Hey guys! So 2005 was a very strong year. Can’t say the same for 2006. It is a very eclectic kind of strange group of nominees but they all have problems.
You all can read my thoughts on Cars here on the blog. It is a weird world of all Cars but if you can get past that it is a nice little movie with a good message about the loss of Main Street USA. It looks great and the humor is well done. It is definitely a little bit too long and drags in sections but I can see why kids love it.
Monster House was done by Image Movers and it has the pasty look of that studios films. The animation in general I am not a big fan of . Also, they made a mistake and had the movie go big in feel when it should have stayed small. It turns into a Godzilla like film and it is so crass in its humor it didn’t work for me. I can see why it has its fans but it just wasn’t for me.
Happy Feet is another strange offering. It starts out so cheerful with the penguins singing and Mumbles dancing. But then half way through they forget the singing and it turns into this message movie with the penguins going to tell the humans to stop over-fishing. The last 30 minutes feel like a different movie. It is also way too long. But the enjoyable sections are very adorable and fun so not a total loss.
What are your thoughts? I have loved the discussion this series has stimulated both on the channel and blog so thank you! If you like the video please give it a thumbs up. Thanks!
I find it amusing that Happy Feet and Mad Max Fury Road were directed by the same person.
Me too and Babe!
I think that the best animated movie which was released in 2006 was Satoshi Kon’s Paprika.
Thor others…I don’t mind Cars, I think the movie has heart, but it is hardly a masterpiece. Monster House has the best story of the three, but the animation is a really big mark against it. And Happy Feet is incredible forgettable. I never understood why the movie was such a success.
Still need to see Paprika but just from bits I’ve seen I agree. Cars is certainly not a masterpiece but out of the 3 I think it’s the best.
And with Happy Feet it’s just a matter of timing. It came out when environmental message heavy films were the cool thing.
It was actually a little bit behind…most of those movies were made in the 1990s.
Both time periods it was trendy. With Inconvenient Truth winning Best Documentary that year there were a number of heavy handed environmental films in 2006
Yeah…I guess Happy feet lucked out with the timing.
Monster House probably deserved it over Cars, but not by much. I find Happy Feet quite overrated.
Cool. Thanks for sharing your picks 🙂
I thought you mentioned somewhere that Happy Feet was one of your favorite sick day movies and you enjoyed it a lot.
If you watch the video I talk about it being a favorite sickday movie and what I realized
If you don’t want to watch the video I said that I realized I usually don’t watch it all the way through when I’m sick so I didn’t realize the strange change in tone that it takes in the last half of the movie. The first part is so cheerful it is great for a sick day. Still agree. I don’t hate any of the 3 movies in 2006. Just don’t LOVE them like I loved 2005.
Honestly, I probably agree with Happy Feet winning Best Animated Feature in 2006. It may be somewhat preachy as far as the message about we humans need to quit over fishing on Antarctica goes. However, I thought the story was rather clever and creative, the animation was pretty darn clever for it’s time, and I liked the way that the relationship between Mumble and Gloria was handled. Nevertheless, I respect your opinion. Great review once again. Looking forward to seeing more reviews in this series!
Thanks friend. I still like to watch it when I’m sick even if the ending is a little strange. It just changes tone so dramatically but I still think there is stuff to like in it for sure. None of these 3 I hate. I just don’t LOVE any of them.
And that’s absolutely fine.
Oh, and here’s a funny story about Monster House:
http://kellyoxford.tumblr.com/post/479774445/my-story-about-the-film-monster-house
“Dear Salinger:
Your Mom told me about Monster House scaring you. It sounds like one of the things that upset you is the fact that the house kept wanting to hurt people even after nobody wanted to hurt it anymore.
I will tell you a secret that sounds so silly, you might not believe it, but this is true: I never finished writing Monster House before my bosses turned it into a movie. And then different writers, people I don’t even know, changed the story in lots of ways, and the movie that you saw was not the story I wanted to tell you.
I think a good story, even if it is sad or scary while you’re watching it, should always make you a little less scared after you’ve seen it. Because even a scary story, if it’s a good scary story, takes us into strange, dark places that don’t make sense at first, and helps us see that they do make sense, and are therefore not so scary.
And that didn’t happen in Monster House. The kids go inside the house, and everything’s scary in there, but nothing starts making more sense. I don’t know about you, but when I go inside a giant scary monster, I expect to be rewarded for my bravery. There should always be something inside a monster that helps you understand it, and makes you less scared of it, and able to make the monster go away. Not just a bunch of stuff that makes you more confused and scared.
And why, after they escaped the house, did that old man tell them another scary story about a mean fat lady that didn’t make very much sense either? I’ll tell you why. Because Gil Kenan is a hack and Steven Spielberg is a moron. But hey, I shouldn’t be dumping this stuff on you.
Let’s just say, Salinger, that I have a lot of questions about that movie, too. And because I saw them making it, I know it’s not real, so it doesn’t scare me, but it makes me mad that it scared you, because I tried to tell them they were making a bad movie that was going to confuse and frighten smart children, instead of making children more brave, and they acted like I was stupid for being afraid that would happen.
I guess you and I are just smarter than other people, and I guess part of being smart is being scared of things that don’t scare other people. Henry’s a little younger than us and he just thinks the movie looks cool, which it does. And we won’t take that away from him. But you and I are looking at the movie through smart, sensitive, older eyes, and we can see how confusing it is.
The good news is, although our smart, sensitive, older eyes will probably always see more reasons to be afraid than other people’s eyes, we also have smart, sensitive older brains that can make sense of scary things, and make them less scary, not only for us, but for everyone else. Who knows what kind of amazing things you will be doing as you live your life. Maybe you will tell stories, or paint pictures, or sing songs, or climb mountains, or clean streets, or study insects or rescue elephants. But we know one thing for sure: you are going to be very special while you’re doing it, and you’re going to remove a lot of fear from other people’s lives, because you’re smart enough to see it, which means you’re smart enough to conquer it.
I hope one day I can finish writing a movie that they don’t change so much, and if you see it, I hope it makes you happy. Until then, I heard that Wall-E is very good, you should go see that. And next time Monster House is on, just remember that the guy that wrote it told you it was dumb.
Dan”
Interesting. Seems kind of sad if it was changed that dramatically from Dan Harmon’s vision. It kind of annoys me when directors or writers try to escape a movies legacy and blame it on other people, even if it is true. I saw that with Josh Trank and the recent Fantastic 4 debacle. It just comes off as sour grapes.
That said it is sweet of him to reassure the boy and I do like what he says about good scary movies should make sense. It’s not a terrible movie. Just not my favorite.