90 Movies in 90 Days: Shrek 2 (2004)

I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.

Title: Shrek 2
Release Date: May 19, 2004
Director:Andrew Adamson | Kelly Asbury | Conrad Vernon
Production Company: DreamWorks Animation | PDI/DreamWorks
Summary/Review:

Shrek (Mike Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) have their marital bliss interrupted by a call to visit Fiona’s parents King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews!) in the kingdom of Far Far Away.  It’s basically “Meet the Parents” Shrek-style with the central premise of Shrek wondering if on ogre is good enough for a princess. They are joined on the journey by Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and meet a new ally along the way in the form of the hilarious Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas).  Meanwhile, Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) tries to sabotage Shrek and Fiona’s marriage on behalf of her son Prince Charming (Rupert Everett).

The movie is full of references to famous film moments, parodies of fairy tale conventions, and needle drops that somehow almost always work. I kind of feel like the movie rehashes a lot of the ground covered in the original, but it doesn’t make it any less entertaining.

Rating: ***1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: Ernest & Celestine

I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.

Title: Ernest & Celestine
Release Date: 12 December 2012
Director: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar,  & Benjamin Renner
Production Company: La Parti Productions | Les Armateurs | Melusine Productions
Summary/Review:

This charming animated movie is set in a universe populated by anthropomorphic mice and anthropomorphic bears, and where the two species hate one another.  Celestine (Mackenzie Foy) is a young mouse training for dentistry but who really wants to be an artist.  Ernest (Forest Whitaker) is a down on his luck bear who fails to make a living as a street musician.  The pair end up meeting and helping one another out of their respective jams (which burglary).  They bond and form a friendship while hiding out at Ernest’s rural house.

The movie does a good job of showing how misfits in their own communities coming together to form a found family.  It also shows the importance of artists in societies built on striving.  And of course it’s a story of overcoming prejudice against people different from oneself.  The movie is never heavy handed about any of these themes up until the simultaneous courtroom scenes at the climax of the movie that didn’t work too well for me.  The same team that created A Town Called Panic were involved in this movie, but it can’t be any more different stylistically in the hand-drawn animation that resembles watercolors and is gentle where the earlier film is chaotic.

The English voice cast also includes Lauren Bacall in one of the final roles before her death.

Rating: ***1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: Our Hospitality (1923)

I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.

Title: Our Hospitality
Release Date: November 19, 1923
Director: Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone
Production Company: Joseph M. Schenck Productions
Summary/Review:

This Buster Keaton film satirizes the Hatfield–McCoy feud of the Appalachian region with called Canfield and McKay.  Young Willie McKay (Keaton) is sent to grow up in New York City by his mother so he can avoid the feud.  When he comes of age he inherits the McKay estate and travels by train to assume ownership.  He falls in love with a young woman named Virginia (Natalie Talmadge, Keaton’s real life spouse).  It is no surprise that she is a Canfield.

The movie starts off promising with some silly gags about how rural New York was in the old days. The train that Willie and Virginia ride is just a bunch of carriages tied together and presents some imaginative visual gags.  Once they arrive in the Appalachians the movie becomes one note as Virginia’s father father and two brothers (Joe Roberts, Ralph Bushman, and Craig Ward) repeatedly try to shoot Willie while he runs away.  There is a memorable stunt where Willie and Virginia go over a waterfall at the end, though.

Rating: **1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: A Town Called Panic (2009)

I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.

Title: A Town Called Panic
Release Date: 17 June 2009
Director: Stéphane Aubier | Vincent Patar
Production Company: La Parti Productions | Coproduction Office | Beast Animation
Summary/Review:

In this delightfully chaotic stop-motion animation film, the trio of Horse (Vincent Patar), Cowboy (Stéphane Aubier), and Indian (Bruce Ellison) experience a series of unpredictably madcap adventures.  The characters look like plastic toy figures and the whole story seems as if it could be created by an extraordinarily imaginative child, like if Andy from Toy Story had taken inspiration from Spongebob Squarepants.  It also has the quirky charm of the Wallace & Gromit shorts, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that A Town Called Panic was spun off of a Belgian TV show of the same name produced by Aardman Animation. I won’t go into the details of the film because it is best unspoiled (and pretty impossible to summarized) but I absolutely loved it!

Rating: ****1/2