Horror Marathon: Monster House (2006)

We’re in the final week of the horror marathon! Maybe its a little late to slow down the gears and change our pace to something less serious and thats why I decided that it was time to finish Monster House. In that sense, I had to rewatch it completely because I had started it ages ago and then somehow the DVD got lost somewhere at my mom’s before my move so I never ended up finish it. Now that its landed on Netflix, I decided it was a good time to give it a go, plus all those intense films from brutal gory traps to creepy clowns was getting to me.

Let’s check it out!

Monster House (2006)

Director: Gil Kenan

Voice cast: Mitchel Musso, Spencer Locke, Sam Lerner, Steve Buscemi, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Lee, Kevin James, Jon Heder, Kathleen Turner

Three teens discover that their neighbor’s house is really a living, breathing, scary monster. – IMDB

Maybe for kids this movie would be a scary selection, however for myself, it was a fun movie which some cool moments but never truly scared. Monster House is an entertaining animated film set on Halloween and includes a haunted house and a creepy house that is alive along with a cranky neighbor. These kids are suspicious about it all and are the only ones who believe that the house is evil and are determined to prevent any kids from getting caught in the trap. Best friends DJ and Chowder along with a girls scout Jenny end up taking up the mission in their own hands. While them and the house are the main characters of the story, we also saw the goth babysitter and her boyfriend.

Just looking at the voice cast list up above, there are some names that definitely pop out and having them on the team here really does add to it even if some of these roles are quite short. The kids are also done quite well. There’s a level of believability to it. Monster House follows all the moves of the making of decent animated Halloween story however, it lacks that element that makes it truly soar. However, Monster House will get a few chuckles in there with some lighthearted fun.

Where Monster House does really well is in its visuals. The house coming to life always makes for a fun time. At the same time, the best moments are when they are inside the house as we don’t know much about why this house is alive. I do wish that they had spent a lot more time with shenanigans and other traps and flesh out the backstory for the house and perhaps it would be more catchy. It would be a cool possessed home story with lots of danger. It felt that they didn’t quite manage to hit that potential . Some of the best moments are after they manage to get into the house.

Overall, I’m a pretty neutral with Monster House. I remember liking it more the first time I had seen it (or the little bit I did see) however watching it again now, I feel like it doesn’t quite expand on where it should. There are some fun laughs here and there and the voice cast is fantastic. The story could have been a little better to give it a bit more excitement. But then, it is a story for kids so I guess it works in that term.

The Right Kind of Wrong (2013)

Finally getting back to my long list of backlogged movie reviews to write.

In my first flight to Vancouver, I ended up watching an always wonderful Mary Poppins (which I don’t think I reviewed yet oddly) and the very mind-boggling Enemy (review HERE). After that whole transfer and running to catch my transfer, I finally had a very empty 12 hour flight to Hong Kong.  It was great stuff because I got to stretch out and enjoy a few movies comfortably.  If Enemy taught me anything, its that I needed to watch something less intense.  As I shifted through the many more selections on the long haul flights, I landed on Canadian productions and The Right Kind of Wrong.  I’m sure a lot of us has wondered how Ryan Kwanten will do nNOT being the idiot in the form of Jason Stackhouse.  Of course, there was Dead Silence before this, which I reviewed HERE! Horror is not my forte so I can’t judge his acting from that but rom-coms are totally in my ballpark so I was excited.

Let’s check it out! 🙂

Director: Jeremiah Chechik

Cast: Ryan Kwanten, Sara Canning, Ryan McPartlin, Kristen Hager, Catherine O’Hara

Leo (Ryan Kwanten), a recently divorced dishwasher who is ridiculed by his ex-wife’s, Julie (Kristen Hager) success by launching a blog called “Why You Suck” about his flaws and shortcomings when they were together. Refusing to look at these “obviously” false accusations, he lives life by himself the best he can until one day, he meets Colette (Sara Canning), a soon to be wed girl at her wedding.  He crashes it and professes his love for her, pointing out that he is in fact the right man for her. The pursuit continues after the marriage is finalize even after the resistance of Colette’s husband (Ryan McPartlin).  The question now is will he succeed in letting Colette see what he does?

Romantic comedies are almost always formulaic but regardless, the successful ones will pull out that feel good element with the right characters and the decent premise and even the good enough humor to keep the audience watching.  The Right Kind of Wrong is definitely not the best romantic comedy I’ve seen (Rotten Tomatoes rating would say that its horrible), but I’ve also seen much worse.  There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer and as outrageous as the premise of this is and probably wrong on many levels for wanting to be the cause of a divorce.  There are certain aspects that I did like quite a bit.

What is fresh about The Right Kind of Wrong is the idea of a man chasing after an woman and doing absolutely stupid things.  Most of the time, its the other way around.  Most rom-coms are about some woman being the love-crazed person that tries to find her love and does some desperate thing.  I appreciate the premise this one was putting out even if it was a little out there.  Leo Palamino was technically nearing the behaviors of a stalker because he would track down how to approach Colette but at the same time, Colette is a married woman so to start by trying to change her mind is already a wrong thing.  I’m guessing thats why you have The Right Kind of Wrong to justify the movie title.

Aside from the unusual premise, it was also filmed in the very beautiful Banff in Alberta, Canada.  The scenery and the setting was simply lovely to look at. With its hills, mountains and nature, it really was a treat to watch.

I’m not going to hate on this one despite its absurdity at times.  The story had a fresh attempt and it did give me a few laughs here and there, the cast was who won me over.  Ryan Kwanten was pretty good at being Leo Palomino.  He was a guy that did a lot of weird stuff to get a girl but between all that, he also went through an awakening of his own. Well, its normal and expected because he’s just doing the exact same thing a girl in a romantic comedy would.  Still, I thought it was entertaining to watch at the very least and I think he brought a lot more life to his character Leo than maybe the script even would’ve had.

Next up are the lovely ladies in this movie.  Our leading lady is Sara Canning.  I could not remember where I had seen her before while I watching this one (and I keep blanking out).  *checks IMDB* Right, she was in Vampire Diaries for a few seasons.  I think the best part of this one was Sara Canning.  She’s a pretty good actress all on her own.  She brings some good charisma to her character as Colette.  Moving right along, who can ignore the brief role of Catherine O’Hara as Colette’s mother.  Honestly, she has some of the most awkward but pretty funny lines in this one.  Her appearance, her encouragement to Leo and her re-bonding with her daughter brought on a bit of humor and I think I grew to like her character a lot.

Overall, I’m not saying this is a full-on winner and more than a month later as I write this up, I’m not even sure I remember everything that went on (which isn’t usually a good thing) but I do remember my feelings towards it.  Maybe it was being trapped in a flight that made me enjoy this more than I probably would but I thought The Right Kind of Wrong was okay.  It gave me a feel laughs, a nice setting and some engaging cast.  It kind of lost its steam nearing the end when things got a little predictable but it still has a charm.

Just remember, romantic comedies are pretty much, comedies so they can’t please everyone easily unless you like its humor.  But I’m sure you all know it already 🙂

Did you see The Right Kind of Wrong? Did you think it was more right or wrong? What do you think of Ryan Kwanten?

Frankenweenie (2012)

I love Tim Burton.  I’ve been slacking off a bit on the more recent movies that he’s made.  I haven’t seen last year’s Dark Shadows yet, but I intend on owning all his movies and I do own quite a few as of now.  If I wanted to do a Tim Burton marathon, it would be pretty much successful.  The newest animation from Tim Burton is the film version of his short from early on in his directing.   I’ve been looking forward to watching this a while…

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer, Winona Ryder, James Hiroyuki Liao, Robert Capron

This is a story of a young boy and his dog.  When Victor Frankenstein(Charlie Tahan) loses his dog Sparky, under the inspiration of his new science teacher Mr. Ryzkruski’s (Martin Landau) lesson in class, he decides to use electricity to bring Sparky back to life.  However, he knows that Sparky can’t be revealed and he tries to hide him.  Beyond his control, Sparky ends up wandering around the neighborhood and get seen by his fellow classmates, Edgar (Atticus Shaffer) who then leaks it to Toshiaki (James Hiroyuki Liao) and a few others, who get inspired to change the odds of their chances in the coming science fair and experiments with something that ends up more than they bargained for, the town learns the difference between the good and bad in science.

Tim Burton is definitely great at stop-motion animation.  This is Burton to the core, reaching back to a him that I haven’t seen in his recent works in a long time.  It was missed and this was energetic and passionate piece of work.  The black and white filming really gave it a nice touch and kept it eerie but fun.  Only Burton can actually bring that in, especially when he tosses up the character designs and gives a lot of them some really weird or evil or gentle looks to show their personality.

Victor Frankenstein showed such awesome personality and passion for his project as he learned more about science in itself along with its consequences, we also learn and feel as he loses and fights to keep this best friend with him.  We suffer the loss of losing a pet and a part of our family.  In this animation, Victor doesn’t get all the credit though.  Just the classmates involved each had their own charm and magic, whether they were hardcore or mean and he gave it a nice twist by making the characters multicultural.  Plus, it was a mix of evil and some look bad but wasn’t really that bad, some was purely weird and then we have genuinely nice but left out.  All the children was voiced very energetically.

It was definitely a fun film.  My favorite character had to be Mr. Ryzkruski because he was so blunt and not caring about his consequences.  He was the mentor and inspiration of Victor even till the very end.  Plus, Winona Ryder’s Elsa was really great also.  It was a captivating animation.  There was a charm that really kept this movie engaging the whole time.

Definitely great watch! If you are a Tim Burton fan, this is definitely a must-see! You can see his passion and energy just by how he perfectly sets everything up.  I loved it! The story was totally awesome, the physical character designs were fitting and they were voiced enthusiastically.  All around fun film.  It never gets too serious even when we hit the peak but it also teaches us lessons and even hits on little signs from the original Frankenstein novel.  It has a lot of style especially with the black and white.

Loved it to bits! 🙂

Whats your Tim Burton fave? Did you like Frankenweenie? Are you a Tim Burton fan?

Christmas Marathon: Home Alone 2 Lost in New York (1992)

HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Tim Curry, Rob Schneider, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard

A year after Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) was left home alone accidentally by his parents to defend his home from the Wet Bandits, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), this year the family is headed to Florida for the Christmas holidays.  This time, Kevin accidentally gets onto a plane to go to New York City.  As he is enjoying the benefits of the luxury life using his father’s credit card, he meets Harry and Marv, who has just broke out of prison.  At the same time, we have the Mr. Hector (Tim Curry) part of the hotel staff who suspects something isn’t quite right about a little kid staying at the hotel and trying to figure out whether Kevin is hiding something.  Meanwhile, Kate (Catherine O’Hara) and Peter McCallister (John Heard) try to search for their child as the whole family changes and flies back to New York City.  This time, Kevin has to protect a toy story, Duncan’s Toy Chest from Harry and Marv and try to stop them again and send them back into the hands of the police.

This is also a very entertaining movie.  I always like the first one more (Home Alone review is HERE) but this one is just as fun.  Kevin isn’t just protecting himself in an area that he knows but he’s stepping up and learning how to do good deeds for others and protecting someone’s else’s good.  Its a nice story. Kevin grows a lot more in this movie as he learns a few moral or virtues about life from the people he meets.  The scenes of escape is always fun and I always love how Harry and Marv just turn out to do the most stupid things when they think they are being smart.  The outcomes and how they turn out in the end are hilarious.

Home Alone or Home Alone 2? Which one do you prefer?

Christmas Marathon: Home Alone (1990)

HOME ALONE

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard

Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is the trouble maker of the family.  The night before his immediate family (and aunt and uncle’s family) leave for France,  he causes trouble and is sent off.  He wishes that his family would just disappear.  However, overnight, they lost their power and made them all oversleep and rush out to catch the plane.  In the midst of all the frenzy, Kevin gets left behind.  He wakes up to find that everyone is gone and he has the whole house to himself.  At first, it all seems to be good until he realizes that there are two men, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) are planning to rob his house.  He takes it into his own hands to protect his house and catch these two robbers.  Meanwhile, his parents, Kate (Catherine O’Hara) and Peter McCallister (John Heard) try to find a way to get back home to their 8 years old son during the Christmas airport rush.

I was only 4 years old when this movie came out and part of me always was fascinated how Kevin would think.  Maybe its because when I was a little girl I was always really shy and scared of a lot of things so this movie appealed to my inner rebel.  The daring things that he does and how quick his mind adapts to the situation around young Kevin is what makes me happy and cheer him on.  All kids have grudges against their parents here and there but to be alone and to learn that you can protect your home is also something all kids want to do.  To be brave enough to stand for what is yours.  He does it against to silly robbers who tries to get him but falls for his traps and tricks over and over again.  Its just a fun and comical flick that makes you want to cheer on Kevin over and over again.

I love this movie to bits and I’m super glad that I managed to pick up both this one and the sequel during Black Friday.

Later today, I’ll be posting up my review of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York!