Papa Smark!
I picked up the new live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Into The Woods (Disney version), and The Penguins of Madagascar. Curious if you've seen them; I found TMNT was pretty good, but could have been way better had it lost a few of the mustache twirling lines.
Into The Woods was interesting in that I'd never even heard of it prior to the Disney release (there was another version that caused The Lady Amanda™ and I a bit of confusion at the video store). Overall I liked it, though the frenetic and fun Gilbert and Sullivan first half overshadowed the somewhat melancholy and bittersweet second half, which to me felt like it lost a bit of steam as it finished.
Penguins was a hoot though; I laughed a heck of a lot more than any of the Madagascar movies combined, and while perfectly fine for the kids, had a ton of in jokes for the adults, particularly the constant celebrity name dropping (Nicholas, cage them! Drew! Barry! More power!) Very funny, and has moved into place as one of our household favorites, along with Pitch Perfect (sequel next month!) and Butter.
Isn't there a PPV happening this Sunday or something?
Thanks for reading,
CJ Ambrosia
Ugh, HATED Into the Woods. Thankfully I used a free movie pass on it, because it was not my cup of tea at all. The advertising was pretty misleading, as it didn't really make clear that it was a MUSICAL and not just the usual Disney occasional-song type of musical. It had some cute moments, like Chris Pine and "I'm trained to be charming, not sincere" and his duet with the other prince. But holy shit, once you hit the fakeout happy ending and it turns into Death March Into Wonderland for the remaining HOUR, the movie goes off a cliff completely and never recovers. Bleargh.
TMNT was just a movie. I'm not of the age group that holds any particular nostalgia for the TV show or comics, so it didn't move me or offend me one way or the other. My wife loved it, though.
The Penguin movie was brilliant. I have to go see pretty much every kids movie now, and this was by far my favorite. I liked it way more than my daughter did (she felt Spongebob was the superior choice) and I actually bought it for myself. It's definitely funnier than any of the Madagascar movies and has a totally different sense of humor. I lost it at the camera crew shoving the baby penguins over the edge and pretty much laughed for 90 minutes straight after that.
And yes, there's a PPV on Sunday, which I couldn't even be bothered to do a Sporting News preview for. That's how jazzed about it I am.
