An Affair with Sony Animation

As stated earlier this year, I'm a huge Pixar fan (sadly, my countdown of YouTube videos have been removed due to copyright infringement . . . that took a long time to collect). I tend to shun other animation studios' work. "Shrek" relied on pop culture musings and jokes rehashed from other movies. Pixar stays original in their humor. "Ice Age" was alright, "Madagascar" was the same caliber of "Shrek", pop culture blahdom. Plus, the animation of other studios flat out sucks. It almost seems a tier above video game cutscene animation.

That's why I was surprised to find that Sony Pictures Animation's "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" could come out as one of my favorite computer animated films. It's Pixar caliber. Better than "Cars", and more laugh out loud funny than any Pixar film. There were moments where I had tears in my eyes.

I love the book. I read it a lot to the children. It's clever, the pictures are great, the descriptions are vivid and funny. The movie takes the book and embarks on a mad scientist story. Complete with the awkward failure, to the impending success, the inevitable notoriety of the inventor and their creation, flying too high and burning wings, chaos caused by the machine, the creator needing to bring down their creation . . . it's "Frankenstein" with food. It's a story we've all seen, but you forget that it's a recycled format. The dialogue is extremely witty and the animation is flat out cute.

Four stars! Four fantastic fucking stars!!



Woods -- "Rain On"