I love going to the movies. Well, I love going to movies that aren’t crowded. I can do without with jabbering teenagers and wanna-be pimps and their cell phones. I love taking my daughter to the movies. We usually get a bag of popcorn, a tall Coke and some M&Ms, Skittles or Gummy Bears. We give thumbs up or thumbs down on the previews while we slowly block our arteries with the buttery popcorn.
However, because I love the experience of taking my daughter to the movie theater, I suffer through some of the worst movies ever made. Sometimes I wonder how these movies get funding. How many layers of editors, producers, directors, etc. must a screenplay go through? And why do we still end up with such horrible movies?
Today, I took my daughter to see “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties.”. I’ll spare you my full review. Saying it was terrible makes other terrible movies feel better. My daughter loved it, but she likes most of the movies we see.
I can’t even count the number of crappy movies I’ve seen with my daughter. Some of the worst were “Teacher’s Pet”, “Shaggy Dog 2″ and “Sky High.” I’m trying to think of more, but I think I’ve permanently withdrawn them from my memory bank.
Naturally, when I see a new Pixar film coming out, I count down the days. I know what I’m going to get with a Pixar film – good story, good characters, eye candy, some adult humor mixed in… the whole enchilada. And each Pixar movie makes a boat-load of cash. Unfortunately, Pixar can only produce about one movie every two years. And surprisingly, no one fills that void. Sure, DreamWorks Animation tries, but let’s be honest, they stink. The stories are mediocre at best.
Why do kids movies have to suck so bad? If movie studios understood that kids do not go to the movies alone, and that parents have to want to take them, they’d start to see where I’m going. Nothing beats spending two hours in a nice cool air-conditioned movie theater in the middle of summer instead of dragging your kids about in the scorching heat. Let’s get it together, Hollywood. Stop creating garbage like a third “The Fast and the Furious” and get some real writers to write some decent kids movies.
