Monsters University

Today I saw the new Pixar movie Monsters University. Now, I hadn’t seen the original which had come out a decade ago, so I wasn’t expecting much going into this movie.

First of all, the opening short was fairly impressive. At first, I couldn’t tell whether it was done in CG or not, because it looked so darn real. The music was also well scored and matched the scenes perfectly. Unfortunately, the story was somewhat lacking in that it made no sense at all. I believe the filmmaker was trying to go for a poignant, heart-warming story, but was only able to do so at the cost of a cohesive story. It wasn’t too bad otherwise.

As for the actual movie, it was good. I thought it would be some silly kids-oriented animated film, but we see once again Pixar pulling its magic in creating a compelling story-line with interesting characters. Seeing the friendship between Mike and Sully grow from rivals to best friends was great, and I enjoyed the whole frat competition-esque story.

Coming out of the film, my friend remarked how the movie was good, but lacked that Pixar quality of a heart-tugging story-line that both adults and children could enjoy. Honestly, I found those statements to be somewhat absurd. The only universal feature of Pixar movies should be their animation. Whether they choose to evoke different types of emotions from the audience is their choice. And I believe there was plenty for adults to enjoy within this film, as the plot was interesting enough to carry its own weight. Then again, it feels like Pixar is becoming more commercialized, with the recent surge of sequel/prequel films instead of original content. This isn’t exactly surprising, since Disney is now behind Pixar.

Lastly, Mike has a very nice voice. I just checked now, and he’s voiced by Billy Crystal.

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Evangelion 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo

Sometimes I wonder if Ano really know what’s going on in his own series. This latest movie certainly added more evidence that neither he nor anyone else knows what’s going on. If anything, I wasn’t satisfied with this movie. It answered absolutely nothing, while piling on more and more questions. Sure, the animation is stellar. But did the first third of the movie really have to be wasted showing a meaningless battle? Then there’s the whole time skip question. Just why? What the heck is Gendo doing? Why is it NERV vs the world? Whatsup with the two lances? I could go on and on, but perhaps it is better to just leave it be. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Evangelion plot explanations, it’s that they don’t happen. So what are the positives of this movie? Eyepatch Asuka, badass Misato, some cool battle scenes. Everything else didn’t make sense, and Shinji was in full-blown whininess the whole movie. I hope the fourth (and final) movie will actually resolve and explain things.

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You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年，我們一起追的女孩)

You Are the Apple of My Eye is a 2011 Taiwanese movie exploring the feeling of adolescence and chasing after the same girl. While I do very much get that vibe from the movie, I feel that this doesn’t necessarily pertain as much to foreign watchers. Many aspects of the movie dwells on Taiwanese culture that foreigners might be unfamiliar with, such as punishment squats, Taiwanese dorms, etc. It was still very interesting to see these parts of life in Taiwan, and they certainly don’t detract from the main plot. Now the overarching plot may not be completely satisfying, I believe the main charm of the film comes in watching our hero growing up through high school and college. All of the silly humor (like the excessive masturbation and perchance to nudity) is a good reflection of Ko’s immaturity. I am quite envious that the author had such a colorful life growing up, enough to make a movie about. Too bad I am nearly illiterate in Chinese, or I would like to read some of his other books.

 

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