[SHORTS REVIEW] Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions (1991)

 

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Title: Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions

Country: United States

Genre: Surrealism / Horror / Science Fiction / Adventure

Company: MTV Networks

Directed by: Henry Selick

Year: 1991

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: N/A

Buy on:  N/A

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE!

The story starts off with two Siamese twin sisters getting out of their bed and sneaking up to the attic, where their brother Robert Potemkin stays in.  Just as the sisters were planning on pranking their brother, a group of sentient lizards ended up transporting Robert to another dimension where he has to save a town full of photographed people from an army of sentient scissors.

Now, I know what you are thinking:  what kind of plot line is this?  Lizards having the power to transport people to other dimensions?  People made out of photographs being tortured by an army of living scissors?  Yep, I thought that I've seen weirder from Henry Selick like "James and the Giant Peach" and "Monkeybone."  But "Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions" is probably the weirdest thing that I have ever seen from Henry Selick!  It's amazing that this short was Henry Selick's directorial debut and it was meant to become a TV series for MTV.  But around that time, Henry Selick got the opportunity to direct "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and this short ended up not being picked up for a TV series.  I would have to say that there was a good side and bad side to this.  The bad side is that this short was never picked up for a TV series, which is a shame because I would have loved to see more adventures with Slow Bob and the other dimensions and see more from these characters.  On the other hand, we did get "The Nightmare Before Christmas," which remains to be one of my all-time favorite movies!  What I loved about this short was the animation itself!  Henry Selick's talent in stop motion animation really shines here and I especially loved the way that the short had a great balance between live action and stop motion animation.  I especially loved the scene where Slow Bob goes to the dimension with the photograph people and the animation for the photograph people and the living scissors were bizarre yet so lively to look at.  It was also impressive seeing Slow Bob transform from a live action actor to a cut out version of himself once he enters the other dimension as it adds some creativity to the short.  I also loved how creepy this short was as the first half of the short takes place during the nighttime, which is a fantastic setting for anything creepy and the appearances of the scissors in the other dimension was probably the creepiest thing in the short!

The only problem that I have with this short is that the plot can be very confusing and I wished that they expanded more on the characters.  I found myself confused at how the world works in this short as I wondered about how Slow Bob was able to get lizards who can teleport him to another dimension and whether or not he had powers himself.  That's the main reason why I wanted to see this short get its own series; so that way they could expand more on the characters and the world that they live in.

Overall, "Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions" is a truly bizarre yet intriguing short that was pretty interesting to watch!  Even though this short never got the chance to become a TV series, I was still interested in the bizarre world of this short and maybe someday, they might revisit this short and turn it into a TV series someday!

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[MOVIE REVIEW] Monkeybone (2001)

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Title: Monkeybone

Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Rose McGowan, and Chris Kattan

Genre: Fantasy / Black Comedy / Animals / Death

Company:  Twentieth Century Fox

Directed by: Henry Selick

Year: 2001

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: Rated PG-13 – For Crude Humor and Some Nudity

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Blu-Ray.com

The film starts off with Stu Miley being honored for his work on his cartoon series "Monkeybone," which stars an extremely crude and perverted cartoon monkey wrecking havoc on everyone else's lives.  After the celebration however, Stu ends up in a car accident and is thrown into a coma where he ends up in another world called Downtown, where his creation Monkeybone resides in.  In order to get out of Downtown, Stu has to try and steal Death's exit pass to get back to the world of the living; but unfortunately, his creation Monkeybone ends up betraying him and ends up stealing Stu's body when he comes to the world of the living.  Not only that, but it turns out that Hypnos, Death's brother, was planning on giving everyone in the world of the living nightmares by having Monkeybone inject everyone with nightmare juice.  Now Stu must find a way to get back into his own body before Monkeybone injects everyone with nightmare juice!

I had watched almost all the movies directed by Henry Selick at this point and I had enjoyed almost all of them!  However, "Monkeybone" was that one case that I could have enjoyed it much better if the plot and the characters were handled a bit better, but I'll get into that later.  What I did like about this movie was the fact that the world of Downtown was so creative to look at as all the characters look like they came out of various mythologies and fantasy works and seeing them interact with each other was brilliant to see!  I also loved how all the actors and actresses in this film gave their all by acting so hammy yet convincing towards the audience in detailing the characters' plight throughout this movie.  Probably the actors and actresses in this film that I really enjoyed their performances were Whoopi Goldberg and Brendan Fraser as they really made their characters truly stand out in this film!  I loved the way that Brendan Fraser was able to balance between being hammy and being emotional as Stu Miley and it really made me get into Stu's predicament of trying to confess his love towards Julie and try to find his way out of Downtown so he could tell Julie he loves her.  Whoopi Goldberg was also fantastic as Death as she made Death into a truly hilarious and sympathetic character and I really liked the relationship she develops with Stu.  I also loved the fact that Stu truly does care about Julie and is willing to do anything to get back to her and confess his love to her.

Some problems that I had with this film was that I felt that the story could have been much better if the characters and the story were developed better. Now, I did look at the deleted scenes for this movie and I realized that the creative team were forced to cut out a lot of parts to help this film retain a PG-13 rating, but in doing that, they cut out a lot of parts that were essential to the plot of the story, even if they probably wouldn't make the movie any better than it is.  I would have liked this movie better if we actually got to know more about the characters themselves, especially about the pact between Stu and his sister Kimmy where Kimmy will pull the plug on Stu if Stu goes into a coma, which the movie failed to go into more detail about.  Also, there were times where the movie was forcing in crude humor where they didn't need to be and it made viewing this movie a bit awkward since one moment I would be enjoying the story of the film and then the next moment, they introduce a crude moment that involves toilet humor that kind of ruins the scenes for me.

Overall, while "Monkeybone" does have a lot of creative moments, especially during the Downtown sequences, the movie suffers from lack of character development that makes viewing this movie a bit hard at times.

[MOVIE REVIEW] Coraline (2009)

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Title: Coraline

Starring:  Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Keith David, Jennifer Saunders and Ian McShane

Genre: Fantasy / Family / Horror / Adventure

Company:   Laika Entertainment

Directed by: Henry Selick

Year: 2009

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: Rated PG - For Thematic Elements, Scary Images, Some Language and Suggestive Humor

Buy:  Amazon  //  Blu-Ray.com

When a young girl named Coraline ends up moving to a mysterious home that is inhabited by other neighbors (who are bizarre in nature), she finds her new life to be a bit boring due to her parents being so absorbed with their work that they can't spend time with Coraline.  It wasn't until later on that Coraline finds a mysterious door inside the house which leads to another world that is similar to her world, except that she gains another mother called the "Other Mother" and the other mother ends up giving Coraline everything she wanted including good meals and exciting performances from her neighbors.  Unfortunately, Coraline will soon realize that not everything is as it seems in the other world when the other mother ends up kidnapping Coraline's real parents and Coraline must go and save her parents from the Other Mother!

I remembered reading Neil Gaiman's book on this classic story about a young girl wanting a better life, but finding out the hard way that sometimes it's good to be satisfied with what you have rather than having a life that's not real and I have always loved how this story was set up and how creepy it was!  So, when I heard that they were finally making a movie about this novel, I was super excited and my excitement was definitely not misplaced in this movie!  I just loved how the animation really fit with the creepy tone of this story as it was jerky in your typical stop motion way and yet gorgeous to gaze at!  I also loved the story itself as it was about Coraline learning that not all things are paradise when she visits the other world and I also loved the fact that Coraline took it upon herself to rescue her parents when they were kidnapped as it showed great courage in her character!  I also loved Coraline's neighbors in both the real world and the other world, as they were eccentric yet helpful towards Coraline, especially Mr. Bobinsky, who was probably one of the most interesting characters in this movie!

The only problem I had with this movie was that the beginning was sort of slow and I wished that there was more action at the beginning that would have capture my attention of this movie from the beginning.

Overall, "Coraline" is definitely one movie you should check out, especially if you are a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's books or if you are a huge fan of weird and creepy animated films in general!

 

[MOVIE REVIEW] James and the Giant Peach (1996)

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Title: James and the Giant Peach

Starring:  Paul Terry, Susan Sarandon, Jane Leeves, and Richard Dreyfuss

Genre: Fantasy / Family / Friendship / Insects

Company:   Walt Disney Pictures

Directed by: Henry Selick

Year: 1996

MPAA Rating / TV Rating: Rated PG - For Some Frightening Images.

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Best Buy  //  Blu-Ray.com

When a young boy named James loses his parents to a rampaging rhinoceros (who takes the form of a thunder cloud) and he is forced to live with his cruel aunts, Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge, James dreams of going to America to live a better life.  However, later on James meets a strange old man who gives him a bag of "crocodile tongues" and he tells James that there is magic in those tongues.  James takes the tongues, but accidentally drops the tongue near a peach tree, which causes one of the peaches on the tree to grow into gigantic proportions.  Later that day, while Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge used the giant peach to make a fortune, James goes inside the peach and discovers a group of bugs who have also grown in gigantic sizes. James and the bugs then decided to head over to New York City to get a better life for themselves, while avoiding various dangers along the way.

Now, I was practically introduced to "James and the Giant Peach" through Roald Dahl's original book and I instantly fell in love with this story!  So, I was definitely excited to see Roald Dahl's classic novel come to life in animation and I must say that I practically enjoyed this bizarre yet creative version of the classic children's story.  I absolutely loved all of the characters, with my favorite characters being Miss Spider and the Centipede.  I loved Miss Spider because she was quite an unusual character as she is considered frightening by the other bugs due to her literally eating other bugs, but I loved the fact that she cares so much for James and was willing to help him out no matter how horrifying the situation is.  The Centipede was a truly fun character as he might be a little rude and annoying to the other bugs, but I loved his courageous nature and the fact that he is also willing to help James out of his situation.  The voice acting was fantastic, especially Susan Sarandon as the quiet and serious Miss Spider and Richard Dreyfuss as the fun loving Centipede, as they fit the characters extremely well and they bring so much life to the characters.  The story was truly creative, especially about the idea of a group of friends (giant insects in this case) coming together inside a giant peach and traveling around the world with it!  I found that idea to be a bit strange yet creative at the same time and even though I have an intense fear of bugs, I definitely would have loved to be friends with giant bugs!

The major problem I had with this movie was that there seemed to be so many plot holes within this film that there were times that I did not understand what was going on in this film. Like for example, how did Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker drive their car through the ocean and how can a mechanical shark appear out of nowhere in the ocean?

Overall, "James and the Giant Peach" is definitely one treat that fans of Roald Dahl's works and fans of surreal animation should definitely check out!