Cartoon Guru Time Machine

Hello, everyone. As I have mentioned, I have been too busy to write anything recently, but that doesn't mean that things haven't been happening. So this week, I'm going to be doing what I call the Cartoon Guru Time Machine, so I can catch you up on some of the things that have happened over the last couple of weeks.

Review of Gnomeo and Juliet:

I saw Gnomeo and Juliet a few Saturdays ago, and it was about as good or bad as I expected it to be. The movie is obviously not for me. One of the things I hate is when reviewers write about a movie as if it is trying to be The Godfather and falling way short. This movie is not trying to do that. This is a dumb movie for kids, and I can see where little kids would like it a lot. There are plenty of slapstick gags and funny voices.

The one things that really irked me about this movie were the references. There were "pop" culture references to make the movie hip and edgy. Like references to Forrest Gump, Brokeback Mountain, and Lassie. You know all those things that are fresh in kids minds. There was even hip slang converted to gnome-ness, like "Who's your gnomey?" Who's your gnomey, for shit's sake! And the guy who was in charge of throwing in the "subtle" Shakespeare references--and in case you are as keen on subtlety as that guy is, there are quotes around "subtle"--must have been patting himself one the back up one side and down the other. So there were so many dumb forced Shakespeare puns, I literally said "Oh, come on!" out loud once.

Also the movie is an Elton John musical. Did you know that? I didn't, and I don't think Elton John did either because the lyric changes were crammed into the melody like present day Elton John wearing the 70's "Crocodile Rock" outfit.

I know it sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. It was absolutely fine for what it was. It neither exceeded nor fell short of my expectations. And Jim Cummings once again proves that a good voice actor and play well and have a good time with even a mediocre script.

CG