Chatter Of The Squirrel

Movie: Hoodwinked - Trouble in the Hood

It seems an animated CG flick snuck under my radar last year. Hoodwinked is a relatively low-budget cartoon taking place in Little Red Riding Hood’s universe. It’s like Shrek, except that it’s funny. They didn’t even have simple physics like gravity right; and there’s no fur/hair effects like Monsters Inc or Final Fantasy. Everything’s just textured 3D. But they’ve got the humour.

It’s a kid-flick. Complete with random bursting of songs ala Disney’s Snow White, but no grand production like Beauty & the Beast.

But there’s also a lot of adult sub-text meant for the grown-ups. The whole story is told like The Usual Suspects, a damn good movie if there ever was one.

There’s also a bit of social commentary about big business killing the mom & pop stores.

Plot: There is a bandit stealing recipes all about fairy tale land. Red is safe-keeping her grandma’s recipe book, and running from Wolf. Wolf is after Red. Grandma has a secret she’s hiding. And the Woodsman has an … impediment. It’s up to Hercule Poirot, a toad, to cross examine the suspects and solve the case. (I figured it out 15min into the movie.)

There are some great voice talents, like Glenn Close and James Belushi. But my favourite is Patrick Warburton as the Wolf.

Patrick who?? He’s the voice of Kronk (the guy who speaks to squirrels) in The Emperor’s New Groove, still one of Disney’s most enjoyable cartoons. He’s David Puddy, the mechanic in Seinfeld. Joe Swanson, the cop neighbour in Family Guy. And plenty others. He’s got a very distinctive voice that lends itself to humour. His voice has a special character, like… the anti-James Earl Jones.

Another special character in the movie is Twitchy, the squirrel photographer on Desoxyn. It’s nice to see so many movie homages to insane squirrels lately. Ice Age 1&2, Over the Hedge, and now this. Twitchy gets to drink coffee here too.

Memorable quotes:
Wolf : What kind of candles are those?
Twitchy: Dee-na-mee-tay! MustbeItalian…

Villian: Dolph, tie up the brat; Liesel, hold the book; Vincent, get the truck; and Keith, change your name, please, that’s not scary and I’m embarassed to say it. Boris, try that. Keith, ya know, OOOO Watch out for Keith!

10 Year Trauma

10 years ago this day, I had the worst time I’ve ever had in a cinema.

Ben, Julian and I somehow ended up at Bishan with time to kill. There wasn’t any movie of note showing at Golden Village. We took stock of the options, and I voted for City Hall, by Al Pacino. Julian, wanted Nicole Kidman in To Die For.

Ben had no strong opinions either way. And it went down to a coin-flip. Which I lost.

OMG, that was the worst movie I ever paid money to watch!!

A story about a psychotic blonde who’ll do anything to get on TV. What a bloody boring plot!

This happened during that period of time when everyone thought that the best ticket to an Oscar was to act a dumb / crazy character. Think Hannibal Lector, Nell, and Forrest… It’s pretty naive thinking, but the Academy IS that shallow and predictable. Even Sean Penn, despite all his great works, had to play an idiot in I Am Sam to get noticed. (Which he didn’t win, because 2002 was the Academy’s ‘Patronise the African Americans’ Year.)

Back to the blonde… I sat through a shitty, dull movie, just so that Julian can get an eyeful of cleavage in the scene where Nicole jumped a high-school kid in order to get him to murder her husband.

There wasn’t an ounce of suspense in the movie. The husband was gonna die, and I could feel nothing for the dumb jock. Nicole was gonna die, and I couldn’t care less either. There was not one relateable character in the story. It’s like a satire, that’s not even funny. It’s like watching a child’s purple balloon drift away from his grasp; the event must have meant something for someONE, since the movie was made at all, but the rest of the world really can’t care less.

I could have had two plates of Boon Tong Kee chicken rice for what it costed me to watch that movie.