Monday Night Double Feature

[Ash]

I had some paid time off from work so I took Monday night (10-30-06) off and invited my friend and his girlfriend over to watch a double feature.

First movie up:

Monster House
This was really good!  
The animation was so detailed...some scenes just blew me away.
It's about a kid named D.J. and his friend Chowder.  
D.J. lives across the street from a nasty & decrepit old house.  
The mean 'ol Mr. Nebbercracker (wonderfully voiced by Steve Buscemi) lives in it and he doesn't like ANYONE or ANYTHING on his lawn!
Needless to say, the house is posessed and will eat anything or anyone that dares to stray on its property.
Things like beer bottles & basketballs are absorbed through the grass into....well, you'll find out!  :)

Some of the best scenes are when the house literally taunts the kids.
Of course no one, not even the cops believe the kids' story that the house is alive..
Many of the critics that have reviewed it have stated that some scenes may be too intense for small children.
They weren't kidding.
There are scenes in this movie that will literally scare the crap out of some kids!
The young voice actors did a great job and the film draws you in right from its opening scenes.
The only thing I kept thinking throughout the film was, "Where are all the neighbors?  Can't they look out their windows and see that some serious s**t is going on across the street!?"
This has to be one of the best animated features I've ever seen.


Second feature:

Mission Impossible III
My friends who watched it with me didn't care for it.
I loved it!
I thought this was the best "Mission" film so far.
I liked the story, the characters and the filmmaking.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays the bad guy, and even though you really don't see much of him in the film, what you do see is great.  He definitely plays a rally good "bad guy".
You know, while watching this, I thought that Ethan Hunt's character could have easily been James Bond.
Yes, this film plays out very much like a Bond film.

I really enjoyed MI:III.

[Yaddo 42]

Words like "the best 'Mission:Impossible' yet" were mentioned a lot in the reviews when it came out. I know they have done well, since they have kept making them, but talk about damning a film with faint praise.

I do want to see Monster House though, it sounds like a break from all the "cute CGI talking critters making hipster pop culture references" films we have been bombarded with lately.