Blogger Syndrome - The Pressure to Review

When I started blogging about a year back I came across a relatively famous blogger (can't remember his blog name) who after about a month of me reading his posts declared that he was going to quit writing. The reason for this sudden decision was that he found himself not enjoying movies anymore. He claimed that in place of letting the film entertain him, he found his mind wandering off towards what to write in the review.

I too seem to be suffering from this case it seems. Lately, I have found my mind get distracted while watching a movie thinking what I would want to write in its review. I don't like this one bit. Just the other day, while watching True Romance for the very first time, I made a conscious decision that I would not write a review of the movie. To my surprise I enjoyed the movie a whole lot more because it had my 100% attention throughout its course.

I know some of you are seasoned bloggers who watch movies on a daily basis as well as publish reviews everyday. My question to you is if you too suffer from the same problem which i've termed as the "Blogger Syndrome"? Do you feel that as a result of the pressure to review a movie, be it for a personal blog or professionally, more time is spent fixating on the positives and negatives of the movie rather than its total enjoyment? In fact, in-between I even started taking my iPad to take notes while watching a movie in my home theater, a practice that I did not continue after a couple of movies.

In a perfect world, I would love to disassociate myself from any thought during the movie and just think about it afterwards when I write about it, but unfortunately that has not been the case. I have tried not writing a review on my immediate return leaving it at times for weeks afterwards, but still I find myself forming sentences for my write-up mid-movies. Ideally, repeat watching would be a great solution to the problem. Enjoy the movie the first time round and then look at it critically the second time, but with the abundance of movies to still watch, repeat viewings are few and far between.

For now I haven't reached the stage where I would give up writing and that might disappoint some of you, but I have had a hard and long thought over it and if this does continue, I fear I might one day follow on the footsteps on my above mentioned fellow blogger.

REVIEW: Cars 2 (C)

(dir. John Lasseter and Brad Lewis, 2011)

Regardless of what you hear, there is a lot to enjoy about Disney and Pixar's newest film, Cars 2.  But, in line with what you've heard, there's also a lot to not enjoy.  Much ado has been whispered and shouted in regards to the reason this film was made.  It's well documented (including in an hour-long documentary) that the original Cars was a passion project for director and Pixar creative master John Lasseter, and the film just happened to become a hit with children (if not the critical masses) and a merchandise Goliath.  So is the sequel to Pixar's least-favorably-reviewed film a project of passion or dollar signs?

Answer: It doesn't matter.

As with all Pixar films, we start with the adorable protagonists, erstwhile upstart and now reformed race-car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and stupid is as stupid does best pal Mater (Larry the Cable Guy).  In the original, McQueen was the star, and in a curious and ultimately successful move, Mater has become the chief hero of the sequel.  Long story short, in the throes of a worldwide World Grand Prix race sponsored by alternative fuel icon Sir Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard), Mater is mistaken as a high-class spy and hilarity ensues; well, it almost ensues.

There are some funny parts.  A rather clever scene wherein Mater eats pistachio ice cream, only to find out he had really eaten a scoop of wasabi (you know, the things adults get and kids don't).  There are fun parts even; the races are visually stunning and the battle sequences are awe-inspiring.  A particularly strong opening sequence (seemingly borrowed right from the storyboards of a James Bond flick) gave me hope for the rest of the picture.  But it's the overarching aspects where the film falters.  There's no real emotional core, you struggle to really care about anyone aside from Mater, and there's no cohesively strong theme to the piece.  In the end, it's just a "see, your stupid friend can do stuff, if only by accident" story.  All new and old characters are bland and mostly forgettable, from the barely-there McQueen to the new Mater love interest Holley Shiftwell (voiced, presumably while napping, by Emily Mortimer).  New driving rival Francesco Bernoulli (a Formula-1 car voiced by John Turturro) is a recycling of Turturro's character from The Big Lebowski and Sasha Baron Cohen's foreign racing rival from Talladega Nights.  It was just...fluff.  Devoid of the heart and soul we've come to expect not only from Pixar, but from all good animated films.

Cars 2 feels so empty, even if it is full of color.  For all the disdain most give the original, I respect it for what it was.  It had heart, and that heart belonged in the characters of Radiator Springs, and the town itself.  Cars 2 takes half the lovable characters out of the equation and transplants McQueen and Mater to Italy, Japan, and London.  There's no love or connection with these cities; visually, they're amazing, but the characters have zero connection to them. And in a wanderlust sequel to a film that was originally all about the importance of a small town, this feels like a misguided ripoff.

I saw this movie with five children, four of which literally worship the ground all things Cars walk drive on.  They laughed a lot, and when we left they said it was the "best movie ever," and that they "loved Lightning."  And, in the end, I guess that's the point isn't it?  For animated films at least, to entertain children and take them to another world that's fun and where cars can fly.  So what if their parents, siblings, or film critics thinks the movie is stupid, they get a kick out of it.  For so long now, animated films have surprised us by not being just animated films, but something greater.  So when they're not, we're disappointed, and we miss the point of them to begin with.  GRADE: C

Better Than The Average Review

As you know (or probably could have guessed) I really enjoyed the new Yogi Bear movie in theatres now. The film has been getting alot of bashing from various internet sites, but it was nice to see Entertainment Weekly give the film a favorable and completely honest review of the movie. I liked the review so much I had to run it here for more to see...

"Those of us who grew up on Yogi Bear cartoons can breathe easy: In his new movie — featuring a 3-D computer-animated Yogi (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) and Boo Boo (voiced by Justin Timberlake) alongside live action actors — our beloved pic-a-nic thief isn't asked to whore himself by rapping, farting, or dropping pop culture references the way some of his animated brethren have in recent years. (Our condolences, Chipmunks.) Instead he's plopped unharmed into a sweetly frivolous storyline about a park ranger (Tom Cavanagh) trying to save Jellystone Park from the grips of an oily politician. There's nothing particularly inventive in the plot or grade-school humor, but the movie skates by on the timeless, undemanding charm of watching a tie-wearing bear try to steal people's lunches. B-" -Adam Markovitz


Well put and well said!

Red-Nosed Rip-Off

Usually it's hard for me to write a review of a video game because there is just so much in a game and I don't know what to include in a review and what to leave out. However, reviewing Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (just out on Wii and also DS) should be a piece of cake as the title contains maybe 15 minutes of content. You would think that a video game which has licenced one of the most iconic films in this country's holiday psyche would be rich in detail and pay tribute to that original 1964 television special. You would be wrong. Even though this game advertises itself as having something for the kids and also the parents who grew up on the special, the makers of this game have made very little effort to include much of the show in their game version.


Let's get this out of the way first; this is a mini-game collection consisting of only four games! Which, I believe, makes it a "mini mini-game collection." The games can be played individually or in a story mode. Story Mode simply takes the four games and links them together with footage of Sam The Snowman (the TV special's narrator) waddling towards the screen trying desperately to link the four games together in some sort of narrative way. The animation of Sam is recycled four times. The biggest crime of all here, is that there was absolutely no attempt to duplicate Burl Ives' voice as the Snowman. Again, Burl Ives' voice in the original special is perhaps one of the voices most associated with Christmas. Even my four year old son, who hasn't seen the show since last Christmas, beat me to the punch pointing out the new voice was a fraud.


Upon hearing the "new" Sam the Snowman I was worried to hear how the voices of the other characters would be butchered, however not a single other character in this game ever utters a word. The only dialogue in the game comes from a generic elf and Santa Claus...and anyone can pull off a convincing Santa impression.

The games in this holiday collection are decidedly simple to appeal to the youngest of players, but some of the games are so simple and lack any sort of competition or challenge that anyone old enough to pick up a Wiimote will find it hard to stay engaged.

Each of the games can be played as single or double players and that's nice to keep the fighting down with the little ones. First up, Rudolph and Co. have to bounce packages into Santa's bag or get the decorations to the tree. There's a game just like this on last year's far superior We Wish You A Merry Christmas game. Next, is a game which sort of plays like a mini-version of Just Dance where you have to mimic the movements illustrated on the screen to help kneed dough to make Christmas cookies. As with most Wii games based solely on movement, the register of movements is questionable.

The third game has you helping to paint toys. This game seems to not require any skill as the points seem to magically appear regardless of how you play. Finally, you hop on Santa's sleigh and toss presents onto the rooftops. Here is the disc's only challenge as it did take a bit of precision timing to drop the gifts into the small chimneys.

There are a few references to the original TV special sprinkled throughout the title. Some of the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys pop up, and the Abominable Snowman makes several appearances. But overall, this game belongs on the naughty list for not really living up to the franchise which it represents. I imagine most people will be disappointed with this quick cash grab. You'd be better off not being invited to play in these reindeer games.

Ebert Scared Stupid

Honestly, I would have payed double the admission price to sit with my back to the screen and just watch Siskel and/or Ebert's face while screening 1991's Ernest Scared Stupid. Just the fact that two esteemed film critics who enjoyed Merchant Ivory productions and French New Wave Impressionist Cinema ever sat through an Ernest film warms the depths of my heart.

On Tuesday He Ate Through 800 Wii Points

I found very little on the interweb's about the new WiiWare title The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's. I assumed right from the get-go that I wasn't the target audience for a video game based on a beloved children's book. And I had a feeling that even my two children might be a little old for this title. But the thought of having Mr. Hungry Caterpillar living on my Wii menu screen and the thought of getting one of the first reviews for this game out in cyberspace (thus increasing my traffic, making this the most popular website in the world and possibly leading me to fame and fortune) I figured it was worth the 800 Wii Points ($8 US) to download the game and see what it's all about. Worse case senario: my kids learn a little something while they stare at the idiot box.

Let's just say first that The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's is a charming little title and a unique way to engage the smallest members of the household in Wii play. For those of you out of touch with your childhood, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the main character of the classic 1969 children's book written and illustrated by Eric Carle. In the book, we follow the caterpillar as he nibbles his way through several pages of food items. In the book, there are actual little holes in the pages where the caterpillar has made his way through. This WiiWare title, does not incorporate the little holes into your television screen. In fact, this game doesn't have much to do with V.H. Caterpillar at all. I guess we should also mention that this game isn't really much of game either...it's more of a interactive work book. But it's still cute.

The download should have been titled something more like "The Wonderful World of Eric Carle" as his illustrations from many of his popular books are the centerpiece of this game. (Ok, I'm still going to call it a game.) We went on an Eric Carle spree earlier this summer and checked out most of his books from our local library, so my kids were excited to spot familiar characters and illustrations from several books that we've enjoyed. I did read somewhere that Eric Carle created all the artwork for the game.

Caterpillar is divided up into four games...or sections. The Alphabet features a big, bubbly listing of letters A to Z. When a child points and clicks on a letter, a picture opens up of something that begins with that letter. The word for the object is also on the screen and a girl says the letter and the word. It enforces word recognition and all that good stuff. The pictures are animated and the crowd went wild when the aforementioned caterpillar popped out of A is for Apple. In a bold move by the game developers, the queen has been retired and now Q is for Quetzal. (That's some kind of bird.) There's no objective to this exercise besides having fun and a little learning. Kids can click around as long as they like.

Colors, Colors, Colors is the game pictured above. This is like a video game version of a lottery scratch-off card. When the game starts, the entire screen is a solid color. With the Wiimote you scratch away at the color trying to find the picture that is hidden somewhere on the screen. The game has four levels, which do not get harder but each round introduces a new color. Again, there is plenty of beautiful Eric Carle artwork to look at.

Animal Stamps lets kids pick out different stamps and create a picture on a pre-made background. And there's also What is This? which shows kids three objects and then shows them a word. Point and click on the correctly matching image to move to the next picture. This exercise would be very educational if there wasn't a narrator saying the word. For my four year old, I put the game on mute and had him try to figure out the words and he had a good time getting most of them right. I, myself, even scored a 9 out of 10 with the sound off!

Again, The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's doesn't have much to do with the starving caterpillar, but it's a fun, cute game for the tots. If one were to register a complaint about the title, it's that after plopping down $8 bucks for this simplistic game there are places in the program where you need to spend more money to unlock additional features of the game. My kids were disappointed because the Animal Stamps game had a level devoted to 10 Little Rubber Ducks (a huge hit in our house earlier this year) but it costs an additional 700 Wii Points/$7.00 to unlock it. In the Alphabet game you can also purchase "verbs" to go with your letters. That just seems like a complete waste of money in my book!? What makes verbs so much better than nouns that they need to cost more. Snooty verbs!

Eric Carle's illustrations look magnificent on a big screen TV. If you appreciate his work, and have a child under kindergarten age and he/she can point a Wii controller at the TV with any precision The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC's will be a dandy of an addition to your Wii library. It's available for download from the Wii Shopping Channel in the WiiWare department.

Go See The Princess and The Frog

The Princess and The Frog (2009)[G] First off, you need to go out and see this movie this weekend. Whether you've seen it already or not, you need to go to the theatre today or tomorrow and see this movie! Ya see, this is the first hand-drawn animated movie Hollywood has put out in quite a few years (The Simpsons Movie doesn't count) and Princess is getting clobbered at the box office by the shinny, hi-tech Avatar...which is largely computer animated. Now we all know that the folks in Hollywood ain't too bright and when they look at the numbers and see Avatar at $212 million and counting...and even Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 making $75 million in one week, and then they look at The Frog which has taken a month to only rack up $64 million...they are once again going to make the assumption that people only want to see CGI/computer animation and it will be another 10 years before we see a beautiful hand-drawn cartoon feature like The Princess and the Frog.


Now, is Princess as great as Disney would like you to believe? No, the film has some flaws. It follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest movies ever made like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Pinocchio. It also lives in the recent shadow of movies like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King - which are all beloved films that have become part of the American culture. These are all hard shoes to fill.


The Princess and the Frog is beautiful to look at. Set in New Orleans in the earlier part of the last century, the backgrounds are full of vibrant colors and rich detail while the character animation is flawless and fun to watch. Visuals alone can't carry a picture, and in the second act of this film the story starts to drag as it gets lost in the bayou. There are a handful of characters that are introduced which seem to serve no real purpose except to kill time. Some of the characters are completely forgettable, like a group of backwoods hunters who show up and still some of the other characters are really great: like Louis, an alligator with dreams of playing jazz and Raymond, a Cajun firefly who almost steals the show but again has no real purpose in the story.

The music is great and catchy and will probably add another two or three songs to the legacy of classic Disney music, but the music almost seems to fail to advance the story the way songs are used in true Disney masterpieces. The musical numbers are enjoyable and the highlight of the film, but they lack the storytelling/showstopping power of Disney tunes of the past.


With all the complaints and criticisms, I still found this to be an incredibly entertaining movie. It's just that the pieces don't quite fit together when compared to other Disney cartoon movies. It's still one of the best movies of the year. Hopefully, the talented Disney artists will have another chance real soon to make a trademark high quality picture like this one...but people need to go out and see it in the movies!!!

Wii Wish You A Merry Christmas

I've been a little preoccupied lately with my 13 doctors appointments a week, but I wanted to tell ya'll about a great new game that's out for the Wii. Now if you're a hard core gamer or someone who likes a real challenging video game - this is not the title for you, but if you've got kids - especially younger ones - We Wish You A Merry Christmas will probably be a big hit with your family. This fun little title creatively gets everyone in the holiday spirit. It's essentially another mini-game collection tied together by a common theme but there are some nice touches here that separate this game from the pack. There's no ultimate objective in this disc except to have fun and get in a Christmas mood.

When the game starts up you'll find yourself in a warm and cozy living room all decked out for Christmas. There's a roaring fire, a Christmas tree, and even a radio playing Christmas carols. In one section of the room, you'll find the disc's game collection. There are six different games that can be accessed, each one a slight variation on a classic video game. Deck The Halls is a puzzle game where you match 3 ornaments of the same kind on a moving grid. Hot Chocolate has players taking and filling drink orders for thirsty elves. Candy Cane Lanes is almost identical to the bowling game in Wii Sports except with a Christmas overlay and elves instead of bowling pins. In Santa's Sleigh you'll catch and deliver presents to homes on Christmas eve. Present Catch is a clever updated version of Pong and Reindeer Games (my favorite, and pictured below) lets you fly a reindeer high into the sky. The games are all easy but also addictively fun to play and can be enjoyed by even the smallest members of the house.

In addition to the games there are also a few activities. There's a place to write an electronic letter to Santa, a sticker book for creating various Christmas scenes, and Elf Hunt which is a fairly elaborate version of one of those Look and Find Books neatly adapted to the Wii. Back in the living room area of the game you can actually go in and decorate the Christmas tree, throw logs onto the fire and roast marshmallows and tune the radio to your favorite Christmas song.

I think the neatest feature of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, and the one that gives the game it's most value, is the Advent Calendar. Sitting on top of the virtual fireplace is a traditional looking Advent Calendar. Each day between December 1 and December 25 when you turn the game on you can open another door of the advent calendar and you'll get a surprise. My kids LOVE this! Everyday they can't wait to find what they'll unlock next. So far the kids have been treated to extra ornaments for the tree, new pages and stickers for the sticker book, bonus games of Elf Hunt, and even some Magic Sparkles which change the color of the fire in the fireplace. It all sounds so simple and not like something that kids who are used to using the Wii to fight the Joker or destroy the Death Star would even be interested in but when they unlock new ornaments they can't wait to zap on over to the tree and hang them. It's been a fun addition to our holiday season this year!

You should be able to find We Wish You A Merry Christmas tucked away among the more popular video games at your local game slinging establishment for about $20 bucks. It's some wholesome family entertainment and a unique way to get the kids pumped for December 25.

Game Review: Toy Story Mania

When I heard about Toy Story Mania coming to the Wii, I was pretty excited. The new game is based on the ride Toy Story Midway Mania at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. While there have been games before that have attempted to turn the theme park experience into a video game (Adventures in the Magic Kingdom for the NES and Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour for the Playstation) Toy Story Mania promised to really bring a Disney World ride into my living room. If you haven't been on the Toy Story ride it's basically a ride that zips you around from screen to screen where you play very brief video game versions of popular midway games. (For more, you can check out a blog post I did when the ride opened at The Blog Wore Tennis Shoes.)

So, obviously when you play this new Wii version you're not going to be riding around, you'll most likely be sitting on your living room sofa. And also unlike the theme park attraction, you won't be waiting in line for at least an hour before your chance to play for a couple of minutes. Video games are designed to give you an experience that

will engage you for hours of game play. Toy Story Mania works hard to further the experience of the ride.

The games featured in the ride are faithfully recreated here. Almost all the games in the ride involve simply shooting or tossing things onto the screen to collect points as quickly as possible. The Wii adaptation also adds to the mix a set of additional objectives to each game. In addition to scoring a certain amount of points, there are more intricate goals like shooting five of the same target in a row, or looking for a special colored target or simply wiping out all of one kind of target. Completing all of the given objectives will unlock the game in a free play mode, otherwise you must experience the different games in a preselected lineup divided into five themes.

In addition to the shoot `em games from the ride, the game designers have added a handful of new games to the mix which use the Wii technology to their benefit. Some of these games have been thrown in to give the smallest of Wii players the chance to master a game. A few of the new games require nothing more than shaking the Wii remote to master the game. In one instance, Toy Story's resident swine Hamm is seen dancing on a stage and players are asked to mimic his actions by shaking their Wiimote in a certain direction. Even with the Wii controller sitting on a table in another room of the house, you're guaranteed to rack up a hefty amount of points. The games are pretty simple and not very challenging. Other new games like a labyrinth maze where you'll need to tilt your controller to move the maze table are quite unique.

All the gang from the Toy Story movies are here and each of the games fall into a theme connected to one of the characters. There's plenty of outer space fun with Buzz Lightyear and the aliens, Woody and Jessie host a variety of wild west games, Bo Peep, Rex, and most of the rest of the gang are all on hand as well. Some of the character voices are the same, most notably Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear but Tom Hank's brother Jim stands in to provide Woody's voice. Since many people have seen the Toy Story films numerous times over the years, the voice substitutes are quite noticeable.

There's also five 3-D games that you can unlock. The disc comes with two pairs of the old fashioned red-blue 3-D glasses. The effect is not nearly as effective as the polarized grey lens glasses used at the theme parks (and at the local multiplex).

While this new disc does transfer the imagery and the game play of the theme park ride very well, it does not give you the same overall experience. To achieve a complete experience like the ride you'll need to unlock all the shooting gallery style games and then set up your own lineup of games in the Free Play Mode.

Overall, it's a fun game - not really worth the $50.00 MSRP - but it's a good game for kids and fun disc to have at a party. The various games are all simple to learn and play. Those not looking to duplicate a recent vacation memory and more interested in playing with the Toy Story characters would probably be better off waiting for the Toy Story 3 game hitting shelves next summer with the release of the new movie.