So as it is spooky season, I had to review at least one Halloween movie. This is one that I’ve heard really great this about but never got around to watching because I had to watch all the other classic Halloween movies first. Now I made time, and I’m so glad that I did. I will say this again but when movies get my humor right they really get it right. This was like if the Lego movies and Wes Anderson had a baby, it was dry humor, and if you blink you miss it. It was amazing. 

I loved the animation style, Claymation is such a hard style but this movie did it great. The exaggerated proportions of all the characters were what made most of the scenes scary. Since I’ve seen my fair share of scary movies this wasn’t overly scary. It was mostly ‘kid’ scary, but if you saw me jump when the rat ran down the stairs while Norman was exploring the creepy house… no you didn’t. The scariness of this movie comes from the people of the town and not the zombies and witches. Because the social stigma is what made the zombies and witches in the first place. The total disregard for Norman and his friends’ lives when they are trying to save the town was the overarching theme. The people are the monsters. Wow, I just got so deep. Back to what this review is really about. 

I had a friend from home recommend this movie to me and told me there was a gay character. So, of course, I had to see it. Spoilers for a movie that came out in like 2012, the character Mitch is a trope flip. The entire movie Norman’s sister Courtney is flirting with Mitch in every scene they share, a scare movie trope in itself. However, in the last few remaining minutes of the movie Courtney askes Mitch on a movie date, which he says yes to, if he can bring his boyfriend because he “loves chick flicks”. Amazing, show-stopping, hilarious. This reversal really added to the movie. It was already so good and this made it so much funnier. Does it suck that it’s just at the end? Yeah. Is it truly gay representation? Maybe not. Big Jock Bro Gay? Yeah, he is.  

So a synopsis, this movie was great and one of the movies I will be adding this to my classics.  

9/10 (I’ve been giving out too many 10/10s so sorry ParaNorman) 

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So, this weekend my roommate and I decided to watch Labyrinth. I had been dying to watch it since I found out it had existed and had some free time. Also, Netflix finally had it on the roster, so that’s a win. Laying on our comfy rug wrapped in a blanket, however, was not a win for me staying conscious. Even with my small gap in movie watching experience, I shall give a review of the classic. 

One, as an active viewer of movies, please movie makers, stop making the main character insufferable. I don’t want to root for them if I think they are totally in the wrong. Two, I liked the subtleness (if you count it not being explicitly said) that Sarah’s mother was in plays and she is trying to emulate her. It was a good character trait to give her if I could look past how much I disliked her at the beginning. If I was to pull no punches Sarah is a Walmart version of Dorthey from The Wizard of Oz. And this whole movie is quite noticeably based or influenced by The Wizard of Oz. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a good movie, but it reminded me of when they released The Hunger Games and Divergent in the same year. 

David Bowie was great; I might be biased (I definitely am). But his songs in the movie were very engaging and distracted me from hating Sarah. The fact that the goblins and David Bowie’s character The Goblin King took way better care of the kid compared to Sarah. I’m still wigged out but the entire scene when Sarah just let the kid cry and sob and did nothing? Okay, I’ll stop hating on her for now, back to Bowie. His outfits, iconic, really over the top, and well done. Amber and I could not get over how cool his hair looked in the movie. And that’s saying a lot because Amber has amazing hair already. The supporting characters with Sarah are so much cooler than the Lion, Scarecrow, and the Tinman. Crazy, I know. 

Sadly, as I said before, I did fall asleep during the movie. Very sad. If you were me, laying on the floor covered in blankets with the sweet serenade of David Bowie, you would have fallen asleep too. Invest in a husband pillow, they are amazing.  

6/10 +4 for David Bowie

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So, these reviews have evolved into watching movies with my friends and we try to show each other cool movies. And by cool movies, I mean movies that are gay or have gay subtext. Continuing the theme, as well as watching it for research purposes, I wanted to show my friends the 2017 classic Lego: Batman. That’s right, the one that was in the news for pushing pro-gay propaganda. The funny thing was, all the news outlets focused on one joke, instead of the overarching theme of Batman and Joker being in a “relationship” … 

Kinda cringe  

Okay, about the movie, it is one of my guilty pleasures. This movie is so funny, unbelievably funny I promise. The dry humor and the deep dive into making fun of superhero movies is the most noticeable attribute of the movie. The second most noticeable thing is the fact that in this movie Batman/Bruce Wayne is basically a man-child and the Joker is defanged and is a trickster at most. This switch of having Batman not know everything, and is basically whining the whole time, is so much different than his character had been in recent movies like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. It is a part of the satire of this movie, a character that is a straight alpha male power fantasy doesn’t want to go to a fancy dinner and throws a fit. Hilarious.  

I fully expect everyone I meet to have watched this movie, if you have not, you’re missing out but no judgment. But now I will be talking about more spoilery? stuff so be warned.  

The whole theme that Batman can’t get close to people because he is afraid of losing them was not something I was expecting from a kid’s Lego movie. They did this so well because they showed that it’s not just an easy fix and that it takes time? Like, go Lego: Batman movie very mature of you. If you have ever read or consumed Batman anything past the 70s it’s so hard to find a story where Bruce actually improves his own life and fixes his own behaviors. It was a nice change of pace. The whole movie itself is not something you would expect of a children’s movie. It really plays to an audience that would understand the complex themes it was weaving into the bright bubble gum craziness of the filmography. Animated movies are one of my favorite mediums, and Lego movies have a similar feeling to the stop motion clips I would make as a kid, you can explore so many stories with animation. The ending of the movie is very lighthearted for a “superhero” movie and makes a funny gag that left room for a sequel like all kids’ movies do to milk the profit of toy sales. However, even if this movie was just to make parents buy kids more pieces of plastic that they will get sick of after 20 minutes, it was a damn good one at that. 

 

10/10 please let me know if you have seen any other Lego movies, I need someone to talk to about them

 

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