Shrek 2
Movie: Shrek 2 (2004)
Watched with: My dad, Elisa, her kids whose names escape me
We put this on for the kids, but it was my idea, so I have no one else to blame. I hadn't actually seen it before.
I don't really like 3D animated cartoons in general (I blame its rise for Disney going from making movies like The Lion King to movies like Chicken Little), and I dislike Dreamworks in particular ("fun for all ages" should mean exciting but with emotional weight, not a kids story with low grade pop culture references for the parents), but Shrek was their least repulsive effort and I was curious.
Sadly, Shrek 2 did about the worst thing it possibly could if it was trying to win me over--making everything about LA.
I guess it's good to love where you live, but it's really annoying how studio filmmakers seem to think LA's the greatest place on Earth. It's especially annoying when they take stories that are supposed to be set in more interesting places and relocate them to right outside their door (for example Keanu Reeve's John Constantine lived in LA instead of the comic's gothic London).
There are interesting things in LA, and even interesting stories to draw out of the locale (shortly before starting this blog, I saw and loved Sunset Blvd), but it's not an epic exciting place, except in a kind of weird artificial way.
It's flat, smog-filled, and ugly, and while you can make a good movie about that kind of place, you can't make a magical one.
The only reason this is sometimes justifiable is for bugetary reasons; it must've been way cheaper to shoot Constantine in LA than in London, so maybe that's why they did it.
Shrek 2 has no excuse. Grimm Fairy Tales are beautiful, evocative, and European. Making them goofy is all well and good (Shrek was a kind of fun movie), but making the fairy kingdom into an injokey Hollywood was just too awful. The filmmakers are so self-obsessed that they can't even tell a fairy story without making it about their boring neighborhood.
I stopped paying attention, and after awhile so did the kids.
Watched with: My dad, Elisa, her kids whose names escape me
We put this on for the kids, but it was my idea, so I have no one else to blame. I hadn't actually seen it before.
I don't really like 3D animated cartoons in general (I blame its rise for Disney going from making movies like The Lion King to movies like Chicken Little), and I dislike Dreamworks in particular ("fun for all ages" should mean exciting but with emotional weight, not a kids story with low grade pop culture references for the parents), but Shrek was their least repulsive effort and I was curious.
Sadly, Shrek 2 did about the worst thing it possibly could if it was trying to win me over--making everything about LA.
I guess it's good to love where you live, but it's really annoying how studio filmmakers seem to think LA's the greatest place on Earth. It's especially annoying when they take stories that are supposed to be set in more interesting places and relocate them to right outside their door (for example Keanu Reeve's John Constantine lived in LA instead of the comic's gothic London).
There are interesting things in LA, and even interesting stories to draw out of the locale (shortly before starting this blog, I saw and loved Sunset Blvd), but it's not an epic exciting place, except in a kind of weird artificial way.
It's flat, smog-filled, and ugly, and while you can make a good movie about that kind of place, you can't make a magical one.
The only reason this is sometimes justifiable is for bugetary reasons; it must've been way cheaper to shoot Constantine in LA than in London, so maybe that's why they did it.
Shrek 2 has no excuse. Grimm Fairy Tales are beautiful, evocative, and European. Making them goofy is all well and good (Shrek was a kind of fun movie), but making the fairy kingdom into an injokey Hollywood was just too awful. The filmmakers are so self-obsessed that they can't even tell a fairy story without making it about their boring neighborhood.
I stopped paying attention, and after awhile so did the kids.
posted by Kane Lynch at
2:28 AM
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