Rental Report

This past Sunday, after going out and seeing Poseidon, Dakota and I wanted to visit GameCrazy to swap out some video games. While we were scouring the shelves Val went next door into Hollywood Video and rented some DVDs.

I didn’t see what she had rented until we were in the car. Her choices were diverse, to say the least. She had picked out:

A History of Violence—I loved it in the theater and it’s going to be fun to watch again knowing what to look for that I might have missed the first time.

Munich—I really don’t know what to expect, but Spielberg has made a good movie or two in his time, and I like Eric Bana a lot.

The New World—Again, I don’t know what to expect. A lot of critics loved it. Colin Farrell is always fun, as is Christian Bale.

Match Point—Woody Allen’s best film since a long time. I dunno. I haven’t really liked anything he’s done since What’s Up Tiger Lily.

Hoodwinked—WTF?!?! My first thought was that they put it in her bag by mistake. Valarie loves a good animated movie as much as I do, but this one was in and out of the theaters in a couple of weeks and the way they sold it I was pretty sure it was a stinker. I’d never heard of the writer director team (Cory and Todd Edwards) and I wasn’t even sure what studio had produced it.

Last night Valarie suggested we give it a try. Why not? The voice cast had some fun members, including the always-endearing Patrick Warburton.

It turned out to be a bucket of fun. It was clever, chock full of funny stuff, and there was nary a dead spot. The design of the animal characters was great, but unfortunately the human characters were nauseating to look at. I wanted to scream every time there was a close up of Red (voiced with a lot of charm by Anne Hathaway).

I hope Hoodwinked gains an audience once it starts playing on the movie channels. I think it deserves a second chance. Once the kids start watching it the parents might start paying attention.