Despicable Me or Jason was going to talk about the subtext of therapy in the movie but un-unfortunately became distracted.

1. Did I enjoy it? YES
As I watched the years worth of raccoon feces slide off my in-laws deck, I realized Despicable Me is the second best animated film I've seen all year. Yeah my brain works that way. I wonder...am I scatterbrained or do my thoughts travel hyper-dimensional vectors moving across and outside time's arrow appearing as scattering non-sequiters to us poor linear-bound perspectivists? 

2. Would I watch it again? YES
Absolutely, who doesn't want to laugh. I'd even make time to watch it again and not make some vague plan to accidentally catch it on television at a time I have nothing else going on. Nope. I'd definitely make time to watch it again.

Wolfman or Jason joins in the screaming.

1. Did I enjoy the movie? YES
Almost as enjoyable as the decidedly Gothic setting of the film was the man behind me shouting at the screen. As if the characters could hear his warning. As if in some metaplot twist actually comprehend his warnings and violate the narrative course of events. As if I could help myself and avoid joining in.
2. Would I watch it again? MAYBE
 I really enjoyed this movie with its dark Gothic landscape, characters who chew their dialogue more than deliver it, and unbridled gore, I do not know if I would enjoy it a second time. Part of the fun of a movie like this is seeing it with a crowd. Everybody starts to get pulled in, screaming and yelling at the screen, that it becomes a communal event. There is a power in that moment of inter-connectivity. Sitting on my couch by myself...not so much. Even if it is Blu-ray.

Toy Story 3 or did that little kid just call me a pussy for crying?

1. Did I enjoy it: YES
There is a wonderful alchemy at work in film, especially the Pixar films. A story told in the right way can slip past all your emotional barriers and bring out all those buried emotions. Or at least bring on that sensation where your heart expands in joy pushing out the tears. Tears of joy as they used to call it. Such an odd oxymoronic concept. I count myself lucky any time a movie can make me cry. Lucky and fortunate.
There was a period in my life where I could not cry. It was miserable. I would feel the sadness welling up, and instead of being released through tears, my body would clamp down and nothing. The sadness remained just sitting there, like a weight. I do remember crying as a kid. Mainly from when report cards came home. Once I hit fourth grade, this was a time of terror for me. It became routine even. The report cards would arrive and my parents would yell at me for not getting good grades. A's were the only grade good enough. How I needed to do all my homework. How I needed good grades because Mom and Dad would never have the money to send me to college and I needed a scholarship for college because if I don't get a good education I'll starve. How I was wasn't living up to my potential. Then the waterworks would start.

How I hated report card day.

I still remember the day I stopped crying. It was my birthday during my freshman year of high school. My first order with the Science Fiction bookclub had arrived and my parents got Little Ceasar's pizza. Everything was going fine till the food poisoning set in. I never vomited that much in my life. That was the last day I cried, and incidentally vomited, for about ten years.

Over time I came to realize how precious crying was. It is very important to our well-being and should never be viewed as weak. The act of crying serves as a pressure release valve to a build up of negative emotions. The body is forced into a reaction and uses up all its energy, thereby not having the strength to put into whatever foolish coping patterns you were engaged in. Tired and exhausted, we have a chance to choose a new path in life.

So here I am in Toy Story 3 watching as these characters I have grown with, have grown to love, deal with such sour notes and still have the capacity to love. I am moved. Deeply moved. I let the hot tears roll down my cheek. I hug Felix. I hug Suzanne. I would of hugged my dog had she been there. Toy Story 3 slipped past my adult cynicism and defences to remind me of the preciousness of life. And with each tear, I am thankful.

2. Would I watch it again? YES
This movie basically summed up everything I can think of as important in life. Stuck inside the furnace, our heroes are going to die. What do they do? They hold hands. They decide to spend what short time is left enjoying each other's company. That is a simple yet powerful message. One I, and probably others, could do with reminding.

Leap Year or Undistracted by what is going on on the screen, Jason has time to wax philosophical.

1. Did I enjoy it? NO
Spraining my knee has given me time to catch up on my film reviews. But the question that keeps coming back to me is why did I ever get behind in the first place. Really great films, and even really bad films for that matter, generate conversation. You can't wait to tell your friends about what excited or outraged you. You quote the movie. The movie shows things about yourself you did not know.

Then there's mediocre movies. They just slip out of thoughts after you leave the theatre. Leaving you with nothing to talk about or be excited about. Or maybe the problem is not the movie but me.

Many my modern American lifestyle has blinded me to the subtleties of cinema. (The fact I enjoyed Furry Vengeance may be a supporting factor in that argument.) Has the dichotomy of great indie films versus big blockbusters blinded me to the charms of simple middle of the road film making. Amy Adams was cute. Matthew Goode was charming. The Irish countryside was beautiful. Shouldn't that be enough. Unfortunately it isn't. Perhaps if it was I'd be a happier person.

2. Would I watch the movie again? NO
One time is enough thank you.

Furry Venegence or My two year old son tried to walk out of this film then came back and grabbed my hand so I could help him walk down the stairs so he could leave.

1. Did I enjoy the movie? YES
I don't normally find myself contemplating bear rape when I look at movie poster, but when I do a few thoughts run through my mind. Does the bear represent the wilderness "coming" into the hero and changing him from a city-boy to a feral-child. Is the bear rape symbolic of the character's mental disturbance that finally comes to the surface? Or, maybe, the scriptwriters drew words at random during a moment of writer's block.  Furry Vengeance let me down.

Let it be known: If like me, you looked at the movie poster and thought to yourself that bear looks like he's going to rape Brendan Frasier, know no bear raping occurs in this movie. The bear merely steals Brendan Frazier's pants. Steals them in a way that seems physically impossible, even if said bear was propelled from the doomed planet krypton and upon arriving at earth found he had superpowers from earth's yellow sunlight.

The bear's superpowers or lack of superpowers aside, the bear and Brandon Frazier share a scene that defies description in it's awfulness. Watching Furry Vengeance, I found myself in a two part viscous cycle. First I would watch a scene and think how the movie has set a new low in every one's career. Then the next scene would lower the bar even more.
But through it all there was Brandon Frazier. For me it was method acting taking to the next level. The actor becomes the character in that moment so thoroughly that it transcends the medium and starts to work voodoo magic on the audience.

Then Felix, my two-year old son, had enough and wanted to leave. Guess the kid has no taste for camp.

2. Would I watch it again? MAYBE
When I first saw this movie, I thought it was so campy I could watch it again and again. Bring all my friends over and laugh at how ridiculous and awful the movie is. Then I watched it a second time for work, and well, no. I never want to watch this film again. Each scene of this movie is like a clip from a future retrospective on Brendan Frazier's career. The low points. It only gets the Maybe because I actually did see it again, but not from choice.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief or Jason makes a savings throw versus nostalgia

1. Did I enjoy the movie? YES
I have not enjoyed Chris Columbus' movies in the past. Yet, with this film he hit the right notes. Notes building to chords of myth, action, and magic reminding me of a summer past.

I don't know why my dad asked me to keep Kevin Ryan's nephew company that summer before sixth grade. I did not mind. He seemed like a cool kid. A little older than me but not haughty. (Wanting to watch Clash Of The Titans was a big plus.) Something in that movie clicked with me.

My classmates knew the latest sexual innuendo and I knew the Olympians. They had access to cable without adult supervision. I had access to the Kankakee Public Library's children section. Oh it was marvelous. I would love to walk down the dull stone stairs turn and be blasted by the primary intensity of colors. There was a series of books covering the myths of the world. Those were my go-to books. I would be lost in the stories. When waiting for class to begin I would devour these stories of heroes and monsters from afar-ago. There was a realness, without being real if that makes sense, that the Bozo Show lacked. (Side note: as I type this I am trying to decide if I just drank a glass of urine or bad smelling water.)

"You should be playing Dungeons and Dragons," Kevin Ryan's nephew said to me as I explain the myths that were cobbled together to build Clash Of The Titans' narrative.

Wow, was he right. I LOVED it. Loved it like how you love your your first girlfriend and don't notice her flaws but everyone else does. Yeah. Like that. I bought the red Basic Set and it was brought to a new world. A place where I had powers and weapons. A world with no homework, gym class, indifferent classmates, and angry fathers.

2. Would I watch the movie again? MAYBE
I enjoyed all of the book but only most of the movie. The divergence in the character of Luke from the book to the movie gives me pause. Patriarchal rage is converted to blind megalomania. It cheapens the character and also reduces the power of the "absent parents" theme running through the movie.

Hot Tub Time Machine or Jason drinks 12 Chernobyly and can see through time! (Though he can also see through time anytime he sits down to watch television, so maybe its not that big a deal.)

1. Did I enjoy the movie?     YES
I have to love a movie where a man says to a group of people, gathered in the back of a bar to watch him preform fellatio on his best friend after losing a bet on a football game because the squirrell he had puked on earlier disrupted the timestream, "Where do you people come from?"

2. Would I watch it again? YES
It's been almost two weeks since I've seen the film and I'm still talking about. This is going to be a cult film and I will need to work on memorizing the lines. I do wonder who I will be bonding with over quips from this film?

If I had a time machine would I go back to that sad glad rightside down time of my life that was nineteen. Being thirty-five, the obvious answer is no. No thank you! I am old enough to realize my youthfull dream to marry Corrine from Sleater-kinney would still not happen. Even with my older mature knowledge. (Knowing how to program an Ipod really won't help much here) I am wise enough to be okay with that. Time does that. Heals all wounds as our forefathers used to say.

And maybe the men in this movie did the same. They did not actually travel through time. Maybe these three men did not travel through time back to when they were eighteen, but merely entered their memories of being eighteen and came to grips with what happenned. In the Tarot, the symbol of the cups represents emotion and the memory.  Isn't a hot tub nothing but a giant cup. Introduce the power of will and intellect through the symbol of air: the lightning bolt on the Chernobyly, and BAM! Time-Travel! Back in the past, back inside their memories of the past, they find things are not as they remember. It's called maturation. It happens to everyone. Most memories when closely examined are not what we thought they were.  The schoolyard seems smaller then you remember. You have kids and understand why your parents did what they did. This is the mechanism of memory at work. You travel back to a past point of time. You inhabit the person you were but can't help but think like the person you are. You realize the past wasn't everything you thought it was. You come to accept that what you considered failures might actually be successes. You return from your memories. You now see what you thought was the life you ended up with is actually the life you have built. Empowered you make new choices, hopefully better choices. Or at least, that's what I try to do. How about you?

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel or Jason doesn't want all his money back, just some of it.

If you won't do it for the children, then do it for the parents that are dragged along.

Do what? Why develop the story fully so I can "enjoy" a movie with my son instead of "sit" through a movie with my son.

For example: Why did Alvin turn his back on his brothers. I could not tell you. Nor could my wife or anyone else I asked. The movie presents no basis for why Alvin, who is a world famous rock musician, is driven to win over the approval of some high school jocks. I am sure I could come up with any number of reasons on my own, but that is not my job. It is the filmmaker's. I feel sorry for kids nowadays if this is the state of children's filmmaking.

Why is it the criteria for good cinema seems to only apply to movies for grown-ups.  Plot, characterization, theme, and symbolism should be a criteria for ALL cinema regardless of the audience. Children are more creative and aware than people think. There is a complexity at work in children most people miss. Would Pixar have done as well as they have if children could only digest mindless or half-formed stories.

Even something as commercial and profit-driven as Alvin can have depth and resonance. Use the Chippettes memories of struggle to make it in their small town as a a foil for the Chipmunks. Place a few literary references in the back ground or on a chalkboard. Stop having Alvin just regurgitate random pop phrases. (That last one will most likely remain because little kids do talk like that.) Have Toby explain a plot for a video game that foreshadows the coming split between the brothers. Stuff like that.

Avatar or Jason goes to watch Avatar, says fuck it, and sneaks into Sherlock Holmes.

I tried to sit through Avatar. I really did. But I just couldn't do it. Large soda and large popcorn in hand, I walked out. A smile broke over my face as the door to that auditorium closed behind me. As I nervously scanned for any ushers when I snuck into Sherlock Holmes, I joined the "Yeah But" crowd.

"Yeah the special effects were good but the story...well that's another story."

What really bugged me, to the point where I could no longer suspend disbelief, was there was no point to making the movie. I am not saying the story had no point. It follows the monomyth: hero is given a task, ventures to a strange land, engages in conflict, and emerges with what he was missing. There was no reason for the filmmakers to make this specific story. James Cameron spent over ten years and three billion dollars to make Avatar. Ten years and three billion dollars to essentially remake Dances with Wolves. It is the exact same story of the lost man discovering himself when he joins the indigeous or aboriginal people. Didn't anyone notice this. They had ten years.

As I exited the theater I overheard a grandmother and her ten year old grandson talking.
"Have you seen Avatar," the grandma asks.
"Yeah. IT WAS AMAZING," he exclaimed.
Maybe Avatar is beyond me. I might finally be "too old" to get it. Avatar is this nascent generation's Star Wars. A film that inspires less from the message the hero learns but more from the filmmaker making a world people want to live in.