I have a little bit of free time, so I was able to put in some movie time. Here’s three movies I’ve watched lately, in the order I watched them:

Feature 1: The Lorax.

My daughter received a few movies for Christmas and this was the first one she wanted to watch. I have not read the book, so I didn’t know what it was about, but Sam said it was this book that made her learn that humans are capable of hurting the environment. The makers of Despicable Me made this movie, which made me think I might not like it very much. However, overall I liked the adventure (8/10), the mystery of the story (9/10), and the animation (8/10). The comedy was a bit pre-teen (6/10), and the musical numbers were a little annoying (3/10). The only thing that really counts here, though, is how my daughter liked it, which she did. It would be nice to have the book to read now, too. I give The Lorax an overall rating of 7.

Feature 2: Moonrise Kingdom.

Great “young-love” story. I loved how it looked with it’s technicolor visuals. I love how Wes Anderson chose a 1965 time period, the retro feel was fun. This movie, however, made me realize that Anderson is an “almost” director for me (my favorite of his is Fantastic Mr. fox). I love how he directs his actors to have so much goofiness and comedy, all without them smiling at all. That really seems to be his trademark, but, for some reason, I can only handle so much. So, about halfway through the film I started to ignore his style and was only concentrating on the plot, which was really good, but couldn’t carry it alone enough for me. I would definitely watch this again, and it really makes me want to watch Tenenbaums. The two best actors, I thought, were Edward Norton and the main girl (this was the first time I’ve seen her and I don’t know her name). Visuals (10/10). Story (9/10). Comedy (7/10). Overall (8/10).

Feature 3: ParaNorman.

Awesome movie! I can see that the filmmakers love classic horror films, as I do. This will definitely be an October staple. The only “bad” thing I could say here was it seemed that everyone involved tried to pack a lot into the 90 minutes. I felt it might have benefitted from either a longer running time or a simpler story. Otherwise, I loved the animation (10/10). That alone is worth watching this film. The zombies were awesome (9/10), the humor was great (9/10), and the music is worth paying attention to (9/10). Great homage to zombie/slasher films. Overall, I think this movie deserves a high 9.

Have any of you seen any of these? I’d like to know what you thought!