Week Of July 10, 2006 - M Night Mon / Dupree Wed /
Monster House Fri

July 14, 2006

Remember the Corey Feldman trilogy of Gremlins, The Goonies, And Stand By Me in 1984, 1985, and 1986? It kind of matched up with the John Hughes trilogy of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the same three years.

There was a spirit to these films the faded fast as Hughes got more interested in adults, Joel Schumacher took The Brat Pack to St Elmo's Fire, then The Lost Boys, then Flatliners. The kids - and the kids inside - had grown up and gotten very serious… in that hacky kinda way.

In 1989, Batman took the comic book movie dark and the separation between teens and kids became really distinct. Movies like Finding Nemo were made for kids, but appealed to everyone and that was okay… but still, animation was "for kids."

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Spider-Man before it are reminding us that you can go dark, but people really love a good, sweet, 4-quadrant film that sends everyone out of the theater feeling good.

Monster House is one of those films. But even better, it really harkens back to the joy of The Goonies, the oddball humor of Gremlins and the sincerity of Stand By Me. It's no great shock, since the Executive Producers are two of the great keepers of that flame, Robert Zemeckis & Steven Spielberg.

First-time director Gil Kenan and writers Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, and Pamela Pettler have hit it right into the comfortable joy zone.

DJ is a regular kid just on the edge of being too old to believe… which the movie never gets sappy about. Chowder is the rambunctious kid whose parents are eternally "out," who is anxious to watch someone else try anything, and who knows he is a bit of a screw up… which the movie never gets sappy about. Jenny is the lanky, precocious girl, still not a woman, but woman enough to work up two boys who aren't quite as sophisticated as her.

The trio is too old not to be cynical, but not quite old enough to turn away from the monster house across the street. But their adventure with the house is only part of the story here, much of which I don't want to even hint at, lest I ruin your happy surprise.

Kenan doesn't do the thing were he makes his cartoon characters look like the actors who portray them, though there is more than a hint of Maggie Gyllenhaal in her Elizabeth, or "Zee" as she has decided to rename herself. But the vocal additions of her, Jon Heder, Jason Lee, Kevin James, Nick Cannon, Catherin O'Hara and Fred Willard are terrific. And Steve Buscemi gives a really wonderful performance as the angry and dangerous Nebbercracker.

But this is a movie about the three friends (voiced by Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, and the ambiguously named girl, Spencer Locke) and a moment that takes them all a little closer to maturity. There is lots of action, lots of great surprises, and some challenging (in a Tim Burton way) ideas for kids.

In his first time out, Gil Kenan has done what a lot of directors never learn to do. He leads the audience, but he gives us the opportunity to consider and imagine what will come next… and then to take it somewhere even more unexpected, whether it's in the monster house, dealing with Nebbercracker or simply dealing with a disinterested babysitter.

I was anxious to see the 3-D version of Monster House, wondering what it might add to the fun. A couple of years ago, the regular release of The Polar Express didn't do much for me, but the 3-D IMAX version was powerful enough to make it onto my Top Ten list for that year. The way Robert Zemeckis made the film, the imagery was so dense and so layered that you just couldn't see everything in a normal frame. But all blown up and given depth, it was magical.

Monster House is an animated film that is so perfectly what it is that I found the simple experience of wearing 3-D glasses an unnecessary distraction from the movie I was so enjoying.

Monster House is the steak so good that you don't want to ruin it with any sauce, the ice cream too good to distract with mix-ins, the 90 minutes so easy that you don't want to be thinking about whether the 3-D effects are working.

Look… there was something on another level about Finding Nemo, something wonderful about the Katzenberg era Disney musicals, and Miyazaki is working on a different level or artistic ambition. Monster House isn't quite one of those. But damn, it makes a great run at it. It's a real joy to experience and you can watch it over and over and over again, not losing that sense of fun that you started with. It is an instant classic, even if it's not quite a breakthrough kind of film. And it's hard to imagine that this is anything less than the start of a remarkable run of work by Gil Kenan.

Everything gets so overstated these days, that I find myself being cautious about my words. So to close, I will quote the immortal words of two legendary characters, Ren Höek and Stimpson J. Cat…

Happy.

Happy.

Joy.

Joy.

E Me.

---

Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 10, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 17, 2006 - Review Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 24, 2006 - Overlooked Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 8, 2006 - How We Watch Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 15, 2006 - Premature Week - Oscar Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 22, 2006 - B-13 Mon / Inconvenient Wed / Fri
Week Of May 29, 2006 - Wed / Fri
Week Of June 5, 2006 - 666 Tue / Iraq Doc Wed / Seattle Fri
Week Of June 12, 2006 - SIFF Mon / SIFF Wed / Fri
Week Of June 19, 2006 - Cinevegas Mon/Deliver Us Wed/Prada Fri
Week Of June 26, 2006 - Pirates Mon / Super Again Wed / Fri
Week Of July 5, 2006 - Wed
Week Of July 12, 2006 - M. Night Mon | You, Me & Wed | Monster House Fri