Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

cloudy

It’s safe to say that any imaginative soul will welcome the prospect of tasty food descending from the heavens. It’s a great idea. Not only does this cut down or entirely eliminate precious minutes in the kitchen, but it also benefits the lazy and profligate types who eat out all the time. Instead of driving to some restaurant, you could merely stick your hands out a window and await immediate results. You wouldn’t even need a microwave. Then again, if the food isn’t prepared to your liking, you’re not exactly in the position of returning it to the kitchen. Getting the ideal meal is more akin to scratching off a lottery ticket with a nickel. Maybe you’ll win. Maybe you won’t. But with so many free-falling viands, you have a pretty good law of averages on your hand. But what of quality? The food may come from the atmosphere, but if a chicken bursts through your roof during a candlelight dinner, chances are that the mood will be killed. These are gustatory dilemmas that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, based on Judi Barrett’s book, is remiss to investigate. But then I was probably the only guy in the audience looking for philosophical arguments within a mainstream family film. I am sorry. But if you give me food fused with weather, you’re going to get my brain going.

These perfect food storms come from a whiny scientific punk named Flint Lockwood, who has somehow built a giant hidden laboratory without his father knowing and has a somewhat annoying tendency to speak in gerunds when building something. (The lab is accessible through an elevator hidden in a portable toilet.) Flint, voiced by Saturday Night Live regular Bill Hader, has come up with several rum inventions, including spray-on shoes, remote control televisions, monkey translators, and electric cars. But he now has an invention that can turn water into food. (Why he hasn’t considered turning his talents to the far more lucrative sideline of alchemy is a question this film never answers.) His scientific endeavors are misunderstood by his father (voiced by James Caan and largely hidden behind a unibrow and a moustache), a sardine shop proprietor too taken with communicating through fishing metaphors. Our man Flint is also menaced by Baby Brent, who appeared on numerous sardine cans in his callow infancy and who has been riding on this diaper-wearing fame ever since. It’s also worth noting that Bruce Campbell plays the town’s mayor, and this casting is every bit as pleasant as you might expect. Flint’s invention is let loose at the unveiling of a preposterous sardine theme park — with The Alan Parsons Project’s “Sirius” suitably matching this crass commercialism. Inclement weather soon takes on a new meaning. There is also Sam Sparks, a one-dimensional meterologist voiced by Anna Faris, who offers a contrived romance subplot and a tired geek vs. beauty dichotomy that’s out of step with the film’s scientific sympathies.

This nifty-looking universe — centered on a town located on “a tiny island hidden under the A in Atlantic” called Swallow Falls (no relation to the Maryland park) — hasn’t entirely accounted for the supreme messes arising from these food-related meteorological mishaps. Sure, there is a vehicle that drives around town, hurling leftovers into a giant pile. But surely great torrents of ice cream and spaghetti sauce would slick up the hamlet. There are rat-birds flying around the place, and they’re seen several times chomping away at the stray bits of food. But do they carry disease? (Indeed, why do we never see animated rodents for the bacteria-carrying vermin that they are?) And why doesn’t Swallow Falls have an exterminator? Furthermore, if the Swallow Falls population has been eating nothing but sardines during its history, why does Steve the Monkey — Flint’s happy servant, appositely voiced by Neil Patrick Harris –have a Gummi Bears fixation? Surely, his master wouldn’t know about Gummi Bears if there’s been nothing but sardines on the menu.

And when all this food falls from the heavens, why are the townsfolk familiar with it? I must presume that, despite the town’s limited resources (no exterminator, no doctor, no lawyer), all citizens somehow manage to take several months of vacation. But surely there are dishes here that they have never tried before. Come to think of it, the pelting cuisine is mostly American. We get burgers, steaks, pizza, nachos, jelly beans, and hot dogs. Lots of breakfast food but no frittata or smoked salmon? Foodies will be upset. For that matter, no Indian food? Chinese food? Mexican food? When some vaguely Italian spaghetti drops from the sky, one character shouts, “Mamma mia!” I will leave the PC types to argue over whether this possibly Anglo-Saxon, anti-multiculturalist conspiracy. In the film’s defense, I must point to Chief Earl Devereaux, a cop voiced by Mr. T, who scrunches his butt before dealing with his a stressful scenario and somersaults before writing a ticket. Poor Mr. T is assigned this mouthful by the screenwriters: “You know how fathers are supposed to express their appreciation for their sons.” That doesn’t quite have the ring of “I pity the fool,” but Mr. T does what he can.

How can one find plausibility in this giant peach of a premise? To cite another incident, giant pancakes fall from the sky, followed by two square dabs of butter, and then followed by a melange of syrup. Since all this is animated — in 3-D and in IMAX, ideal for a 420-friendly crowd were this not a family film — this is all very pleasant to watch. But the pancake dilemma also assumes that all three breakfast components will fall at precisely the right times and spatial coordinates. Likewise, a roofless restaurant has diners holding out their plates waiting for steaks to pelt down hard from the sky. The success of this operation hinges upon (a) the sky remaining sunny, (b) the steaks somehow magically landing in the desired plate positions, (c) the steaks not hitting these diners in the head and rendering them unconscious (there are apparently no lawyers or courts in this town; so I presume nobody in Swallow Falls is litigious), (d) the steaks maintaining an ideal warmth over the course of a fall of several thousand feet, and (e) the steaks landing on the plates without breaking apart or otherwise being split into inedible pieces upon impact.

You see the problems.

In an open letter to Alexei Mutovkin, the writer Ursula K. Le Guin suggested that plausibility within fantasy is uprooted by wishful thinking. And Cloudy, as enjoyable as the film frequently is, relies very much on wishful thinking. It is wishful thinking to expect a really cool idea like falling food to hold up. Then again, Roald Dahl managed to hold our attention with James Trotter back in 1961. So maybe we should blame the filmmakers. Expanding her thoughts further, Le Guin also wrote that a fantasy story’s plausibility rests upon “the coherence of the story, its constant self-reference.”

By Le Guin’s standards, Cloudy is a failure. And I suspect that because the film often lacks narrative coherence, it will not last very long in the heads of children hoping to ride this gleeful storm out. This film possesses too much energy for its own good. It feels the need to constantly insert characters doing funny things in the background. It is terrified of inserting a natural break, perhaps because we’re not meant to think too much about the world that the film presents. The film therefore lacks confidence, in large part because the coherence and the constant self-reference, as I’ve just demonstrated, fails to make sense.

(For parents, I should probably also note that I observed two kids having a difficult time near the end because of the film’s relentless tsunami of visual information. One boy retreated to his mother’s lap, crying and exhausted. Another was frantically waving his arms at the screen and began to jump up and down in confusion. The 3-D is certainly impressive at times, but little ones may get overwhelmed.)

I don’t mean to suggest that this film isn’t fun. But it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. It is more interested in perpetuating a concept than building a world. The filmmakers have avoided Ron Barrett’s illustrations from the book, opting for a peppy and textured look that does away with Barrett’s lines and shadings. But Barnett understood that a fantastic premise, particularly an unlikely one, needs a little reality to make it work, to make it coherent, and to avoid wishful thinking. Had this film opted for conceptual quality instead of quantity, it might have stood toe-to-toe with Pixar.

by Edward Champion

RIP Patrick Swayze

If you don’t enjoy Roadhouse, I’m convinced that you don’t have a soul. The fact remains that this cheesy movie wouldn’t be so magical had not Swayze understood the material so well. Watch how he sells the above scene. It’s all in the delivery and that modest Swayze head jerk. I liked Patrick Swayze. Who didn’t? He could take syrupy screenplays and give them backbone. Not unlike David Carradine, come to think of it.

by Edward Champion

Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #6

hatemail6A few weeks ago, I learned that somebody had been pretending to be friendly with me for quite a long time. This person was uninterested in explicating feelings or having any rational point of reference. What mattered most to this person was hostility. As you will soon see, the email was ridiculously petty and obstinately worded.

Therefore, my audio series — Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project — must continue.

The following clip represents my dramatic reading of the hate mail in question, read in the style of a Miss Manners schoolmarmish tone. During the course of my reading, not only did the email feel like a pointless lecture, but I began to wag my fingers midway through the delivery. I have spent most of the afternoon keeping my hands in a folded position to prevent such gestural mishaps from occurring. And should you find yourself uncontrollably pointing while you are listening to the file, I apologize in advance for any finger-related inconvenience.

I plan to continue reading more hate mail. Again, I will be happy to read any specific hate mail that you’ve received. (If you do send me hate mail for potential dramatic readings, I only ask that you redact the names of the individuals.)

Click any of the below links to listen.

Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #6 (Download MP3)

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Previous Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Installments:

#5 A hate mail read in the style of Richard Milhous Nixon
#4: A hate mail read in the style of a drunken Irishman.
#3: A hate mail read in the style of a quiet sociopath
#2: A hate mail read in a muted Peter Lorre impression
#1: A hate mail read in a melodramatic, quasi-Shakespearean style

Listen: Play in new window | Download

by Edward Champion

Quiz Show — September 17th

I have been enlisted to serve as quiz show participant for something called the “Don’t Know Much About Literature Quiz Show” at the Housing Works on September 17, 2009, at 7:00 PM. I am not sure what this evening entails exactly, but it looks to be very fun and apparently Kenneth C. Davis is involved. Davis is the guy who has authored such books as Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much About Quantum Physics, Don’t Know Much About Euclidean Geometry, Don’t Know Much About Tax Code, Don’t Know Much About Building the Great Pyramid of Giza, Don’t Know Much About the Theory of Everything, Don’t Know Much About the Fountain of Youth, and Don’t Know Much About Dan Brown’s Next Book.

Aside from me, there are a number of very fun people involved with this, including Jason Boog, Garth Risk Hallberg, Buzz Poole, Catherine Lacey, and Drew Toal. Beer is involved. Do stop on by and check it out!

by Edward Champion

Jelly Spills and Underwear: A Manifesto

I am not wearing pants. This is the optimal thinking position. And this makes my recent failure slightly humiliating. You see, there are several globs of grape jelly that spilled onto my boxers. This was because I faced the common domestic problem of making a jelly sandwich with the hope of using the maximum amount of jelly possible. The trouble was that there was just enough jelly left in the jar for about a sandwich and a half. An immediate decision was made. Finish off the jelly. Who would want enough for only a half sandwich? We don’t do half sandwiches in this house. One hopes to get the most in such scenarios. I got cocky, and it wasn’t just because I was wearing boxers. The remainder of the jelly — all one sandwich and a half of it — was spread onto the bread. For a while, it looked like everything was okay. The whole jelly sandwich, despite the slightly overflowing mass of jelly contained between the two slices of bread, would stay together. The mass would hold. There would be streamers and pinatas. But then the jelly dripped as I raised the jelly sandwich. Gravity was not on my side. I should have performed better calculations. The jelly dripped and plopped and fell atop my boxers. And now I have to do more work — specifically, Shouting it out — when I next wash these boxers. In the meantime, I am wearing boxers with jelly stains. The congealed jelly seems more shameful and disgusting than, say, semen stains. But the manner in which I got to where I am right now is, from a certain subjective viewpoint, less shameful and disgusting, and is more common than most people think. But we cannot talk about it in contemporary America. And since the final results — purplish stains close to the vent where my penis is most likely to pop out, should I be equally careless — are an aesthetic eyesore, you can see why there would be bad feelings incommensurate with the circumstances. This was, after all, an accident. Well, not really, given my overscooping of the jelly. But we can call it an accident. Men like to take off their pants when they are indoors and it is the autumn time of the year. We do this as often as we keep on our black socks when we take all other clothes off. But the black socks move lasts all year round.

I will likely have to wear pants at some future point tonight. After all, one cannot stay in the house forever. One certainly shouldn’t wear the same boxers forever. And yet if not wearing pants is the optimal thinking position, my optimal thinking position has proven to be less than optimal. I might blame the jar of jelly, which had the misfortune of possessing a few extra scoops extra of jelly. I could claim that the jar of jelly caused my present philosophical contretemps. But then that would be pointing fingers and evading my responsibility. The only person to blame here is me. Optimally, I am the source of my jelly problems. And by relaying this domestic anecdote in a public forum, the hope is to encourage all men who have experienced a problem of this sort to emerge from anonymity and to declare that they too have spilled jelly or some other food upon their boxers, and to be perfectly okay with the awkward folly of a slight miscalculation gone awry. I am sure there are also women who have stained their panties with jelly. Frankly, I find that development a little sexy. It doesn’t seem nearly as ignoble as a man spilling jelly onto his boxers. Now I realize that there is a double standard when it comes to spilling jelly onto underwear. I will turn myself into the appropriate authorities at Berkeley.

But I have moved beyond political correctness and into greater possibilities. Perhaps when we next protest some terrible political development, we — men and women — can all march upon the appropriate government wearing nothing more than underwear and with an overstuffed jelly sandwich in our hands. The jelly sandwich can be handed to each protester just before they approach the ideal protesting position. The jelly can then fall onto each protester’s underwear and therefore suggest some diabolical smearing of the pure human spirit. If the protesters eat all the jelly sandwiches, perhaps they might throw jelly at the appropriate political opportunists. (The truly honest protesters can throw jelly at themselves.) Perhaps exciting pornography can be created that involves jelly spills. Perhaps celebrities can appear on television dropping jelly onto their underwear. Perhaps we can get a jelly company to sponsor all this. Or maybe not. Maybe that would corrupt the pure behavioral liberties.

Was this worth writing about? Some would say yes. Some would say no. Some will find this revelation to be creepy; others quirky. For my own part, writing about something embarrassing has caused me to see its potential. I think I will make more deliberate efforts to spill jelly onto my underwear.