Three movies in a row! It was a cold, raining Sunday afternoon, so JP and I bunkered down with full breakfast for lunch in front of the telly. First up; "The Ant Bully".
This is the first of our many animations/children movies. I'm a big Pixar movie fan and this is not one of them, so I'm always a little hesitant. Ok, maybe hesitant isn't the right word. I'm always blown away by Pixar and while all the others are good, they come a distant second.
"The Ant Bully" is about an ant colony that is terrorised by 'the destroyer'; aka Lucas, the boy picked on by the neighbourhood kids. This weekend his parents are going away, leaving the alien-fearing Grandmother in charge. Meanwhile the Ants have had enough of 'the destroyer' and concot a potion that turns him into the size of an ant. They kidnap him and take him deep under ground to their leader who sentences Lucas to live as an ant. He is only allowed to return home when he has truly become an ant. Sowly but surely Lucas starts living life as an ant, until he realises that the exterminator he ordered before he was shrunk is going to end up destoying his new friends and home. He ventures into his home with some ant friends to call the exterminator but it doesn't work. Instead they launch an attack against the exterminator which they win. Hoorah! It's after this heroic act that the ants decide he's proven himself as an ant and let him return to his regular self.
Firstly this movie is just plain fun. One of my favorite movies growing up was "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and this movie is similar to that one - apart from the animated ants that is. I love the collision of humans and animals, especially insects. I find it fascinating the ideas that people have about what insects look like as individuals, their homes, lives, voices, personalities etc.
This movie had a couple of great messages - The first being about being bullies. The obvious bullying is person to person, but it's so true that when we torture animals and insects for whatever reason, it's just the same bullying but on a different scale. The second was about working together to form a cohesive group/unit. We all have our roles to play and we all must work together to achieve our goals and to live harmoniously. I'm sure I could word that much better if I wasn't all sniffly and tired. I almost feel like I'm writting an essay for school or something, but I wouldn't write this bit, but flesh out the above bit more. But seeing as I'm not writing an essay for school and it's just for you fellas, then I'm not going too, sorry.
I like this movie, it's fun and light hearted for a rainy Sunday afternoon. It's also kid friendly - fun for the whole family.
We quickly followed "The Ant Bully" with "Antz" and I'm telling ya, it was really interesting watching the two back-to-back. It gave good insight in to both movies and it changed my opinions on both.
"Antz" stars Woody Allen as the lead voice for 'Zee', a worker ant in the ant colony. He isn't happy with his place in the colony and whines for ages about his mundane life. One night he meets 'Princess Bala' in the colony bar and tries to meet her again the next day during the soldier procession. Only he doesn't realise that swapping places with his brother has meant that he is heading straight in to battle with the other soldiers. Somehow he ends up being trapped under a termite until the end of the battle and returns to the colony a hero. Princess Bala recognises him and he's discovered to be a fraud so he sets off to find 'Insect-topia' with Princess Bala in tow. They come acrosss a picnic before finding the rubbish bin, or 'insect-topia'. They learn of the general ant's plan to wash away half of the colony through the tunnel that the workers are building. They return to the colony just in time to join the flood, but together they save the worker ants and the colony. "The Ant Bully" is about ants working and living together, having their job and place in the colony and how wonderful and better that is. "Antz" is about one ant hating doing his job and wanting to break free, while another group of ants are trying to kill the other ants. Watching them back-to-back made it clear how different the two movies are when they are based in the same setting.
Don't get me started on Woody Allen, or don't get JP started on Woody Allen to be more accurate. His character is so whiny and neurotic - just like the actor himself. It makes for difficult viewing. In fact JP will tell you that he doesn't like the movie, but he may have a different opinion if it was voiced by someone else. Isn't it interesting that our opinions of the actors in the roles influences our opinions of the movie itself?!
Overall, this movie is another fun children's movie that kid adore. If I had to pick though I'd definetly go for "The Ant Bully" over "Antz" any day.
Queue the end of the "A's"!! So far we've watched 15 movies in the Alphabetical Movie Project. You all know what's next - the "B's"! I'm not sure how many there are, but we seem to have a lot of them. JP kicks us off with a run of his movies. Starting with "Barton Fink".
I asked JP what type of movie "Barton Fink" was - comedy? drama? thriller? horror? and he just looked at me with a strange smirk on his face, shrugged his shoulders and said "It's 'Barton Fink'". Of course this just annoyed me because it must have some kind of genre right?! But after watching it, if you asked me the same question, all I could really say is "It's 'Barton Fink'".
Like I say, JP had this strange smirk on his face. I've noticed he does this whenever we watch a movie of his that he thinks I'll be scared of or dislike. Now when I see the smirk I know I'm in for an interesting few hours.
The story is about Barton Fink, a script writer from New York, commissioned to write a B-Movie wrestling movie in LA. He reluctantly takes the job and moves into the creepy Hotel Earle where he promptly gets writers block. He befriends the man living next door (after complaining about him making to much noise the night before) and a local writer, along with his assistant/girlfriend. The movie goes along with this really creepy vibe throughout until he finally beds the writers assitant/girlfriend, only to find her dead when he wakes up. The man next door goes to New York for business and asks Barton to look after a package that he claims is his most important belongings. Barton agrees and then manages to write his entire script. Next thing you know two cops turn up claiming that the man is actually a murderer. The man comes back and promptly shoots the cops while setting the hotel on fire behind him. He tells Barton that the package isn't his after all and appears to go back into his room, all while the hotel is on fire. Barton calmly leaves. The movie ends with Barton walking along the beach with the package and coming across a woman. They sit in the sand talking and the girl ends in the pose that is the same image as the painting in his room back at the hotel.
Like I say, "It's 'Barton Fink'". I don't really know what else to say about this one. I just have questions. Like, what was up with the wallpaper dripping off the walls? What was in the package?! (I'm convinced it was the girls head!) and What's with the posing of the girl like the picture?
This one is a weird one. It'd be a good one for those of you that like something a bit different, something creepy that isn't creepy and something that leaves you with more questions than answers. Definetly one for the "Creepy, Crazy" files, that's for sure.
Next?: "Batman Begins".
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