Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Film: Monsters, Inc.
Release: 2001, Theatrical
Starring: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi
Directed by: Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, David Silverman
Next in the series: Monsters University
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: In the world of monsters, everything is powered by the screams of children. One day, the energy company Monsters, Inc. is invaded by the most dangerous force in the universe: A small child.

Hans' thoughts:

After the success of Toy Story, people were pretty psyched to see where Pixar would go next. The answer? A sweet little story. So okay, maybe Monsters, Inc. isn't the greatest or most ambitious tale by the movie magicians at Pixar. Not for lack of trying though.

In the movie we follow the tag-team of James P. Sullivan, the company's most efficient scarer and his engineer Mike Wazowski. Everything is going quite good for the team, Mike Wazowski has a sweet girlfriend and Sullivan is close to breaking the record of the company. As far as work-type comedies go, this has a pretty decent setup and you definitely feel the chemistry between the two characters. 

As for the villain side, while intimidating enough you would have expected something just a bit more sinister with a setup like this. Randall is creepy, sure, but not as imposing as I would've liked. He's played out more like a bitter math-teacher that takes out his issues at home at the kids. Kinda like Crocker from Fairly Oddparents I guess.

The thing that sells this movie for me is two things, first off is the visual style. This story is about monsters, and you can tell the character designers has had at least a little fun trying to come up with all sorts of different looking colorful characters. A wide-variety of colors on screen is always a plus in my book. Of course you can't talk about the visuals in this movie without mentioning the room where they keep all the doors to childrens bedrooms. Mike and Sullivan riding a door into a giant room full of doors with lord knows how many stories is a sight to see. 

The second thing I like about this movie is the music, in particular the opening. The opening music for the movie is upbeat happy jazz, which is really pleasure to listen to and it goes surprisingly well with the setup. Before Wall-E, Sully and Mike were the oldest Pixar characters (judging by their actions anyway). Which makes them someone who might feasibly listen to jazz. Of course, this movie does have a weak point. I'm sorry to say that the jokes in this one are some of the weakest that Pixar has been involved with, it does get the occasional giggle but one particular running-gag just fell flat for me every time.

Monsters, Inc. is one of the weaker Pixar movies, but we're still talking Pixar so it really isn't saying much. The movie is still heads and shoulders above a lot of others in the genre.

After the Storm (2001)

Film: After the Storm
Release: 2001, Television
Starring: Armand Assante, Mili Avital, Benjamin Bratt
Directed by: Guy Ferland
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: When a luxury yacht goes down outside the coast of Binimi, the race is on for the treasures within

Hans' thoughts:

This movie is based on a short story by the award winning author, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was the creator of the so-called Iceberg style, a writing style in which you only get the visual representation. Like a floating camera in the room, you never get to see or hear a characters thoughts. This movie follows that type of narrative, unfortunately it just doesn't do it very well.

Let's start with the feel of the movie. The movie is very slow, making the audience put effort into not falling asleep. I'm thinking it was supposed to feel like a person would on a hot day, the story taking place in a tropic klima. This could have worked with a stronger cast. While Armand Assante did a very good job at portraying Jean Pierre, every other actor just sort of waddled through the movie. Benjamin Bratt for whatever reason choosing to channel Dirty Harry in his performance. None of the other actors do a much better job, as it felt like I was watching a school play. The actors having quickly rehearsed their lines before coming to stage.

As for the look of the movie, this is it's strong point. You get the sense of suspense from when the shark is around in the sunken ship. A dark place where everything is very cramped and claustrophobic. But that's really the only points I can give it.

Unless you really love this story beforehand, I recommend giving this movie a pass.

Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

I personally think this particular poster is
some of artist Drew Struzan's finest work

Film: Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone
Alternate Title: Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone (original British book-title)
Alternate Versions: Theatrical/Ultimate
Release: 2001, Theatrical
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Next in the series: Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: Harry Potter lives under the stairs in the house of his extended family, The Dursleys. Being an unwanted houseguest most of his life, everything changes when an extreme amount of strange letters arrive at the household.

Hans' thoughts:

Harry Potter as a franchise, is quite the rarity. Nevermind the actual quality of the individual works in the series (movies, books or otherwise). No, what makes Harry Potter special is that for a few years, everyone was talking about fantasy. For whatever reason, right there and then in the early 2000's tons of fantasy stories was being adapted to movie form. This includes series like Narnia and The Golden Compass. I like to think that this is due to the success of this movie, and the other major fantasy movie coming out that year - The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Suddenly out of nowhere, two of the biggest fantasy book series get movie adaptations the same year and they both completely wrecked the notions of how niche-genres do at the box office. Suddenly, geekdom took over Hollywood.

Other than that, imagine how risky it must've been to actually pour money into this movie. Here you've got Warner Bros., a major movie-making company since the birth of Hollywood pouring a severe amount money into what? An up-and-coming British children's' book series starring mostly child or somewhat unknown actors and with a high need for special effects! They really took a risk with this, popular books or no we're talking about a movie that needs to believably feature: monsters, ghosts and flying broomsticks amongst other things. Meaning a lot of the budget was poured into the special effects I imagine. You've also got some pretty big names attached to it (Maggie Smith, John Hurt, Alan Rickman). Whoever pitched this movie must've had a tongue made of solid silver.

That's great and all, but how does it hold up today? Well, not too shabby I'd say. With regards to acting, I'm actually impressed with how well some of the child actors did - considering that for most of them, this was their debut. The special effects are still kind of nice to look at, while some of it tends to look a little bit dated (a certain beast in a certain bathroom springs to mind) I have to say I had a hard time telling how old is was at times. The best example of a scene that's aged really well is what I will simply refer to as "The Chess Scene" where the animation was top notch. The movie also presents some stunning shots, the most iconic is probably the rowboats with lanterns crossing the lake in the dark, with the screen panning up to reveal the dimly lit castle of Hogwarts.

Now, I do have some gripes with this movie. While some of it's problems can be explained with "It's a childrens story" I have to point out the flaw of the pacing. The most of the movie is actually paced quite well, you have Harry exploring the wizards alternate world and you get to see how detailed the universe is. From it's own fully realized sport down to what kind of candy is available on a wizards train-ride is in this movie. However, I could have done with some more screen time for some of the teacher characters of the movie. The book did a much better job of setting up the twist at the end of the movie and we could overall just have done with more scenes of the characters going to class. As it stands though, I realize that children probably couldn't have sat through how much longer the movie would have had to be to address that.

As far as kids movies go, this sits in the upper-half of the spectrum. It managed to capture the imagination of millions of children worldwide and turn a whole generation of gamers and TV-slaves into readers, at least for a little while. The movie manages to be enjoyable to adults as well, and I am glad I decided to revisit it.