Cloudy Chance Meatballs Two-Disc Blu-ray

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2009)

There are some movies where you come out of the theater talking about the camerawork and the acting, discussing plot points, picking things apart, arguing whether it was really the seventy-eighth best movie you've ever seen. And there are some movies where you exit the theater and say "Dude. That was AWESOME." Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is very much of the latter variety; no matter how silly and/or stupid the final half-hour may be (as the few critics who didn't like it have pointed out), it's still a blast.

Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader, recently of Tropic Thunder) is a bumbling inventor who comes up with things that are kind of useful ("The Hair-Unbalder!" is the movie's first big laugh), but generally stupid. He lives on a small island just off the coast, the entire economy of which is derived from the sardine industry. It collapses, we learn, when the rest of the world realizes that sardines taste horrible. Inspired, Flint turns his attention to devising a machine that can turn water into food (in order to give the islanders some respite from eating three meals a day of sardines). Meanwhile, his father (voice of James Caan) wants him to go into the family business (bait and tackle, naturally), the local cop (voice of, yes, Mr. T) has an eye and a half on Flint thanks to previous experiments, and the Mayor (voice of Bruce Campbell) has staked the island's meager savings on the construction of an amusement park, which he hopes will begin a tourism industry. A station from the mainland has sent an enthusiastic weather girl (voice of Anna Faris, recently of The House Bunny) to cover the story. Flint's machine looks promising, but needs more power than he can get at home, so he decides to take it down to the power station on the day of the unveiling. Mishaps occur, the machine ends up shooting into the atmosphere, and just as inventor and weather girl meet, cheeseburgers begin raining from the sky. Oh, yes, there will be tourism. Read more...

Megamind Single-Disc (2010)

This movie is a first class production with all the right elements - excellent animation, good writing, quality actors doing the voices, an interesting storyline, etc. My kids enjoyed it and I would recommend it.

I really digged the big blue head! This was so funny & great for the kids. Megamind was great to show be careful of what you really want then turned his life around. I also love the extras they were great.

First, the humor. This movie is just plain fun to watch! Just the right balance between silly-slapstick and witty irony, lots of hilarious one-liners, references to other sci-fi films and comics, and, rare for an animated film, tiny subtle shifts in body language that betray what a character is thinking without any words necessary.

Next, the characters. All five of the main characters have a surprising amount of depth, making it easy to empathize with them, in part due to the gorgeous animation and incredibly realistic facial expressions. Megamind in particular has very expressive eyebrows, and you can literally see wrinkles appear in his forehead when he's upset, or smile lines in his cheeks when he gives that irrepressibly gleeful grin of his...you can't help but love him. Read more...

Tangled (2010)

The marketing for Tangled was atrocious. It was the sole reason why I originally had no interest in this movie at all, and is why the majority of my friends still have no interest in seeing it. Although Disney's former attempt to "return to the glory days", The Princess and the Frog, was moderately well-received by critics, it was considered a financial failure. They marketed it as a warm-hearted Disney musical in the vein of the classics, but apparently the potential audience still wasn't that interested. Smart ol' Disney, attempting to learn from their mistakes, decide to go the polar opposite for the Tangled marketing. Bad idea! Now they've gotten even less people interested!

The marketing made Tangled (even the name gives it a cheesy, "edgy" feel) seem like this super-hip retelling of Rapunzel, full of non-essential gags and devoid of any warmth or heart. If that's what you think, you'll be pleasantly surprised if you give Tangled a chance. I bet you didn't even know it was a musical. It's a freaking Alan Menken musical! The composer from all of your favorite Disney movies, including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid composed the songs for Tangled! And he's still got it! Does that get you excited? Well what if I told you that, contrary to the tone the ads create, Tangled is one of the most touching, beautiful, and joyous movies of the decade? EXCITED NOW?? You should be!

Tangled is absolutely PHENOMENAL! It's easily the strongest Disney movie since Lilo and Stitch (2002). I'd even say that it's at the very least in my mental 'top three Disney movies of all time' list. It's that good. Forget The Princess and the Frog. Tangled is the true return to what made Disney classics so fantastic and magical. Apparently it didn't have as much to do with it being hand-drawn as we might have thought. Read more...