Best Movie of 2010

So with 5 million other websites proclaiming who is the best of 2010 I thought I'd throw my dog in the race.  And the winner is....drum roll..........

 IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS!!!  Hooray.  Honestly my list of 2010 movies I saw were Kick Ass, Shutter Island, Iron Man 2, Jackass 3-D, Inception, Legion, Clash of the Titans (which would have been better titled The Raping of the Clash of the Titans),  Hot Tub Time Machine, The Crazies, Death at Funeral, Babies, and The Expendables.  What should I do?  Should I list a winner without seeing everything?  Should I except my role as a no name blogger and do nothing?  What should I do?  Anyway enough of that.  If I had to pick one from there I guess Inception.  It was decent, though to quote a line from the movie I thought Nolan should have not been afraid to dream a little bigger.  But it was certainly a nice change of pace from most movies today.  Definitely one to see in an altered state.  I'll probably do an upcoming blog about it. 

On to In the Mouth of Madness, this was a brilliant and fun movie that I finally got to see this year.  I went in not expecting anything and was hugely surprised.  Which is the way you should always watch movies.  I had wanted to see this movie ever since it came out for the sole reason that Sam Neil was in it.  I had just gotten over my Jurassic Park hangover and was wanting to see everything the actors that were in that in anything else they did.  I almost saw 3 Wishes when it came out, and I put in a flier for the Jungle Book.  Thankfully I never saw any of those.  But maybe I should knowing what I know now from this movie.  The story wasn't even what I was expecting, from what I remember in the trailers I thought it was about how this guy writes this book, people read it and go crazy for some reason and start murdering people.  The book gains popularity and they release a movie and Sam Neil has to try and stop the movie.  It is somewhat like that but there is a lot more to the story and I really liked where they took it.  This was in the twilight zone of film where special effects were just taking off, they could have used CGI but instead went for the reality of animatronics and rubber suits which worked out well.  I'd hate to see what this movie would look like if it was made in 2005.  Probably the best part of the movie is how Sam Neil carries everything.  It definitely wouldn't have worked without him, and considering how this came out after Jurassic Park in which he could have played his career safe, he went all out for this one. 

Movies from 2009 that were good for 2010:  After settling a whole year after 2009, I can safely say the best movie for me was..Watchmen...Coraline...A Single Man...An Education...Moon.  Umm, let's see:  An Education, mainly because Carey Mulligan was so hot in it or Watchmen.  I think I might have to go with Watchmen.  I read the book in the same year, it wasn't as good as the Dark Knight, but was the only movie of the year that as soon as it ended I wanted to see it again and buy (though I haven't yet).   

Some movies I still want to see from 2010 that will most likely get viewed next year The Kings Speech, Tron, Ghost Writer, Greenberg, Repo Men, Chloe,  Robin Hood, Prince of Persia (GIVE ME THE DAGGER!!), The A-Team, I am Love, Predators, The Kids are Alright, Resident Evil (I'm a sucker for these every time), The Town, Social Network, RED, 127 Hours, True Grit, and Biutiful.  And whatever ones get nominated that I didn't list here. 

The Good Girl

 My big knock against this movie is it pushes and perpetuates the unproven theory that marijuana causes infertility.  Not only does it say it in a lot of the synopsi's about the movie but it is a major plot point that they emphasize, along with the character of the husband as a loser in part because he smokes pot.  There have been only a couple studies that I found on this issue where they found that sperm seemed to travel faster and more abnormally in heavy smokers.  Taking into account as much as you can trust university "studies" in this aspect, nothing has been shown that there is a directly correlation between the two, and it probably isn't more than the typical effects of alcohol or certain foods.  Think about it, if you are trying to get people to not smoke pot, what would you say was a side effect to get a big reaction.  I can't have kids if I smoke pot?!  But hey guess what, pot heads have babies, lots of them, and from what I've heard it increases libido.  Not to mention all the horror stories I've heard on how they tested the effects of THC when it was first made illegal.  Such as when they suggested that THC/marijuana kills brain cells, that was after a study they did on monkeys where they hooked them up to gas masks and pumped marijuana smoke constantly for several minutes straight which also cut off brain dependent oxygen.  Great way to prove your study.  You might as well tell a vegan they can't smoke pot because they burn pixies when they light up.  If you edit this film down it almost turns into an anti drug PSA. 

I have come to appreciate the ending of this though.  I used to think how could she have done that to Holden.  But I realized she is just a character in a movie, and is liable to make bad decisions, she tried to do what is best for everyone even if it isn't the best decision.  

Rock Star

This looked like the worst movie ever, and until someone proves otherwise I will never see it. 

Let the Right One In

Beautiful Poster by Phantom City Creative

It seems that the title refers more to Eli letting the right one in to be her caretaker, then Oskar letting a vampire into his life, or letting a vampire in in general according to their rules.  The whole story sets up Oskar to take over the role of Hakan, a man that is with her in the beginning and that feeds her and finds her victims but is slowly losing his ability to produce results.  The way Eli meets Oskar and builds his character and make sure he is a solid person that could become strong willed, as we see Hakan have to dispose of and move quite a few bodies.  Hakan seems to be very jealous of this new relationship that Eli is forming with him as well, but you can see little nuances that he realizes what is happening and he realizes that she must move on eventually.  Apparently in the book Hakan is more of a pedophile character that she just happens to meet up with and they form a relationship, but as in so many cases this is the movie not the book. It doesn't matter what the book was trying to establish, the movie was taking the story in a somewhat newer direction.  It became more of a story of Eli searching for life partners as a 12 year old vampire since she has to deal with the curse of being immortal.  But will Oskar be different?  Will he turn him?  I give this movie a 7/10.  There is a sequel coming up soon.  I also look forward to seeing the American version. 

Apparently this movie took place in the 1970's, I had no idea, I thought it was present time.  

PS this scene was awesome.

Does Blockbuster have any clue how things work?

Blockbuster has launched this new ad campaign in recent months stating how they are a far superior rental store because you get all these exclusive, great hits when they come out on video immediately instead of waiting 28 days for it to come out with Netflix and Redbox.  I'm not sure how the mom and pop video stores are effected by this, if they have to wait too or not.  Any-who, spending millions of dollars to advertise on national TV with crappy commercials is always a smart thing to do when you are on the brink of bankruptcy.  Or are they already?  I haven't been keep up with the financials, but this is one case where if I were the banks I would just let the company dissolve and liquidate.  For 10 years Blockbuster has made bad decision after bad decision, almost not knowing that the internet even existed as Netflix and Redbox emerged and were adapting to people's behaviors rather than making them adapt to you. This latest attempt by Blockbuster to try and get new customers is just a new low and it makes no regard as to what current and potentially future customers actually care about. 

I did the blockbuster through the mail program from 2005-2009.  It wasn't too bad, but kind of pricey at $18/month.  I did the 3 at time, with 2 in store rentals per month.  Since I signed up for it pretty early in the programs launch I was able to use the 2 in store for games which is the main reason I stuck with it for so long.  They ended up dissolving that aspect in 2006-2007 for newer customers, very wise but maybe it had to do with the fact that they charge $8 for a game rental and in their minds were losing money.  I will give them credit that they started a great program where you could swap the mailers for releases in store so you didn't have to wait for it to mail out, but that was the only plus and something they should have done immediately being that they had hundreds of stores setup to do so.  While Netflix added online streaming which is widely popular, up until 2009 blockbuster made you pay extra per movie if you wanted to stream online.  The stores are blockbusters biggest problem.  Not just the fact that they have them and have to pay for them and didn't use them to their full advantage as a I mentioned above but if you've been to a store recently this is what you see in their new releases section which takes up half the store:  Shitty horror movie, shitty horror movie, shitty cheap horror movie, 4 different horror movies about same real serial killer (but they won't carry any NC-17), 50 copies of idiot high school movie half gone, 10 copies of great movie all gone.  So you are at the store already, you feel like you should leave with something, you maybe want to get a classic, but the store has maybe a 30% chance they actually carry the one you want.  What do you do?  This is where the queue becomes a huge advantage.  Even though you have to wait to get movies, you get what you want for the most part when you are in the mood to watch it.  Going to the rental store you are almost forced to settle for best available.  The old mom and pop stores did this as well where they just have such a huge selection to choose from that you are bound to find something you like if you don't already know what you want, while Blockbuster is always way too heavy on new releases.  Basically Blockbuster tried to run two companies, they have somewhat the same through the mail program as Netflix but with more expensive options, fewer selections and slower delivery times, and have the brick and mortar with a horrible set up and selection with Redbox doing the same thing but more convenient and direct,  but I'm ranting and trailing off now..

Now on to this 28 days thing.  The main aspect of the commercials tries to show people in numerous situations where you wouldn't want to wait long for something but they are told they have to wait 28 days for this service.  OH NO!  Well this is ridiculous, I'm at a restaurant and I have to wait 28 days for a table, what kind of world is this blah blah blah.  Because waiting in an ER is exactly like waiting for the huge release of the Sorcerer's Apprentice and Vampire's Suck.   The only aspect that the commercial advertises is that with blockbuster you don't have to wait 28 days a few new releases each season, is that their new program?  This is what their genius think tanks came out with?  I'm surprised that there hasn't been more outcry about this monopoly that Blockbuster has organized (bought) basically muscling out any type of competition on these releases for a movie first so they can try to be the exclusive rental company with shitty service.  Hey people instead of luring you with nice incentives and services to shop our store we are going to bully our way in and force you to buy from us if you want to see this movie now.  As everyone knows customers always respond well to force.  But this will barely make a dent in the market share that Netflix has, I could see it hurting red box somewhat due to it's limited selection, but Red box operates with such low overhead that they will most assuredly survive until BB goes under.

The majority of people though will not care about this 28 day waiting period, at least not enough to be completely dependent on blockbuster.  How many people do you know are just clamoring for the release of a movie to be able to rent it?  People don't wait in line to be able to do it.  Chances are if they are excited about a movie they see it in the theater and then get excited about the release date so they can buy it if they really liked it.  If they have waited 5-6 months to see it for the first time on rental, what's the big deal about waiting another 28 days?  You obviously weren't that excited to see it originally.  The 2 aspects of rental services today are the store and the queue.  With the queue you add a movie and you may move it up when you want to see it, but chances are you also have 12 other movies you might want to see and it will get here when it does.  With the store, most of the time you settle for a pick, but if that movie that they get first for 28 days isn't there then what do you do?  The other thing that blockbuster doesn't mention anywhere in the ads, which I guess is somewhat smart, is that it is only certain releases by certain studios.  Not every new release is under this new system. 

With all this it doesn't even factor in a lot of Netflix's current customer motivations which is older movies and TV shows.  We have netflix and the in the last 6 months of the 64 movies we have watched, only 4 of those were 2010 releases, and only 2 of those were within 28 days of the the initial release date.  Ultimately are people going to cancel their subscription with Netflix so they go rent The Other Guys, chances are if they go that route they'll keep it and go rent it at the store but maybe do this 1 or 2 times a year.  Sure I think this will probably effect some people, but enough of a percentage to warrant huge amounts of advertising and movie studio buyouts/lobbying?  I'm not sure what big win Blockbuster thinks they have here.   They tried to be a bully during one of the biggest declines in film quality over the last few years and not ending in any forseeable future.  DirectTV is starting a similar program, so be warned.

Who Does Matt Flynn look like?

Last night during the Packers Patriots game there was a heated discussion about Matt Flynn.  It was just the typical garb that goes on when guys watch football, we were trying to figure out who Matt Flynn looks like.  I suggested Chris Pine, someone else said Peter Sarsgard, one idiot thought Timothy Olyphant, and a lot of people online said Matt Damon.  I guess I could see the Damon a little bit.  But I decided on a compromise,  If Pine and Sarsgard had a baby it would Matt Flynn.  Boom.

Tron Legacy Possible $48 million opening.

They didn't go under their adult studio banner for this one, this says Disney all over it.  We are not the market for it, but kids are.  It is a CGI cartoon video game essentially, turn on cartoon network during the day and you'll probably see a lot of familiar shots if you watched tron.  I've heard people say their kids went nuts for it.  That's all you need to know.  A $48 million dollar opening is pretty solid in that regard especially with christmas boost week coming up.  With a reported budget of $200 million depending on who you ask it will easily make $600 million include TV deals and worldwide.  So everything before it is released on home video, without considering merchandise.   

That being said I can’t wait to see it or play the video game.

Update - It made $44,026,211

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead

"The world is an evil place, some of us make money off of that, and others get destroyed." One of my favorite quotes from the movie.  I'll try to drop that at the bars this weekend. 

This woman is in it, if you didn't know her she plays one of Michael's former mistresses on the American Office.  I say it in the present tense because she comes back once awhile even though you thought she was gone.  Anyway she plays Ethan Hawke's ex-wife.  Ever since the office I've noticed her popping up in all these other movies that even though I've seen already I didn't know it was her until the office for some reason, I guess it was just a memorable character.  It's kind of like when you a hear a word for the first time, then you hear that word every day in normal conversation from that point forward.  One of those words for me was "caveat".  I only heard that word 6 years ago, now I hear and see it all the time.  Is there a word for that?

A lot of critics of the move say Marissa Tomei was the weakest link in this but I think that was just the type of character she plays.  She played perfectly the type of person that would grow up and marry the character of "Andy", kind of naive, ditzy, acts on her own low impulses but doesn't think anything through.  As we all know she is one of the best actresses since her debut, did you see her in In the Bedroom, holy fuck.

This is some of the best casting of a family I've ever seen.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke looking nothing alike, who would think they were brothers.  Yet with the casting of Albert Finney as the father you can see a little bit of both them in him.  It's hard to gauge from the mother since she is stressed most of the time, but I would say good with that too. 

Speaking of the mother (she looks a little like Ethan Hawke I guess), something is hidden in this story/movie about her.  She is a pretty good shot to boot.  Look at how she is getting ready to aim, it's like she has done this before.  Is it her fault that all this came to pass?  What is the real story of this granny?  As the story progresses, you begin to see the cracks in the family that in a weird way created this whole mess.  I'm not sure if this was part of it.  The title of the movie comes from the old Irish saying which is "may you spend 30 minutes in heaven before the devil knows your dead".  Not counting the bell-end robber she is the only one to die for quite sometime, could it be that this is who the title refers to?  This is just retribution for all the things in her past?  I think the father may have known it as well.  This movie definitely focuses on how our decisions create our path and how we must walk that path so I think it helps illustrate the argument that Albert Finney and his wife somehow led their lives to this point.  As viewer for just this 110 minutes we are to believe that these parents are an innocent yet if we expand the story to their whole lives it might become completely different. 

Conclusion:  Watching this for the second time I realize how much of a solid movie this is,  I think everyone that somewhat enjoyed it needs to watch it once more.   I first gave it an 8/10, but now full on 10/10.  At the surface it is just about your basic caper/heist movie but with powerful acting and superb script writing it brings a whole new pulse and dynamic to this repetitive genre.  In 20 years this will be regarded as at least a top 5 film of the decade if not the best in society's book.  This film has something that so many lack nowadays a stupendous 3rd act, and character motivation.  Even though what these 2 sons did was despicable, the audience can at least understand their actions and why they did it because of the time the creators took to develop them, a lot of films today find it hard to give motivation for a character to get out of bed let alone rob their parents.    Creating this motivation helps put the viewer in the shoes of these characters, which is what movies were always meant to do. 

Directed by Sidney Lumet, is Find Me Guilty any good?  The only thing I found disappointing about this movie was it's budget, $18 mil??  This could have been made for $1,000,000 with a few friends, with their locations and setup.  You figure that all the main actors, who don't command (nor demand) exorbitant amounts of salary anyway, probably did it for less to work with Sidney Lumet and once they saw the excellent script.   Not to mention it probably went pretty fast with the repetitive filming locations.  This could have easily been made for $12 million no problem. 

Stupid Goofs from IMDB -
Factual errors: SPOILER: When Andy buys tickets to Brazil he walks out of STA Travel. STA Travel caters to students and young adults. Andy is neither.
Answer - All you need is a fake ID.  Morally I don't think that would be a problem for someone that meets with a heroin dealer on a regular basis and embezzles from his company.  In face phony identification is probably a must.   

Factual errors: When Justin gives Andy a shot, the constricting band is not removed before injecting. It is incorrect and at least could damage the vein.
Answer - The kid is a drug dealer who barely looks 19, not a nurse. 

Errors Made by Character:  At no time when Gina and Andy are in the car does Gina wear her seat belt. In addition, no warning sound is heard when the car is in motion, stopped or put into motion again.
Answer - Sometimes basic features in a car break.  

Alfred Molina wins the award for most races/nationalities played the best by anyone ever!!

Wait to go Freddie!

 Prince of Persia - Persian, but not the prince

The Da Vinci Code - Italian/French?  Can't remember. 

Frida - Mexican or John Lovitz look alike. 

Magnolia - Greek?  (Solomon Solomon right?)

 The Imposters - English, I think that is from the imposters, I thought he wore a top hat in it.  

 Boogie Nights - Very Pale Drug Dealer

 Maverick - Mexican

 Species - Whatever Ben Kingsley was playing. 

Spider-man 2 - Half Robot Octopus/Half Human

Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark - Generic brown race that dies around Indiana Jones. 

 Have no idea - Albino?  Village of the Damned?

 Tevye!!!!!!

 Others Notables - 
Cabin Boy - Fancy Boy
An Education - English
Identity - American
Chocolat - French
The Man Who Knew too Little - Russian
And the winner is English!

 1st Runner Up - Cliff Curtis, and this was very close, mainly because Molina was in Boogie Nights.

 Other Runners Up - Patrick Stewart, Djimon Hounsou, Mario Lopez

The Kings Speech

Is it just me or does The Kings Speech feel like it could be the best movie ever made? 

Liv Tyler

Liv Tyler always brings the heat in That Thing You Do.  To quote a line in the movie she was my first boy/girl thing  Basically I hit puberty, then she hit me with Stealing Beauty on cinemax, Empire Records on cinemax, That Thing You Do, and just for kicks, Inventing the Abbots, are you kidding me?  Major trauma in my formative years.  Oh yeah and a very under appreciated actress of our generation.  "If you want him, come and claim him!"  She can do the green screen thing and the independent thing.  For the better part of my youth, my goal was to get Liv Tyler, Julianne Moore, Charlize Theron, Patricia Heaton, Penelope Cruz, and Shania Twain  in a movie together.  Cookie's Fortune came close so it could still happen. 

Revolutionary Road

It's been awhile since I've seen this but what if she never was pregnant with Leo's baby.  Only faked it to see what he would do, to find out if he really loved her.  She found out it wasn't true and did the only thing she knew she couldn't do which was leave.  So she got knocked by that other guy, then decided to abort that guy;s baby.  She pulled a reverse Circle of Friends.  That type of stuff keeps me awake at night.  A woman actually doing that, for shame. 

Little Monsters

I 'll do this every once in awhile where I try to go through a whole movie.  My first one will be the 1980's blockbuster Little Monsters.  This movie definitely tops the list of most disturbing, sexually frustrated, horror stories ever conceived.  When you break it down on the very basic story level, this is a movie about those monsters that every single kid thinks are out there, you befriend one but it almost gets you killed and he takes you to hell and you torture people and you spy on people and you get your parents to hate each other.  But there are some pretty scary moments even for adults, and the effects are actually very well done since they used a lot of actual make up and in-camera tricks.  To get this out of the way I'm all for the subtle adult additions to kids movies.  I think it helps the stories span generations and makes us see new things about a film when we "mature".  Not necessarily like Shrek and the Pixar movies that contain jokes for us adults sprinkled throughout, but like how we grow up to watch movies from our childhood only to be revealed the horrible truth about something later on.  People were on drugs while they made Willy Wonka, No Way! Or Princess Leia did coke?!  Snow White and The Land Before Time was about the Nazi's, etc, etc etc.  This movie definitely goes down this path but takes it to a hyper extreme.  I saw this when I was younger in my room on TV (I had a huge fucking 13 in black and white) and I don't remember anything that bad about it, but there is no subtext about anything in this movie watching it now.  Sources close to me say that the plan was to make a much darker movie but their thinking was throwing in Fred Savage would automatically make it a kids one instead but kept a lot of the same script in tact.  Meaning it would only be marketed as such, people seeing Fred Savage would think oh okay, that is a kids movie.  Ironically that he was famous for Wonder Years and therefore should have been thought of as more mature as that is how we see him on that show.

 I think this would have worked much better as a dark tale for adults but those studio genius thought otherwise which is why it grossed a whopping $793,000 (imdb).  I was scared when I saw previews for this when I was younger, I mean this reaffirms every kids suspicion that shit is going down at night, but it becomes very dark in the last 20 minutes from the relatively light-hearted fair early on. I remember dragons coming out of the bed during one of the commercials but I couldn't find it in the final film, did I just imagine that happening?  The commercials kind of scared me in that regard since I was only 7 too so I didn't see it in the theater, I waited until I was a little older and saw on TV by myself.  Still kind of scared me though I might have been 4th grade.  I thought maybe things like that could happen to me.

The story follows a young boy who discovers how to enter the world of the monsters under his bed.  He proceeds to act like an asshole the rest of the movie until his brother gets kidnapped by some kind of man child who needs playmates for eternity and they go to rescue him and learn a valuable life lesson.  Straight up, it is about being a pedophile, being the kid effected by said pedophile and growing up to kill (probably), or reverse of that, where Kevin is the pedophile when he is younger.  That is the story of how he came to be, Boy is in his head, it is all in his head . that isn't California it is New York.  reason why, they were just in the sewer.   

Great title sequence for a kids movie sets the tone real well this is going to be a fun romp. 

A Film By Richard Greenberg.  I'll get this out there now, there is nothing more a pompous asshole can do that put a "film by" as their credit.  Every time I see it, it takes you down a least 3 notches from whatever low platform you were on.  I died a little inside when I saw Jon Favreau do it for Iron Man 2.  Unless you created every facet of the film, and did electric, catering, extra work, transportation, accounting, among dozens of other things it is not a film by you.  You are the director, that is what you do, the film is directed by you yes.  But if you are willing to do this, then everything wrong with it can be blamed on you so I guess there is a trade off.  Brett Ratners lives by the code and dies by this code. I guess it is good in that sense, you get to put 100% of the blame onto one person for it, and it's always his fault. 

 Why is Maurice in quotes, are we led to believe something about his existance?

I hope the movie actually did start out black and white and it is not just me.  Through exceptional voice over work we are brought to the attention that this family is having some problems.  It is a good thing they moved to relieve their stress.  Did anyone check to see if more movers went in than came out?

Early on the movie establishes that Fred Savage is good at making electronics and things that look like a bomb.

 One of the kids is scared by a monster we don't see at first.  Can you see the monster in this shot?  (Hint:  It could be the dad)

 

 The acting by the kids is exceptional all the way around. 

 Don't look at the camera!!

This is our first encounter with Maurice, the monster that seems to be stalking this family, or this house, what happened to the previous owner? Killed?  Probably.  Fred Savage traps him the room and waits for him to die before putting him back into his world where he can be revived.  The death scene is quite painful to watch as he melts away.  Imagine the Wizard of Oz except 2 minutes longer and more writhing in pain.  

 Is someone watching him??

 The average distance between Fred Savage and Maurice throughout the movie is 1.4 feet, they are really close together constantly.  

Maurice decides it would be best for everyone if Fred Savage came to the monster world.  Not sure why he was chosen.  Maurice goes over the typical rules of a place full of adults and some kids, like you can do anything, there are no parents, wait I guess there are no rules which also means natures and society's laws don't apply down here, it is Bangkok for the Jim Carrey's of the world, horay.  .

He then proceeds to show Fred what he does all night, presumably 8 hours at a time and Fred joins in.  Keep in mind Fred just moved here.  Sure there is one bully, but he then becomes the jerk off, getting tons of innocent kids in trouble with their parents by pulling jerk store brand pranks, and doing the safest thing in the world putting a roller skate on stairs.  I'm all over small pranks, the salt shaker thing will crack me up every time.  But a lot of theirs are borderline sadistic. 

 This is who he harms and puts in trouble, because this kid doesn't have enough problems of his own.

To the one bully that we have met thus far in the film that actually deserves a sort of punish they decide to do exactly what you think his is doing above.  Yep, they took it that far.  The sad thing is the bully got about even what everyone else did.  Well I guess maybe a little more, but the point is it seems Fred Savage has an out for everyone in the school, revenge or not. 

Is Fred Savage coked out during this movie?  Maybe, but he seems to having fun.

When Fred Savage finds out about his parents' divorce he will bomb Pearl Harbor.

 All these kids look like they are up to no good.  If that was my table gang, I would have been killed. 

 It is discovered that Fred has a thing for this red head, and the red head is quite the stalker herself.  The best idea he could think of was to go B&E on her.  That is breaking and entering for you, and watch her sleep quite a bit.  In fact they watch a lot of other kids sleeping.

 Not weird at all to watch kids sleep.  Does anyone's dog watch you while you are sleeping?  Is that normal?

Is he wearing ladies glasses?

We soon find out that a world full of the monsters run by hideous beings that are bastards to everyone isn't all fun and games and running around with your adult partner hiding under kids bed.  The dialogue between these two goes along these lines.  Boy, the ruler of the monster rule, needs playmates apparently.  This child tried to give boy what he wanted and he complains about his knees hurting (he really says that).  Maybe they are playing badminton a lot, I don't.  But the big guy trying to give the best for boy yells at him for his knees hurting and then proceeds to rip his head off.

Savage is slowly become a monster he realizes and he double checks the fact that he is shrinking because noticing that your body disappears in the light wasn't good enough.  Why are 7, 9, 10 not written out like the others, what is this code.  Wait a minute...

 Where have I seen this clown before????

Ahhhh

 Ahhh!!

 Anyway, at one point his right hand turns into a dog and eats this girls homework and ruins her life, then he says man's best friend is his right hand, yep.

Why isn't the one on the right enjoying any of this?

If this thing comes to life I am shitting myself.

They say little monsters 1 hour 12 minutes and 33 seconds into the movie!!!!

Appleton represent!  Even though that is horrible geography if I'm not mistaken.  Unless they are a point east of it that angle is correct. 

After enough shenanigans and Fred gets pants'd by Maurice.  Things start to get serious.  His brother is kidnapped by this underground society and not he is has to save them.  Is this kind of like the Time Machine with the morlocs.

I bring you Boy.  The leader of the monsters, who everyone should fear because he is dressed like he came from Prep School, has the knickers and everything.  I don't think that is Chris Kattan but someone should check. 

Try to name everything that is wrong with this picture.  I guess he kidnapped the brother to get to Fred to be his playmate, for life.  BFF in today's church. 

I guess Boy went all Silence of the Lambs on someone's ass. 

Fred gives him the dreaded 10 second ultimatum to give him his brother back and proceeds to take 20 seconds to count down.  Nothing bad could happen in the 10 seconds, oh except this. 

They do get a piece of boy melting his face off....

 Kids Movie!!

The plan doesn't work, they get captured are able to escape and come back with more fire power, this time wearing suits of light which were pretty cool looking when we were kids.  They manage to explode Boy and his henchmen.  His henchman is able to get back together when they save the brother so they do the only humane thing possible...

Burn his ass to death with a flame thrower.  He screams for a good 20 seconds afterward.  Like Deja Vu all over again?

They aren't able to get through the normal bed due to the sun light rising.  They have to run west thereby discovering a way to travel great distance almost speed of light by running.  They keep this scientific breakthrough all to themselves for all humanity not to discover.  They make it out at the very end under a beach bum, I guess any bed will do.  They call their parents who have a handicap phone and everything is okay.  I think the parents even say they aren't getting a divorce anymore, I can't remember.

Conclusion:  This movie does leave a lot of open ended questions.  They never really go into detail on who these monsters are.  We are left with the fact that had Fred and his friends remained underground that they would have become monsters.  Are all these monsters just people who didn't make it out?  Are they in hell?  Maurice also says goodbye in the end, could they never see each other again?  Couldn't Maurice just come and visit once and awhile, he even suggests Fred should stay as he would be a hero.  If one were to believe that Fred and Maurice are the same that could be the explanation and he is wearing Maurice's coat in the end.  This also leads me to wonder what will happen to Fred's character when he is older.  This experience probably did set him up  great for adult interactions.  After the divorce Fred is wandering around cutting the legs off the beds to stop the monsters, his mom is okay with it as she explains it to herself that he is just going through the grieving process and better this than become a serial killer in 10 years.  Perhaps a foreshadow that he does because Maurice is the little monster that lives inside his head.  Starts innocent enough with the pranks, pissing in kids juice bottles, soon he becomes sadistic like Boy, kidnapping people.  Or maybe Boy is his future self, it is him needing to grow up by killing him off.  Maybe the whole underworld was Fred Savage's mind.  He kidnapped his brother and took him to California. Funny point about this movie, Daniel Stern plays his dad in the movie, Daniel Stern is the voice of Kevin Arnold on the Wonder Years as an adult.  

The End 

(Sha Pow)