Appreciating quality: The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002)

So, I just finished watching The Wild Thornberrys movie on Netflix. Not my particular thing. Just based on the films reviewed on this blog, it is likely very apparent that my taste lies within genres outside of Nickelodeon cartoon movies. I put this movie on because it was lunch time and my son asked if he and his sister could watch a movie. So there it is. They eventually went to take their nap and i completed the movie by myself. I have to say though, This film looked amazing, this is not taking into consideration that the movie was mad in 2002.

I have come to believe that there is no excuse anymore for a cartoon or animated movie to look bad. With our technology, it is not hard to do with enough money and work. But go back more than a decade ago when this film was made and making a movie of this quality was no easy feat.  This is obviously not a full review, I have no particular interest in the Thornberrys. I thought this movie did look good and some scenes in the film were fun and emotional and it easily kept my attention when I allowed it to. If you remember this show and liked it and have not given this movie a look and are feeling somewhat Nostalgic over the idea of it, give it a watch. you wont be disappointed. A fine film... for kids.

Supporting The Art: Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

I have been finding myself in the strange predicament of realizing that I am an adult now and do in fact care about the state of affairs that my field of art is in. That is all to say that I don't file share/ pirate films anymore.

I don't normally prefer to stream movies as there is always a chance of the connection being lost or whatnot. Im not opposed to buying  the download to a film and keeping it digitally on my computer. But in the case of AVGN: The Movie, I didn't feel like buying it outright as it did not contribute to my horror collection. But I did want to watch it so I went Vimeo to stream it for 5 bucks. It didn't work. I had to create an account to get it to accept my credit card of course but try as I might I couldn't get it to work. I am a man who gets set on watching a film if I want to watch it. It takes quite a lot to get me to give. But along the line somewhere I did consider torrenting a download of the film illegally. I had done this in a long while and I knew how to do it. But to me it felt wrong this time. I have been following James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd on YouTube for a very long time. He is hilarious and his inside to video games and film is astounding. He and Cinemassacre made this movie for the fans of the Web series and it felt like I was being directly unsupportive by pirating the film. I decided I was going to give it up altogether. I spent another day or so emailing Vimeo to get my account to work and last night we finally got it to work and I got to rent the movie and the site even sent me an email telling me that I did well in supporting the artists I want see succeed using Vimeo. Th at was a nice touch.

**light plot spoilers **
The film  itself was definitely worth the watch... If you're a fan of The Nerd. Wife watched it with me and while she thought it was funny, the silly effects, blue humor, and over the top action and acting put her off because unlike me, she was not as familiar with gaming or The Nerd. So this film revolves around a silly plot that has to do with topics such as old bad games becoming popular, the video game crash of 1983, the E.T. video game being buried in the new Mexico dessert and the Roswell alien. I loved it. But I loved it because I loved the Nerd. If you're interested in this film but are not sure if you would like it check out his show on YouTube or Cinemassacre.com and if you dig that, you'll dig this.

I do think that what I learned most about my love of film and being supportive of filmmakers has definitely left an impact where I know I will be mindful of the affects my procuring methods have. I don't think pirating is innately wrong. If a film is nigh impossible to get outside that means, I'm going to use file-sharing to get it. But for the sake of making sure the movies I want to be made get made, I'm going to pitch in what I can to support the art.

The good and the not so good: Ghostbusters and Stitches

Yeah well I do realize that there might be some sort of drop off here. Ghostbusters is a classic comedy film revolving around the paranormal whereas Stitches is a throwaway film made in 2012 bout a clown who is killed at a party and through paranormal means, comes to life to take revenge on the brats who lead to his demise. The question being asked might be somewhere along the lines of, "So, what do these two movies have in common?" and the answer to that appropriate query is nothing. Stitches is more or less something you watch because there is nothing else on and Ghostbusters is a movie you watch because that's the movie you wanted to watch. These were both the case in regards to the last couple days. This last Sunday I was up early with my kids, I had them both fed and working on activities and whatnot and I felt like watching a film. I had nothing in mind, I didn't feel like committing to anything heavy, so I turned to Netflix, where I often go to veg out over a flick that wasn't worth it in my opinion to buy on Blu-ray or dvd.

So I watched Stitches. It wasn't bad either. It had a good deal of well delivered humor and a plot that, while not particularly original, I had no trouble following. I'll go ahead and recommend this film for anyone finding themselves in need of an "anything will do"  film.
Next on Monday. I switched to Netflix again. Only this time I had purpose. I became aware the week before that Wife had never seen Ghostbusters and I was determined to set that right. To my dismay I found that it was freshly no longer on Netflix streaming. I was for moment devastated. Well this was important so I was not going to be deterred. I rented the HD version of the film on Amazon Instant Streaming and we hooked my Chromebook to the TV and watched it that way. Ghostbusters, in my honest opinion, is a must watch classic for fans horror or any regular person,  i.e. Wife. If you haven't seen it (and I was utterly surprised to hear anyone had not seen it), do yourself a solid and rent it.

So,  in the course of two days I watched two films that really represent the range that my genre has to offer. But it's not so well about the quality of the film. Stitches has a lot of good going for it but will likely not become classic. While Ghostbusters has its share of flaws (such as erratic pacing and scenes that go nowhere) but is remembered and referred to as a must-see. Go watch both these films.  And watch whatever you want. The films we can enjoy are not dependent on the critic scores and IMDb ratings.