Usually during the winter and spring months at the beginning of the year, I don’t see very many movies in theaters. The majority of the movies I see are during the summer months when all the mindless blockbusters come out. At the end of the summer, I usually write a round-up blog about the flicks I saw during those months. But this year, I actually saw enough movies during the winter and spring seasons that I can write a blog about them now! So here’s a blog about the films I saw BEFORE the summer movie blast that’ll hit us in a few weeks. Oh yeah, just a word of warning. I’m going to try and keep this blog spoiler free, but if a tiny spoiler trickles out, I’m just letting you know it might happen.

Frozen

Even though this movie came out last year, it was such a big hit that they kept it in theaters well into this year, and that’s when I saw it! If it sounds like I’m bashing this movie, I’m really not. I will admit it was a great movie. But, I think I would’ve liked it better if it were 2-D animated. Then it would’ve felt like a true Disney classic. Used to, 3-D computer animation was novel and innovative. And now, everyone’s doing it so 2-D animation would be more novel. To me, 2-D animation seems more artistic and human. Like someone actually sat down and DREW this stuff instead of just plopping down in front of a computer and did polygon equations. Of course, a lot of 2-D animation is done with computers now, too, especially in the ink and paint department and even whole 2-D cartoons can be done in Flash. So yeah, I would’ve loved Frozen if it were in 2-D. Also, the credits say this movie was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” Well I’ve read that and Frozen has NOTHING to do with it! I would say that to me, Frozen was just Wreck-It Ralph with a snowman in it, but that would be a little cruel. It was still good and kids certainly love it. A lady at work says she hasn’t seen the whole movie yet on DVD because her 3 year old niece keeps pausing it so she can sing “Let it Go.” I thought that was funny!

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

This was a cute family movie based on the skits from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon. I felt like I should watch this because I actually knew someone who worked on that cartoon, along with a bunch of other animated classics. His name was William “Tex” Henson, and he taught a summer college class on cartooning one year when I was in middle school. I was really too young to take the class, but he let me attend anyway. Tex Henson worked at Disney and helped create Chip N Dale, and that’s one of the reasons why they’re my favorite Disney characters. After that, he worked at Paramount and wanted to do Popeye cartoons, but since he was typecast as being a ‘cute’ animator, they made him do Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons instead. After that he worked for Jay Ward Studios and helped with the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon. He always said that was his favorite cartoon to work on. Finally before becoming a teacher, he did TV commercial animations like the early Trix Rabbit ads. So that’s why I watched this movie, to kind of honor him. He passed away about ten years ago. I’m glad I got to know him.

The Muppets Most Wanted

The Muppets were a HUGE part of my childhood. Seeing the very first Muppet movie was one of my earliest childhood memories, and The Muppet Christmas Carol is probably one of my most favorite movies ever. So of course I would go see this one, too. A lot of people were worried when Disney bought the Muppets, but I think they’ve done a good job with them (they practically owned them anyway). The great thing about this and other Muppet movies is that they can make fun of themselves, as well as have humor for both kids and adults, and still be a family friendly franchise with no cursing or other bad stuff. I’ll probably always be a fan of the Muppets.

Noah

I actually just saw this one recently. Since I consider Easter a Christian holiday and this was a movie based on the Bible story, I thought it would be fun to go see it on Easter Sunday. So that’s what we did. It was pretty good. I wished it were a bit more Biblical and not so heavy on the Hollywood sensationalism and drama. But hey, everyone’s got their own interpretations of the Bible, I suppose. It was just a bit too ‘sci-fi’ for my tastes. For instance, Noah lives in a Mad Max style desolate world, they use exploding rocks for fire and weaponry, and rock monsters helped them build the Ark. So yeah, some parts were a bit dopey.

The Wind Rises

I’m a big fan of Miyazaki’s works, and I have almost all of his cartoons on DVD (Even Panda Go Panda). So I’m glad I got to see his ‘last’ move before he retires. I put that in quotes because he’s said that for the past few cartoons, and then comes back to do another. But he is getting on up there in years so maybe this will be it. This movie tells the story about a real-life engineer who designed Japanese fighter planes in WWII. The thing I liked about this movie is that it handled touchy subjects very well. The movie didn’t get preachy about things like “war is bad” or “such and such side was wrong.” It just focused on the people and the man trying to follow his dream and that’s it. I bet it was a challenge for Miyazaki to make a movie so grounded in real life, since he mostly does fantasy movies with crazy looking airships. But he got around this challenge because this movie also had a lot of dream sequences with more fanciful aircraft! I’m kind of disappointed that Frozen beat out this movie for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, but hey, what do I know? I still say it was a very beautiful and intellectual film. Even though the title sounds like a fart joke, I say this was probably my second favorite movie I saw this year so far. I’ll definitely be getting it on DVD to add to my collection.

The LEGO Movie

So what WAS my favorite movie this year so far? I think it’s probably The LEGO Movie. You see, I expected The Wind Rises to be good, but I didn’t expect The LEGO Movie to be as good as it was. Quite a surprise, really. The movie was very humorous, never got boring, had fun for the whole family, and even got a little bit artistic toward the end. I’ve never really played with LEGOs too much because the pieces are so small and the sets and toys are so expensive. But I sure do enjoy the LEGO video games, and I think it’s the popularity of those games that got the movie off the ground in the first place. Heck, I even reviewed the game based on this movie! Like The Wind Rises, I’ll be getting this on DVD, too. I wonder when it comes out on DVD? I know you can still catch it at some theaters and probably at the dollar movie places, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you should!

Movies I Haven’t Seen Yet

There was one movie that I wanted to see before writing this blog, but I haven’t had a chance to yet and I didn’t feel like waiting until then before writing this blog. But that’s OK; I probably wouldn’t have much to say about it anyway. And that movie is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And I wouldn’t have much to say about it because I don’t know much about Marvel characters. Funny story, one time I was texting to my brother Jeff about this movie and I accidentally called him Major Glory, which was the Capt. America parody they had on the old Dexter’s Lab cartoon. So I came up with a funny title that made Jeff laugh: Major Glory vs. the Cold Soldier. I don’t even know what a Winter Soldier is! My imagination tells me that it’s a Yeti with army clothes that shoots snowballs out of a bazooka. Am I close?

Another movie that I want to talk about, but I don’t necessarily want to see is the Need for Speed movie. I just think it’s funny they made a movie out of a racing game. I think they just had a rejected Fast and Furious script and decided to slap it on this. Of course if they made a Ridge Racer movie, I’d totally go see that. But if they did make a Ridge Racer movie, who would they get to play Reiko Nagase, the Ridge Racer lady? What do you think?

And that’s a Wrap!

And that’s all I feel like talking about movies. In the comments section, tell me what you think of my list, and let me know what movies you’ve seen this year so far! Later! –Cary

Tags: Movies with Children