I have seen worse Dreamworks Animation films than Megamind, a motion picture that is slightly less insistent than most of its peers in selling the peculiar worldview of Jeffrey Katzenberg. That’s one reason I rate it as high as I do in my review of it, for MSN Movies.
You may have noticed I’m doing more and more reviewing at MSN. I am happy and proud to report that the folks over there recently named me the chief film critic for MSN Movies, so there will be more reviews by myself appearing there on a more regular basis. I’m particularly happy to be contributing alongside such wonderful critics as James Rocchi and Kat Murphy. And I have two spectacularly smart and sensitive editors in Dave McCoy and David Seno, who are also both terrific guys. So I win, basically.
Awesome, congrats.
Congrats!
Congratulations.
Apropos the anti-geek “core message” you describe– one thing I really hated about HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, besides mostly everything, was the way in which the truly geeky character (not the lead, who is the sort of faux-geeky guy who ends up being the lead in most of these things) was the figure of fun. I mean, in the fiction of the film, in a world where every-fricking-thing revolves around dragons, where knowledge of dragons is paramount to one’s very survival, why is the guy who knows everything about the fricking dragons ostracized and eye-rolled whenever he opens his mouth? And, oh, he’s fat and his clothes don’t fit, because he’s such a NERD.
This kind of nerdface minstrelsy isn’t anything new, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying, especially when (1) the fiction of the film itself is rendered incoherent and (2) it’s presented in a film that’s about being true to yourself (because EVERY FRICKING ANIMATED FILM is about “being true to yourself”)– and making fun of The Weird Kid really embraces the spirit of that, doesn’t it?
Then again, I’m probably too sensitive about it, first of all being a geek/nerd/what-have-you, and secondly (and apropos the text of your review of MEGAMIND), well, neither myself nor my astonishing wife (who has a definite weakspot for anything animated) are the intended audience, and I can confirm that the children at the dollar show where we saw it thought DRAGON was just about the best thing ever.
About the only Dreamworks film I have enjoyed is KUNG-FU PANDA: it’s not just a repository for anachronistic pop culture jokes and song cues, has a villain with real menace, uses its 2.35:1 widescreen for some impactful imagery, is replete with great colour, tells its story with a commendable degree of nuance and enthusiasm, and has, at its heart, an unabashed, knowledgeable, and passionate real geek’s geek who is not laughed at but with. And while that last part, for me, really stands out in contrast to DRAGON, I like it most of all because it’s less like product and more like Cinema– less like Dreamworks, and a little closer to Pixar.
That’s my two cents, anyway.
And, as I said elsewhere, congratulations, Glenn.
GK FTW.
Katzenberg was the Disney executive who insisted not only that his pet project ‘Pocahontas’ was superior to ‘The Lion King’, but that it stood a serious chance of being nominated for Best Picture. “Peculiar worldview” doesn’t begin to describe it.
As a fellow MSN contributor (I write a metal blog for them), welcome. It’s a good place to write – they don’t yank your leash too hard as far as writing what you want, and they pay really surprisingly well relative to other outlets, print or online.
Congratulations, comrade!
Well done, good sir.
Congratulations. I’m very happy that I’ll see your name over at MSN on a regular basis.
Warmest congratulations, Mr. Kenny!
Wonderful news. MSN is fortunate to have you.
Whew! Glad you’re being remunerated again. And writing some snappy, snappy prose!
Great! I hope this could mean more music interviews as well. By the way, bang up job on the Costello interview, Glenn. I’m jealous. Tell ’em Eno has a new album out. (Although he “interviewed” himself recently: http://pitchfork.com/news/40597-watch-a-ridiculous-brian-eno-interview/)
Congrats. Here’s hoping they appreciate what they’ve got.
Chris O., it’s not Eno interviewing himself but a fake (and pretty funny) interview with “Dick Flash.”
Congratulations, Glenn
Congratulations, my friend. Great stuff.
Congrats!
Also, one of the things I most liked about How to Train Your Dragon was how it was relatively free of cheap pop-culture references. In fact, I’d call it one of the smarter and more nuanced kids’ movies of the last few years (and better than Kung Fu Panda, which, while it had a menacing villain, promptly turned him into an ineffectual buffoon in the final anticlimactic sequence).
That’s great, Glenn. You’re too good a critic to be without a home.
My heartiest congratulations, Glenn. Any venue is lucky to have you. Glad you’re in a place you feel good about.
Jeff– You’re right that DRAGON was largely reference free, and, given the consensus of it being better-than-most-Dreamworks films, I’m probably being a little unfair to/too hard on it. A lot of stuff turned me off right at the start, not least of which was the lead vocal performance and the (I thought) fairly scuzzy slo-mo back-lit-by-fire sexualization of its underage love interest. I did however find the main dragon appealingly cat-like, and liked the ending a lot better than I thought I would.
Whereas PANDA had its paws into me right from the start; with regards to that film’s villain, while I can see your point about him becoming ineffectual in the finale (even if I personally didn’t find it particularly anti-climactic, or his behaviour buffoonish), I think it has more to do with his complicated emotions towards the Dustin Hoffman character (which, and this is another thing I enjoy about the film, I found to be movingly rendered both in terms of the expressive facial animation and Mr. McShane’s voice work).
congrats
Awesome. I hope one byproduct of this is you’re being able to rejoin us at our favorite festival haunts.
Couldn’t have happened to a better critic. Congrats.
Here’s my review of Megamind for awn.com:
http://www.awn.com/blogs/miscweant/review-megamind
Panda’s still my favorite Dreamworks movie ever – and definitely on my top ten list of animated features. There are moments in there – characterization, story, visuals – that never fail to astonish me. (I’d fill up a foot or so of commentary space if I tried to list them all)
Congrats Glenn! Very glad to hear the good news. More of you to read!
Kent, you’re right. I ruined it.
It’s wonderfully weird, nonetheless.
Very good news. Congratulations!
Congratulations on your new gig.
But don’t give up the book (there must be one).
Congrats! In my younger days, I thought your reviews in Première were the work of a curmudgeonly critic who didn’t like movies. I began to tune you out. It was only after you began blogging here that I realized what an ignorant fool I’d been. Life lessons and all that. Anyway: glad that there will be even more of your reviews to read.
Excellent news! Congratulations, Glenn!
The mildly positive notices this movie has been receiving make me sort of want to see it. That, and I’ll see almost anything with David Cross in it.
Congratulations.
Congratulations! I will definitely have to bookmark MSN Movies now!
Your long national nightmare is over! (It’s over, right?) I’m very happy for you!