June 28, 2010
Toonzone Likes Fester Fish!
Last week the kind folks over at ToonZone wrote a nice article about "Fester's Nephew" on their Cool Stuff blog. See the article here! They've also got an fascinating interview with a Futurama voice actor.
June 26, 2010
Adventureland is a bad movie
Temporarily abandoning the criteria for my blog posts, I'm going to rant about something I don't like. Last night I rented the movie Adventureland, and I really didn't enjoy it. Here's why.
You could completely rearrange 80% of the scenes in the movie, and it wouldn't affect the story at all. Clerks is like that too, but the difference is that I find that movie pretty funny, and I like its characters. If the scenes in Adventureland were funny, maybe I wouldn't mind, but they're not. The whole first two-thirds of the movie is just people smoking pot and hooking up with each other. And the last third is just an attempt to get you to feel bad for the characters because they've done stupid things that have screwed up their lives. Instead, I just found myself thinking "you shouldn't have done that in the first place, it was stupid."
Before I saw the movie, I thought Jesse Eisenberg looked like a cross between Andy Samberg and Michael Cera, and after seeing him act, my opinion remains unchanged. His "fast, awkward and deadpan" acting style is straight out of the Michael Cera playbook, only it's even more annoying with him because you know someone else is already doing the exact same thing.*
And anybody else notice that Kristen Stewart's entire acting technique is mumbling, looking vaguely annoyed and running her fingers through her hair? Somebody get this girl an Oscar. She also puts a lot of odd pauses in her dialogue. Unfortunately she's neither William Shatner nor Christopher Walken, so it doesn't work. That, and her mumbling, just make it hard to understand what she's trying to say.
At least Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig's parts were kind of funny, specifically the part where's they're trying to glue eyes onto bananas to give away as prize toys. And Martin Starr's still got enough goodwill with me from Freaks and Geeks that I enjoyed his scenes.
I will admit that I didn't have much interest in seeing this, because I didn't think I was going to like it. However, I thought that because it was marketed as a stupid frat-boy comedy. I ended up not liking it because it felt so desperate to be deep and meaningful, and the characters were mostly irritating. And it just wasn't very funny, not even in the low-key ironic way it tried to be.
Finally, the most important reason why I didn't like this movie is that it tries to paint an accurate portrayal of teenage life, and yet in several scenes it completely throws reality out the window. The scenes in question? People keep complaining that the amusement park plays "Rock Me Amadeus" too much. Nobody can get tired of "Rock Me Amadeus." Fact.
*I don't really mind Michael Cera, I just find it annoying how he plays the same character in every movie. As Jon Heder proved, that eventually wears out its welcome. At first I didn't like that Cera had been cast as the lead in the Scott Pilgrim movie, since his awkward style doesn't seem to fit the energetic naivety of that character, but the trailers have disquieted my concerns. He still doesn't seem quite like the character from the comics, but it works for me.
You could completely rearrange 80% of the scenes in the movie, and it wouldn't affect the story at all. Clerks is like that too, but the difference is that I find that movie pretty funny, and I like its characters. If the scenes in Adventureland were funny, maybe I wouldn't mind, but they're not. The whole first two-thirds of the movie is just people smoking pot and hooking up with each other. And the last third is just an attempt to get you to feel bad for the characters because they've done stupid things that have screwed up their lives. Instead, I just found myself thinking "you shouldn't have done that in the first place, it was stupid."
Before I saw the movie, I thought Jesse Eisenberg looked like a cross between Andy Samberg and Michael Cera, and after seeing him act, my opinion remains unchanged. His "fast, awkward and deadpan" acting style is straight out of the Michael Cera playbook, only it's even more annoying with him because you know someone else is already doing the exact same thing.*
And anybody else notice that Kristen Stewart's entire acting technique is mumbling, looking vaguely annoyed and running her fingers through her hair? Somebody get this girl an Oscar. She also puts a lot of odd pauses in her dialogue. Unfortunately she's neither William Shatner nor Christopher Walken, so it doesn't work. That, and her mumbling, just make it hard to understand what she's trying to say.
At least Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig's parts were kind of funny, specifically the part where's they're trying to glue eyes onto bananas to give away as prize toys. And Martin Starr's still got enough goodwill with me from Freaks and Geeks that I enjoyed his scenes.
I will admit that I didn't have much interest in seeing this, because I didn't think I was going to like it. However, I thought that because it was marketed as a stupid frat-boy comedy. I ended up not liking it because it felt so desperate to be deep and meaningful, and the characters were mostly irritating. And it just wasn't very funny, not even in the low-key ironic way it tried to be.
Finally, the most important reason why I didn't like this movie is that it tries to paint an accurate portrayal of teenage life, and yet in several scenes it completely throws reality out the window. The scenes in question? People keep complaining that the amusement park plays "Rock Me Amadeus" too much. Nobody can get tired of "Rock Me Amadeus." Fact.
*I don't really mind Michael Cera, I just find it annoying how he plays the same character in every movie. As Jon Heder proved, that eventually wears out its welcome. At first I didn't like that Cera had been cast as the lead in the Scott Pilgrim movie, since his awkward style doesn't seem to fit the energetic naivety of that character, but the trailers have disquieted my concerns. He still doesn't seem quite like the character from the comics, but it works for me.
June 14, 2010
Featured on Cartoon Brew!
On Saturday, I woke up to find that "Fester's Nephew" had been featured on the animation news blog Cartoon Brew!!
I want to express my thanks to Jerry Beck for featuring me. It really boosted my viewership, and I got lots of great feedback from readers of Cartoon Brew.
Thanks, Jerry!
(I look forward to reading The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes!)
I'm going to start my next cartoon as soon as I can decide exactly what it should be. I've got a few ideas, but I'm not sure whether to do another Fester Fish short, another Space Goose episode or something different. Any preference, gentle reader?
I want to express my thanks to Jerry Beck for featuring me. It really boosted my viewership, and I got lots of great feedback from readers of Cartoon Brew.
Thanks, Jerry!
(I look forward to reading The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes!)
I'm going to start my next cartoon as soon as I can decide exactly what it should be. I've got a few ideas, but I'm not sure whether to do another Fester Fish short, another Space Goose episode or something different. Any preference, gentle reader?
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