Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Probably the only animated movie I don't want to buy.

We got it from NetFlix and I managed to sit through it but this was not my kind of movie. It started out sort of okay and went (surprisingly) downhill from a rather inauspicious beginning. It got dopier. I normally love animated movies but this one was more for kids than adults.

Shrek was brilliant - kids could sit through it but this was definitely great for adults, too. The snide commentary fit in and wasn't obvious to children but allowed all age groups to find it entertaining. Certainly Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles and Cars fit into this category. In fact, most animated movies are geared to be appealing to all ages.

This movie did not make it into this category, at least not for me.

Bolt started out kind of boring, but once he arrived in New York City and met up with Mittens, the smart-ass street cat, it improved considerably and I will at some point own it. I will never own Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It was not the worst movie I've seen but it was not something I need to sit through again. I did not even sit through the credits, which is normally a sin - as much as I will ever believe in the word sin.

Well, we also have the first season of Castle, a telly series that I've grown to really like. I'm thinking I'll enjoy that. Right now I just finished watching Season 4 of Bones, which is really an excellent show, and now I am starting Season 9 of CSI: Las Vegas, my all-time favourite, which, despite William Peterson's leaving the show, is still really great.

I miss William Peterson, but Lawrence Fishborne really turned out to be an excellent hire. I can't call him a replacement for Mr. Peterson, but that is where the show did the best thing. When someone has been with a show for a really long time and then that person leaves, many shows try to replace the character. This is inevitably the end of the show. But the producers here did well - they looked for someone different and the choice made the show as good if not stronger for it.

I haven't usually been a fan of Lawrence Fishborne but that wasn't his fault. A lot of movies I saw him in he was the bad guy. Who likes the bad guy? But he is a good actor. And this has been a very different role than anything I have seen him in. It has really worked out very well.

This show still needs some work, however. I love the series, but I find it so weird that the police station and crime lab is so DARK. Ever been in a police station? Or any kind of lab? Even the place you go to for blood work - these places are always floodlit. And who can blame them? Scientists need to see what the hell they are doing (especially phlebotomists - would you want someone poking your arm for a vein in the dark?), and the police want to see anything that is coming. This is simple survival.

In all the CSI shows, the police station looks like the electric bill has been unpaid and service has been cut off. Same with the crime labs (although CSI: Miami went one step further and set up a super-unbelievable high tech lab... what city has this kind of budget? Total bullshit), they have been plunged permanently into darkness to make the show "scarier". A good show would not have to resort to this, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation IS a really good show. Someday I hope they cease resorting to this sort of cheap theatric.

Watch Bones - the two lead characters, Dr. Temperance Brennan and FBI Agent Seely Booth (oh, don't ask about the names - I can't explain that either), have a very atypical but fun to watch relationship. The lab at the Jeffersonian is floodlit and huge, with great people who are mostly scientist-types, so it isn't all that hard to believe. And the cases are interesting. I can't recall an episode I haven't liked. It is a fun, funny and serious show.

Occasionally, there is a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode I don't like, and I know why. The biggest reason is that there are a few episodes that are too dark. I understand that crimes are a dark subject, but people always are light at SOME point - our way of whistling in the dark and/or dealing with grisly stuff. But here the characters sometimes are ALL immersed in darkness in one episode and it is too much.

The second reason is sometimes the producers get out-of-hand with the violence. Some scenes are too much for me to watch, scensory overload. I've been to calls with violence. Rarely are they that crazy - and violence on the telly can inferred, not shown so graphically, and still be scary.

But it is still one of the top shows that I watch.