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This is my rationale for the upcoming animated films:

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania – I never truly liked any of these movies, so I doubt this is going to change my mind.

Ice Age: the Adventures of Buck Wild – This is just a franchise that overstayed its welcome so no.

Luck – The concept just seems like its very broad, so I doubt this is going to prove satisfying.

Turning Red – It's a Pixar movie so it will probably be good, although its premise seems iffy.

The Bad Guys – It's another anthropomorphized animal movie and I tend to enjoy these, so it got my interest.

DC League of Super Pets – I am a fan of comic book heroes and the reteaming of The Rock and Kevin Hart is good too, but something tells me this just isn't going to work.

Bob’s Burgers: the Movie – I'm a fan of mature cartoons in general, so yes.

Lightyear – I guess Disney is doing expansions on Pixar's movies? It might be good anyway.

Minions: Rise of Gru – I'm a Despicable Me/Minions fan so I still am eagerly anticipating it, but I'm tired of that d**n virus interfering with its release.

Wendell and Wild – Like I said, it sounds dark. I might still be interested though.

Puss in Boots: the Last Wish – I liked the last movie, so I do want to see this one.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – I thought the last movie was amazing, so definite yes for me.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules – This is the fifth attempt at making Diary of a Wimpy Kid as a movie, and none of them turned out any good. So like virtually all attempts at movies about the Fantastic Four, I think it's probably best to just assume it won't work.

Pinocchio – The original movie was never a true favorite of mine, but... maybe?

Super Mario Bros. - This seems like a mistake in my book. Just because Super Mario Bros. is a game franchise made for the purpose of fun, not for things like plot or character development. Mario just isn't a strong character. At least it'll be better than that dumpster fire from 1993?



Does it matter? These lists are hardly 100% accurate with the end of the year anyway. Case in point being this is the third time I stated what I have to say about Minions: Rise of Gru.

Now that we have entered 2022, my first thoughts on the upcoming animated films of the year:

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania – No way!
Ice Age: the Adventures of Buck Wild – Doomed to fail.
Luck – With this, yeah…
Turning Red – Not sure.
The Bad Guys – Interesting!
DC League of Super Pets – Gotta bad feeling…
Bob’s Burgers: the Movie – Let’s have it!
Lightyear – Pixar’s turn now?
Minions: Rise of Gru – Quit teasing me!
Wendell and Wild – Sounds pretty dark!
Puss in Boots: the Last Wish – Yay! I’m in!
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – WOO-HOO!
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules – Try ”Rodrick Sucks”!
Pinocchio – I’m nervous…
Super Mario Bros. - *spit take*

I'm also becoming fond of The Christmas Chronicles.

I'm really sad to report this.

Derrick J. Wyatt, who was an American artist best known for his work on shows like Teen Titans and Transformers Animated, has died at only 49.

I was surprised too!

Regardless of what's going on in Canada, we just got Sing 2 in the US. Right now it's RT critical consensus is:

Second verse, same as the first: For audiences that enjoyed the first installment, Sing 2 should prove another endearing diversion.

It's critical score is only 67%, however, audiences seem to have a much better opinion at 98%.

I know what I'm seeing today!

Roxy shared this with me, so I think I'll share this one with you guys:

Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights (2002)

Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Director: Seth Kearsely
Cast: Adam Sandler (Davey Stone, Whitey Duvall, Eleanor Duvall, deer), Jackie Titone (Jennifer Friedman), Austin Stout (Benjamin Friedman), Rob Schneider (Mr. Chang, Narrator), Kevin Nealon (Mayor Dewey), Norm Crosby (Judge), Jon Lovitz (Tom Baltezor)
Runtime: 76 min.
MPAA rating: PG-13 (crude humor, sexual humor, drinking and alcohol use)

This movie, set in the town of Dukesberry, New Hampshire, is about Davey Stone, a Jewish alcoholic troublemaker with a long rap sheet of criminal offenses that drew him the ire of the whole town. After he goes on a dine and dash and then a drunken vandalism spree, Davey is about to be thrown in the slammer when Whitey Duvall, his former basketball coach, intervenes to teach him about good behavior on the court. Davey is sentenced to community service but if he commits a crime, he’s spending the next 10 years in prison. However, with the holiday season approaching and a return of Jennifer Friedman, a girl from Davey’s past who he’s still carrying a torch for, will Davey find a reason to change his ways?

You probably know who Adam Sandler is. He started off as a comedian on SNL together with Chris Farley, David Spade, Chris Rock and Rob Schneider. You probably have fond memories of them and their sketches on Saturday Night Live. A memorable comedian who is known for having a wide list of memorable movies that may not be critically revered, but they make piles of money. He stepped outside his comfort zone earlier in 2002 to make Punch-Drunk Love, which fell short of box-office expectations. Never fear though, as being a musician his “Chanukah Song” would help form a base for this self-reinvention of sorts with a movie that’s “Nice, Naughty, Animated”. Plus, it’s not supposed to be a kids’ movie, if the PG-13 is a hint. Being a fan of mature animation, I had to see it.

So what went wrong?

Maybe I should start by describing the story. For a movie that claims to be about Hanukkah, it’s only a small part of the movie as it’s really just a typical Sandler movie that just kinda sorta set in the holiday season. The movie is about a drunken criminal named Davey Stone who is under threat of being sent to prison but his kindly old referee knows he wasn’t always this way. The potential was there for a good story, but it’s got such an immature mindset that while characteristic of Adam Sandler’s movies, it’s devoid of a particular voice and charisma that would make it very appealing. It’s supposed to be a mature animated film that’s about past regrets and adult situations, but at the same time includes lots of immature humor involving body functions and stereotyping. The way the movie ends, on an uplifting, happy note, just feels like a copout; for all the crude and vile actions in the movie, it ends like you are looking into a magical snow globe that just feels too easy. That’s part of the reason why this movie didn’t have a very strong box-office reception; it just doesn’t have a terribly clear audience.

However, do you know how I said this movie didn’t have a very strong connection to Hanukkah despite it being advertised as such? That’s kind of a mixed blessing. It’s not telling people much involving the rights and rituals about Jewish faith, which means you won’t learn anything about it through this movie, on the other hand, it doesn’t crap all over someone else’s faith either. So while a lot of humor is of the disgusting body function variety, it’s not truly blasphemous either. By doing that, it won’t upset or offend people who treat their faith of the highest order.

The animation I would say is also mixed. For one thing, I enjoyed seeing the way the characters look as they have an animation style reminiscent of The Iron Giant. Davey in particular is a spitting image of Adam Sandler as a cel-animated character, and while there is maybe an occasional moment where they threaten to cross into the dreaded Uncanny Valley, it looks fine for the most part, and the cel-animated characters look natural next to the movie’s use of CGI.

On the downside to this, the movie’s animation can look very nice, but the animation can get truly repulsive when it needs to be. If you watch shows like Beavis and Butthead, South Park or Family Guy, these shows don’t have the glitziest animation quality, but the crudeness of their animation means if they feature things like barf, boogers, urine and dung, it looks very much like they just didn’t care about quality and that means it’s not as vomit-inducing as it otherwise would be. Here, they would go ahead and feature body functions with what looks very much like tender loving care and… yuck. Indeed, the movie features some deer that provide some scatological humor which really is a bit much. So, that is most certainly the negative aspect of the animation.

Now, for the characters. You probably want me to just trash them, but I will start by saying there was some potential for a good story to be told, it just needed to be handled better. Maybe I should start with Davey Stone, being that he is the lead character. This guy is a royal jerk and isn’t likable. However, I will say that despite the fact he’s a douche and is clearly not meant to be likable is not an automatic deal-breaker. They could very well have made a well-crafted story about a character that isn’t meant to be likable, after all look at what it did for characters like Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch! The thing is though, what I feel might be the reason he isn’t looked at very fondly is the fact that not only is he a jerk, he’s just not truly sympathetic. I know the guy lost his parents during the holiday season and he’s been fighting having to grieve over his loss with booze, but his criminal ways are not really a Freudian excuse to be so utterly rude and nasty. His final acceptance sequence before the climax is just rather ridiculous as he’s having to fight corporate logos, almost like it’s meant to be a joke before the tragedy finally hits. They probably could have justified all this by having Davey get punished in some way and that would make people hold a better opinion of him, but the trouble here is, he’s also a Karma Houdini; he never receives any punishment for his actions and the end where he’s supposed to be a better person rings hollow; you don’t buy that he’s truly changed. For all his nastiness and criminal behavior, the worst thing that happens to him is he gets a self-imposed wedgie. Again, I know there could be a very compelling character and I have no objections to a Villain Protagonist but a lot of work and further revising needed to be done.

For his co-star Whitey, this guy is a riot. He does have some weird qualities that I’m getting to, but I will say that he was at one time Davey’s basketball coach who knows Davey wasn’t always a bad guy and wants to get his good side back. This character provides a lot of laughs, but there are some things about him that I feel probably should be addressed. He’s supposed to be a kindly old-timer who would give you the shirt off his back to make you feel better. He wants to be the one who wins the Dukesberry All-Star Patch, which is supposed to be like a Good Samaritan Award. It does feel a bit weird about why you’d want to win an award for doing so many good deeds for people (it already sounds very contradictory), and… I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel like a well-planned out motive. His sister, Eleanor, is a chunky woman who has literally been sitting inside the house for years ever since her wig was stolen. A lot of her humor comes from the fact she’s just so anti-social and so far behind the times. There are other characters on top of what I would list, but they don’t get the development necessary for me to list.

Side note, even though Whitey and Eleanor are meant to be well-minded people, they are not completely free from criminal behavior as this movie did help to teach me about fraud. I can describe that as during that one sequence where after we are introduced to Eleanor and she and Whitey settle down for the night, we pan to the outside of the house completely jazzed up in lights and the Narrator says:

“When you’ve got enough lights on your house to rival the Las Vegas strip, you’re gonna have a pretty big electric bill. And when you’re working as a volunteer referee at the Junior Basketball League, that doesn’t exactly put you in the Fortune 500.”

That ultimately would mean that they are putting a drain on the electric company but have no real means of paying for it, so that would be like they are trying to scam the electric company into paying for their service; they didn’t get punished.

Now, the songs, I will admit I actually enjoyed. We have “Davey’s Song” which is there to give us some insight on the type of character that Davey is and why hate the holiday season. The “Patch Song” feels like it may have been intended to give Whitey some insight on why he wants to win the patch, but it doesn’t go much of anywhere. “Long Ago” is the song that details what Davey and Jennifer may have had prior to Davey losing his parents. The “Intervention Song” has Davey fight the corporate logos which is ultimately ridiculous and undermines the emotional impact that Davey needs to want to change his ways. “Bum Biddy” is the song that causes the people of Dukesberry to admit they were wrong about how they were all treating Whitey, setting us up for the happy ending. My favorite though, was the “Technical Foul” song that Whitey and Eleanor sing to tell Davey about the rules he needs to abide by.

If it sounds like I may be trying to justify or defend this movie despite it’s terrible reception, I can explain that as my roommates from my time on the Disney College Program all bonded with me over it. Another reason for this is because regardless of how much people seem to hate this movie, I’m going to say that Adam Sandler has in fact done much worse, if movies like Jack and Jill or That’s My Boy are any indication. This was also Adam Sandler’s first venture into animation, so I can give him a pass for this movie, but Hotel Transylvania, which came out 10 years after, proves he didn’t learn much of anything.

In the end, I have to do my job as a critic and give an appropriate grade, however I don’t think this is one of the worst animated movies I’ve seen. If you’re in the mood for an anti-warm-and-fuzzy movie set during the holiday season this should work for you, and it’s a movie that did develop a cult following, so it does have a niche that it appeals to. Still, this movie is very much an acquired taste and is one you absolutely must try before you buy.



Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
TreyVore rates it: D