earlier in the movie.

Why was Caden's girlfriend's house on fire the entire movie? What the fuck was that?

Charlie Kaufman has a staggeringly small list of credits on IMDB. An informed movie watcher would be able to name off nearly all of his credits, we all probably missed the 2 episodes he wrote of Ned and Stacey. Synedoche was his first directing credit and I don't see anything from the movie that would lead me to believe he shouldn't direct another movie, this one just had issues with the story.

But, I do have a proposal for Kaufman. Rewrite and remake mediocre movies from year's past. Give them the full Kaufman treatment of adding layers and breaking down the 4th wall. It's obvious that's what his genius is, let's make the most of it by making previous mediocre movies into Kaufman masterpieces.

By way of example, I would like to propose remaking Big Business. That's right, Big Business with Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler. This would be perfect clay for Kaufman to mold. It was an already somewhat confusing story from the time when Disney was giving orders to Touchstone to bang out doubles instead of going for home runs. The movie was meant to be candy for the moviegoer and certainly hit that mark. But, it could be a wonderfully complex movie with the Kaufman treatment. Each out of place twin (Midler in the city, Tomlin in the country) could have parallel lives in their rightful place but not living the life the in place twin is having. So instead of 4 experiences lived by the pair of twins, you could have 8 experiences lived by the pair of twins. I'm not deranged enough to make this work, only Kaufman could. I would love to see Big Business attain a Kaufman complexity, wouldn't you?

After Big Business, we could do any number of movies of that ilk like The Secret of My Success, Pretty in Pink, Vice Versa, Drop Dead Fred and Class. These could all be blockbusters because everyone's seen them, moderately enjoyed them and would like to see them shaken up, rearranged and thrown back up on the screen.

Until that happens, I don't if Kaufman can reach enough of an audience to keep getting work.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

I took my 2 girls to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs thinking they would enjoy it since they got the book at the library in the spring. Usually Film Mom handles the movie duties but she didn't have any interest in seeing Cloudy. She didn't know what I knew though. The fact that Bill Hader and Andy Samberg were doing most of the voice work was enough to sell me on the movie.

My big problem with animated movies is that I'm not very good at picking out who the voices of the characters are until I look them up on IMDB. Toy Story was ruined for me at the movie theater until I figured out that the mom's voice was done by Laurie Metcalf from Roseanne. I didn't do my homework beforehand so I spent 30 minutes of the movie trying to figure out who the main girl's voice was. Once it hit, the movie was much more enjoyable, I'm just glad that I'd seen The House Bunny this week or I never would have figured out Anna Faris. Her character, Sam Sparks, is now included in my private collection of cartoons that could be included in some personal alone time (if you get my drift) with the likes of Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop, Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble.

The movie is pretty funny, it's almost a cartoon version of Hot Rod with plenty to entertain adults. If not for the subject matter, I would say that they were shooting for an adult demographic with this movie. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly namely because it had the silly elements of Hot Rod and the SNL sketch Laser Cats, but mixed in was a good plot and nice little geek love story. Bruce Campbell as the mayor made me laugh several times and Samberg was quite funny in his role as well.

The animation was top notch and the characters were well defined and enjoyable. Bill Hader's character, Flint Lockwood, was quite enjoyable, but his dad, played by James Caan was the star of the animation crew. The device of his face only having bushy eyebrows and mustache was genius along with the fact that he only spoke in fishing metaphors. James Caan did a fine job with the voice, but animation really brought the idea of the character to life.

Cloudy has many things for an adult to laugh at or enjoy and the kids of course enjoyed it. The last half hour did drag along a little bit and was a little scary for one of my girls (and legitimately so) but the first hour of the movie was well worth a little drag on the back end. I didn't see it in 3D or IMAX and kind of wish I had. It was an impressive little visual movie and would have been enhanced by the 3D effect. But in 2D it was perfectly enjoyable. This isn't one of those kids movies that hold no enjoyment for a grown up so take your kids and enjoy yourself.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

I had heard a lot about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas when it was out in theaters but I had no idea what it was about. When I finally got around to watching it on On Demand did I get a clue because of the blurb on the selection screen. Little did I know that the movie would actually make a Nazi concentration camp officer seem like a sympathetic character or would seem sympathetic to someone who doesn't hate Germans.

The story focuses on a family that moves for the father's work. Sounds like the plot of Cheaper by the Dozen doesn't it? Well it's not, because the father is a Nazi soldier and he's been stationed to run a concentration camp. The family moves next door to the concentration camp (it's actually about a 1/4 mile away). The youngest boy eventually finds his way over to the concentration camp and meets the ugliest kid I've ever seen on screen. The kid was so jarringly ugly that I had trouble following the story but apparently the two kids, one, the son of a German officer, the other, a Jew destined to die in the gas chamber, become friends. The German kid was completely oblivious to his newfound friend's plight. While I'd love to hate on the kid and call him a clueless German, it was kind of nice that he had that innocence. The German kid did show his Germanness at one point when he blamed something on the ugly kid getting him in trouble with one of the German guards.

To make up for his transgression of throwing the Jew kid under the bus the German kid apologizes profusely and decides to try to help find the Jewish kid's dad...inside the concentration camp. Even as you're watching the movie you can't believe how badly this decision will work out for both boys. And that is kind of the genius of the movie. We're just not conditioned as humans to put up with watching children die, especially as a parent. But as far as punishing the father/German soldier, the death of a son is nice. And that is what causes my inner turmoil because I did feel for the father (and the mother, who was quite wretched in her own regard) even though I felt he was a worthless human being. And I also felt worse for the German boy who died than I did for the hundred of Jews who died in the gas chamber with the boys. What the fuck is up with that?

As far as entertainment value The Boy in the Striped Pajamas hits the mark, though it kind of drags in places and isn't the most exciting movie in the world. But, I don't know of many movies that get in your head quite like this one does. I watched it about a month ago and I still think of it every time I think about something German which thankfully isn't too often.

Barbie and the Diamond Castle

So this is the first post of a blog destined to abandoned and forgotten about within 6 months. I thought I'd start it off with the movie that gave me the inspiration to write a blog about movies. I would frequently go off on rants about the Diamond Castle when out with friends and the subject of kids movies came up.

If you're not familiar, and consider yourself lucky as shit if you aren't, there is a series of Barbie movies usually tied in with some fairy tale or ballet (seriously, there's a Barbie Swan Lake) or some crap like that. They are done in cartoon form and, surprisingly, done pretty well with computer animation. After watching the newest Jetsons movie (circa early 90's, I'm not looking it up), I can really appreciate the increase in quality that computer animation gives. But, computer animation has apparently made this Barbie crap possible.


Barbie and the Diamond Castle focuses on two sisters (?) who are dirt poor and are hungry and apparently only have one dress each. The sisters are blessed with one gift, the ability to sing (Katherine McPhee does the singing). I'm hampered in writing this plot summary because I've really never paid enough attention to the movie to actually gather plot points even though my girls have watched the movie 50 times. You should thank your lucky stars I came up with that much of a plot summary.

At some point I'm assuming they decided to make a trek across the kingdom to go to the Diamond Castle. At one point they happen across some sort of restaurant and I gather that they had to sing for their dinner. Well, let me tell you, they rocked that joint with their signature tune (my girls have a set of Barbies based on the 2 sisters and the dolls sing the song). As chance would have it there was a set of brothers (?) who were also playing the restaurant. They aren't as good as the sisters are.

After all of this, my favorite scene comes on. The sisters sit down to eat, the waiter brings them their food and the waiter backs away from the table. This is only interesting because the waiter's actions are the only known occurrence of bad acting by a cartoon. If it was a live action movie I would immediately suspect that the waiter was the writer of the movie or the director's retarded son. But, no, it's a fucking cartoon, there shouldn't be bad acting, only bad drawing. I just don't get why the waiter would back away from the table. Maybe there's a back story that got cut out of the original that would make the waiter afraid to turn his back on the sisters. This thought makes me wish they would come out with an unrated director's cut of The Diamond Castle where one of the sisters takes on the Linda Fiorentino role in The Last Seduction and the waiter bangs her against a chain link fence back behind the restaurant. While the movie is, of course, total crap, the stars are still Barbies and completely hot so a little nudity would go a long way to improving The Diamond Castle.

I don't really know how the movie ends or anything other than there is a diamond castle and a dancing dog. The movie as a whole is completely intolerable. The first time we watched it was on Christmas day. It was a Christmas present for one of my girls. Well, let me tell you, they loved it. I don't think they moved for the 83 minutes that it was on and I believe they wanted to watch it again right after they finished it the first time. The dancing dog really turned me against the movie and nothing I've seen since has made me change my mind. But, alas, I'm not really the target audience for this crap and my kids really do like it, so I guess it will do.

Since this is the first post I should point out that I'm not only going to write about kids movies, I have shit to say about regular movies as well. I just started out with Barbie because it was my inspiration.