Let's start by brainstorming why explaining a joke is so detrimental to its comedy punch. That's precisely where we'll begin; the "punch." Getting a laugh out of a audience typically requires some kind of swift realization. Like the popular notion of coming to an Eureka moment, "getting a joke" is like ridding a wave of thoughts and crashing up against a solid rock of understanding. It's a menal rush that is propelled by this idea of internal energy. Like elementary physics lessons, the faster you get a joke (most likely due to your mental acuity and overall deductive abilities) the funnier it is.

Now we can extrapolate a theory; Distributing the wave of internal energy over a longer period of time tends to kill the comedic impact of the punch line. This explains why explaining a joke to a person who doesn't get it at first never seems to be as well received as delivering a joke to those who do get it. I've often witnessed the unenthused faces of my audience as they nod in understanding saying "oh, I get it now." The experience of the joke is not whether they get it. It's getting it swiftly. Naturally, explanations of jokes add verbage to the equation. Adding words can only interfere with the rush of internal energy and other aspects of comedia delievery like timing. So far, explaining a joke doesn't seem like such a good idea. 

Another reason why it can be bad to explain a joke is because of the spoiler effect. From books, movies, to puzzles in video games there are all kinds of experiences that can be effectively ruined if key pieces of information are revealed before the critical time. We generally call such pieces of info spoilers. The spoiler effect exists with many jokes as well. The first time a joke is told is often the only time that joke can be genuinely experienced by the audience. If you knew the end of a joke beforehand, your knowledge and expectations would create a very different experience for you. Probably an experience with less punch. Because of the spoiler effect we generally don't walk around repeating the punch lines of jokes or explaing jokes openly in public. 

There are many ways to get a laugh out of an audience with a joke. Slapstick humor revolves around evoking surprise through absurd, ridiculous situations. From wikipedia: Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense. In other words, a scenario is presented, and the punch line is an action or an event that "would never happen in real life." Take any action, turn it up to extreme, and you have the formula for joke where the core realization is the simple recognition that "this would never happen."

As slapstick comedians race to the bottom trying to one up each other by presenting increasingly crazy juxtapositions, one may opt for a more complex web of unexpected or unconventional events to craft a much richer comedic experience. Such comedy has much more breath because it can create a punch with any combination of details taken to any level along the "extreme spectrum." This design allows for very funny jokes to be created out of very banal or subtle scenarios. Since knowledge and attention are required to recognize subtlety, comedy creators run up against a problem that's analogus to a skill barrier. The bottom line is, for non-slapstick comedy, how do we ensure that the audience has the required knowledge to rapidly piece together the punch in order to achieve laughter?

In the same way that video games are designed to be intuitive with recognizable actions and forms, jokes are often heavily coded within a cultural context. Instead of teaching the audience a wealth of new details from scratch, comedians use our deeply ingrained cultural knowledge to create hilarious scenarios. Sometimes this is done without exaggerating common cultural occurances at all, but by merely framing life just so. This is why it is very difficult for comedy entertainment to be successful cross countries. With so many different world views, customs, and observations from everyday life to draw from if the audience isn't instantly familiar with the scenario you're setting up in your joke, they may never experience the swift punch line experience. Kinda "getting it" doesn't really cut it with comedy. 

Watch the video below before continuing. 

Now I can explain why I laughed so hard at this video. Now I can explain just how deep this joke is by highlighting its cultural context. The core comedy of this "Extreme Interview" is created from a subtle ridiculousness. Nobody throws a punch. Nobody yells or removes their clothing. But as I watch the video play out, I can't help but think that fully grasping its extreme and unique awkwardness requires understanding the culture of gamers and the adolescent state of the video game industry. Perhaps it's only in a place like Gamescom where an ordinary guy who works for a small website can get the opportunity to interview a developer of a video game. In this case, the interviewer lacks experience and the interviewee takes advantage by making a joke of the interview and himself.

In this video I see an interviewer who, in a burst of journalistic "creativity," asks Tak Fujii, the developer of Frogger 3D, what he thinks is a insightful question. No, not question, a challenge that will surely ilicit an equally insightful response: "What are 5 unique features of Frogger 3D?" And what we get in response is that Frogger 3D is essentially a Frogger game. We don't get this information once, but four times. Does Mr Fujii not respect the interview? I can see why not. The long wait at the start of the video and the dodgy mic control doesn't reflect an experienced interviewer. But I don't think this is a respect issue. I think Tak Fujii is the kind of person who will crack a joke or two or five if given the chance. First itsa Frogger. Second itsa Frogger. Third... Fujii messes up his own joke. He was trying to be clever with his pattern based mixup of sorts. But instead of saying "third is a Forgger" as you might expect, the intended line is "third is a 3D Frogger." Get it? The thrid feature is that Frogger 3D is build to utilize stereoscopic 3D technology! In all honesty, the joke so far is pretty funny. But Fujii doesn't deliver. Catching himself, he corrects the joke. But his delievery is broken. You can clearly see him laughing at his mistake, the seriousness of his humorous response lost. 

Maybe I find the whole thing so funny because Frogger 3DS looks like an incredibly unpolished game. And that's putting it nicely. I can't help but translate "First itsa Frogger..." as "Well, what do you think is unique about this game? It's Frogger; the same game you've played since the 80's. Nothing is unique about it. It's Frogger. It's Frogger. It's Frogger in 3D. It's classic Frogger gameplay. And it's Frogger."  I can't help but think that the guys behind the video interview tried their hardest to take the interview seriously. They have the mic, the camera, the clever question/challenge, and the developer of the game. The only thing they didn't count on was that Tak Fujii wouldn't take any part of this scenario very seriously. This is the kind of situation that is the result of the perfect storm of the growing games industry.  Yes, the explanation is long. But if you can imagine what it's like to think all of these things silently and instantly upon first watching the interview, you'll certainly understand why I laughed so hard.

Or maybe Tak Fujii is a bit "extreme" no matter what the context. I'll leave you with "one million troops."

"one million troops."

"one millions troops!"

Among many other impressions, I think this commercial is an oddly exaggerated battle scenario featuring a bunch of ordinary people and celebrities alike shooting round after round of military grade weaponry in various directions. This much is obvious, and pretty creative. "There's a Soldier in All of Us" is the take away from the commercial, which I think is the weakest part. After all, many of the people depicted in the commercial don't behave like soldiers. Some check cell phones. Jimmy Kimmel flies back after firing an RPG round. And the final image shows a man walking toward the screen firing two pistols in opposite directions without looking at where he's firing. He then drops the guns like an over the top Hollywood action star. 

The stronger message likes in how the people do act in the commercial and the results of their actions. In a ridiculous sort of fire fight, bullets and explosions litter the commercial yet not a single person is hit. No blood. No pain. Most of the shots aren't directed against humans or even targets we can discern. Just sparks. The occasional ricochet. Smoke. And billowing flames. All while all the actors fire their seemingly non lethal weapons, their non-verbal language tells the rest of the story. Their excited, exasperated, playful, exhilarated, and overall unafraid expressions tell me that these people aren't at war; they're not in danger. Rather, they're just relishing in the spirit of play. 

The reason this subtler message is powerful is because of the kind of attitude that we, gamers, form when playing video games; especially violent video games. I don't play COD4, Halo, Street Fighter, Metroid Prime, Perfect Dark, etc. to act out violence. I play these violent games in the spirit of play exercising imagination and make believe. And I'm sure most other gamers are the same. FPS multiplayer is like a sport really. When I squeeze the trigger with an enemy Spartan in my sights, I'm not killing him. I'm forcing that player into a penalty box. I like shooting guns in games because launching projectiles is a neat way to reach out and interact with far away targets (simplifying space). Whether 2D or 3D, paintballs or plasma grenades, I love the rules and interactive systems of video games, violent or otherwise.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops commercial perfectly captures this spirit. 

I wish I had a crew of audio engineers following me around for moments like that. Truly, what we discuss off the tops of our heads about films or video games goes far beyond the kind of stuff other's revise and publish as critique, commentary, or analysis. In this case, we talked about Toy Story 3 for days, but really it was a discussion on Toy Story as a trilogy. 

Some of the topics we discussed include:

• The change in technology over the years in the visual presentation (look and animation) of the toys and how that in turn shapes the characterization in terms of "living toys." 
• The driving premise/conceit of living toys and how it is complicated when issues of ownership, allegiance, play, life, and death are brought into the narrative for toys and for humans.
• Pixar's finest vilians are never evil for the sake of being evil (ie. mindless, carelessly illogical, and souless). Sid (TS1) is a great villian. The Prospector (TS2) is more forced with a more hollywood movie trope like secret agenda. And Lotso (TS3) was the least complex and least interesting. Lotso cheats the most to further the plot. Not pushing the stop button to safe Woody and the gang is a powerful action that wasn't well developed at all. Seriously, a simple disagreement in ideas is worth killing over?
• The trend throughout the newer movies of relying on familiar and cliche movie tropes to develop characters, scene, and plot. This fundamentally changes the core storytelling of the films. 
• Toy on Toy violence. Should it mean anything for a Toy to threaten another with punches and kicks?
• Toys with lives of their own. In the later movies, the toys become more like human characters (especially with the increasing reliance on more familiar movie tropes from more realistic dramas). Toys play games while the humans are away. Does this work to unravel the original conceit?
• The social order of the toy communities are centered around humans/owners. How does the idea of being in a museum display or the toy store (TS2) work against these patterns.
• Pixar is known for their clever polar character twists. Rex the fierce Dinosaur is actually quite shy. The sharks from Nemo didn't eat fish. Also, it's common in sequels to take the structures and formulas of the first movie and apply a twist to the whole structure. Does the role reversal of Woody save Buzz (TS1) and Buzz saving Woody (TS2) work against the character development from TS1?
• Are the toy's personalities/souls the result of the imaginative play of Any? Mr. Potato head and Ham are skeptical and sardonic. Woody is trustworthy. Bo is a voice of reason that's backgrounded. Is the idea of play a subtle instrumental part of the entire Toy Story framework?
• The Buzz factor. In the first movie Buzz adjusts to a life as Andy's toy from his electronic "programmed" memories. In TS2, a new "Buzz" is worked into the plot to have similar interactions without messing with Buzz's character direction. In TS3, Buzz is tampered with twice. Are toy souls/personalities such things that are so easily manipulated. I don't believe that Buzz's real memories with Any can take a back seat to any further electronic manipulation. 
• The souls of Mr./Mrs Potato head are in their parts not in their brown potato bodies. Neat.
• The later films are far more expository in their dialog instead of using visual storytelling and cleverly constructed scenarios to explain and further the plot. 
• TS3 features a scene where the toys sort of come to grips with their impending deaths. Did the first movie do a more subtle and elegant job of this?
• Toys trekking through the real world. TS1 framed the plot around the small scale of toys. Getting to places (even from house to house) is a big task. Is this idea cheapened in TS2 and TS3 when the toys seem so capable of traveling around the world on their own? Lotso and friends hitching a ride on the back of a car and then walking through the rain is past what I'm willing to accept. 
• Characters that fail to listen after all this time? In the 2nd and 3rd movie, it seems like the toys fail to take the time and listen to Woody especially when decision making is critical. I don't think there's enough evidence to consider that these toys are in a state of arrested development. So why does it feel like they're rushed into the core plot/conflicts of the film (TS3). 
• Can toys be evil? Can kids be evil? In TS1 we learned that even the most abused, hideously dismembered/rearranged toys are quite the opposite of violence creatures. 
• Might some consider Woody telling Sid to "play nice" in TS1 crossing the line? If not, why aren't the toys more willing to do so in later films? 
• The rules of being a toy are unstated, but they seem to include playing "dead" when humans are nearby unless you can get by unnoticed. Are the toy's separate lives and activities too risky of being discovered? How much can they actually get away with?
• Are we to believe that the daycare and garbage facility in TS3 are just open to be manipulated by the toys without having any detectable side effects? How about the Toys store from TS2? This is pushing things too far. 
• The aliens in TS3 wouldn't be able to see the toys as they neared the incinerator. 
• The toys are "alive" but do they feel pain? Can Buzz really smell (TS3)? In TS1 was Woody in pain for being burned by Sid's magnifying glass, or was he more startled, fearing his worth as a toy being compromised. 
• The toys are too strong by the 3rd movie. Perhaps the big baby could do certain things, but not Woody and the other smaller toys. Too many windows, ceiling tiles, doors, and lids were opened/closed. 
• The ending of TS3 is too long and disjointed. It includes the escape, the dump, the reboxing, and the giving away. Do we really need Any to explain each Toy's name and personality by the 3rd movie especially after the more imaginative opening play scene? 
• Is the story of TS2 and TS3 dumbed down in the sense that they fail to make any truly difficult/complex decisions because of the overly evil vilians and mostly clear cut scenarios? 
• The nostalgia buttons were pressed when they played the "You've Got a Friend In Me" music from TS1 in TS3. Fortunately, the used that to transition into the new reality to kick start the film. 

I was disappointed with Toy Story 3 for many reasons. It's better than Toy Story 2 though. Overall, because of the rich discussion that followed and all of the other topics/ideas that are swirling in my mind, I hold the trilogy in high regard. This makes the film worth it for me. I can't wait to watch it in 3D on my 3DS. 

If there is any conflicts in this film they surely don't last longer than 2 minutes. When we find out that Michael Oher, aka Big Mike, has slim chances of getting into a good Christian school, a coach soon fights for his admittance. When Big Mike wanders around school, he's soon greeted by SJ. When Big Mike is found walking in the rain, he's immediately taken in by his new family. When no one believes Big Mike is capable of passing anything, a teacher quickly aids him. When the issue of officially adopting Big Mike into the Tuohy family comes up, a short bathroom conversation resolves things.  Misunderstanding friends? No big deal. Car accident? Could have happened to anybody. Domestic brawl complete with gunfire? Just close your eyes and it's like it never happened. Investigation lawyer?Brushed aside. 

The lack of anything difficult or conflicting in the plot makes all the characters simple and flat. No one really changes, or what little changes there are are so small that they make little contribution to the film as a whole. The plot covers a lot of ground, which tends to be the case with movies based on true events. I tend like this quality because it reminds me that there are great stories in life even if they're not particular well crafted or efficient.

The result for this film is a very uneventful and also uninspiring story. Sure, giving people a chance, fighting for family, overcoming racial bias, and believing in the impossible are very inspiring ideas. However, the storytelling of the film takes away from the highs these ideas can bring by undermining the seriousness of the circumstances. So from start to end, I just sat back and enjoyed what I could of The Blind Side. 

It's amazing how effective the unfamiliar is. Simply not doing things the way most others do or in a way that you don't expect puts movies like Up in the Air into a strange and unique place of appreciation. Understanding the film starts with figuring out who the main character is. It ends with contemplating who changed, how, and to what degree. I assumed it was Ryan, played by George Clooney, but by the end of the film I wasn't so sure. From the opening he's a man with certain kind of isolated, lonely lifestyle based on his self made, personal philosophy. And throughout the film he gets a "sidekick," a lover, a brother in law, and a new way to do his job. All of these events and characters are designed more or less to inspire or evoke a change in Ryan. Yet, by the end of the film he's back up in the air. Little changes in his life. Not even pursuing a life of company and companionship with Alex, his lover, phased him all that much or all that long. 

So perhaps Natalie Keener is the one who changes the most. While Ryan ultimately learns to do things for others without a reluctant attitude and he achieves his goal of becoming an American Airlines 10 million milier, Natalie learns about people. Crushing them, guiding them, sticking with them, abandoning them, and how they grow old a feat more complicated than the biological processes that bind us all. Her conversation with Ryan and Alex in particular is a good example of some of the complex ideas the film presents. The dreams of Natalie's perfect mate are compared point for point with Alex's more realistic and less ambitious desires. After a detailed description of both, Natalie can only think that settling is sad. To her, settling is the equivalent of giving up. 

So as the viewer we get to peer a bit into the future of these three characters. Ryan continues to stay up in the air rather than fixed on the ground, an apt physical metaphor that reflects his personal philosophy of solitude, freedom from excess baggage (responsibility), and a sort of elite and somewhat superficial rapport with everyone around him. From the canned greeting at the airport check in assistants to his practice of living out of a carry on bag only, we see Ryan's life and future.

Alex admits that her relationship with Ran is her escape from her home and family life. Throughout the film she develops her adulterous relationship, yet protects her "real life." Up in the Air is a film that lightly tosses around different philosophical ideas. Nothing too grand as why are we here. Or, at least it's not couched in such obvious terms. The various laid off individuals who look and act like the everyday people you might see at your own work, chime in with their view of pointers. Yes, losing one's job can be devastating, but there's more to live for. Family, spouses, and children give many of these unemployed purpose. And it's revelations like this that support the themes or real life, side lifes/escapes, and the purpose for living. "What's the point?" This is the question Ryan's brother-in-law proposed. And this question is left somewhat unanswered by Ryan. And the film's answer is equally nebulous, which, I think, makes it so wonderful. Like an amorphous cloud, we all think we see something in this film, yet it can be so hard to describe it's exact shape. Without as much as a goodbye or an impersonal text, Ryan ends the call and the relationship with Alex, a woman with the double life. 

And finally there's Natalie. By the end of the film, she's done chasing the boy that didn't work out. She quits her job laying people off and pursues the more suitable career that she passed up to follow her heart. Ryan certainly seems to believe in her. Despite their differences in philosophies, they both changed each other for the better.

So, Up in the Air is a story about how 3 characters meets up and returns to their separate lives. The movie is slow moving yet intriguing. The acting performances fit, but they aren't the most interesting part of the experience. The direction is pretty nice, just not exactly inspiring. All the other details of this film are up the air. Reach for them if you want, and enjoy the flight. I did. 

The runaway, cast away, rejected lives that the three characters Miyuki, Hana, and Gin are important for the overall scope of the film. From the homeless perspective, we get to see a very different Japan than in Whisper of the Heart. Food is scarce, conditions are rough, and ordinary strangers can become life threatening. We also get to see the other side of family life. Some fight crime wars, some struggle to take care of children, and others suffer from gambling addiction. 

The stark reality on film made me sit up and pay attention like I would a documentary. The detail of every scene is so rich, the only thing that pulled my eyes away from the scenery was the incredibly expressive character animation. Each, our main characters especially, moves with a style and life of their own. And they never stop like their mouths that almost chatter constantly about one thing or another. Tokyo Godfathers is very dialog heavy like many animes. Somewhere in between idle chatter and expository communication, the ideas, themes, and messages of the film meanders around only to come full circle in the end. And like the dialog, every scene and all the characters come full circle to support a unified plot. 

The one thing that would greatly improve Tokyo Godfathers is an equally high quality English dubbing. The richness of the visuals are muted somewhat because I was constantly reading the subtitles at the bottom of the screen. Or I missed dialog details when distracted by the visuals. Hopefully when my Japanese improves things will be different. 

An element of surprise.

When I first saw the trailer for this film I couldn't get a good sense of its core attitude. I couldn't tell if it was going for a more main stream Hollywood type of story or something more unique. All I could gather from the trailer was that there are animal characters that scamper around and say funny things. As it turns out, this is what most of the film is. Yet it took me completely by surprise. 

It's obvious that the film is foreign in origin. There's just a way that the family structure, dynamics, and dialog of the Fox's works that screams European. Sitting side by side with this idea is a fusion between human and animal representation. The animals of the film can talk, work (doctors, lawyers, chefs, etc), go to school, and even communicate with humans. Yet their human-animals lives are scaled against the human-human world of the farmers. But if you think the film uses this set up to build a story around two clashing worlds (like Pixar's Ratatouille), you'd be only partially right. This introduces an...

element of comical replacements

Every curse word in the film was replaced with the word "cuss" keeping the rating in the PG range while producing some hilarious results in the process. It's this sense of serious to silly modification that's evident in every aspect of the story. The theme man vs nature comes to mind. This is obviously represented in the war between the animals and the farmers. But with the animal characters acting so unabashedly like humans, perhaps the very plight of the film and its characters is jokingly nature vs itself. Or the even more redonkulous manimal vs everyone. Several times throughout the film the animal characters wrestle with their nature born instincts and their feelings. Mr. Fox has to steal because he's a fox, yet he pushes himself to get a new home above ground though Foxes naturally live in holes. At any time you may ask yourself, what's going on with this film? Yet the offhand, candid attitude of it all makes you laugh at even posing the question. 

I believe there's more holding this film together than there is keeping it part. Fantastic Mr. Fox actually reminds me of a European style Pompoko, an outstanding Ghibli film. Coming to this realization brings me to the next element....

an element of unique attention grabbing

Non CG animated films are rare in America now. Though this film originated in Europe, it's still quite unique that its animation is stop motion. Coraline's stop motion animation and 3D filmmaking is flawless. Fortunately, there's still a lot of room for Fantastic Mr. Fox's animation style to share the stoplight. Though Mr. Fox is a little choppier and stiffer with its animation, it's all still very fresh, detailed, and engaging. 

The second phase of Mr. Fox's plan with the multiple security monitors is a genius scene. It's creative ideas like this that comically contrast with a few other unique shots the film frequently uses. Keep an eye out for the close up shots on character faces that show off the convincing furry models (see image above). Also notice the almost 2D side scrolling "video game" shots that almost made me pick up a controller to play along. The fight scene with the rat is also very creative and perfectly executed. Finally there's an...

element of "we've lost our minds"

Like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the climax of Fantastic Mr. Fox kind of goes off the deep end. The reason I don't have a problem with this is because the film maintains its themes, develops and resolves its characters, and sort of indicates that it was heading toward the deep end from the beginning. 

Part of what makes the film so funny is that everything within the story is fantastical bordering on nonsense, yet all the characters take everything seriously. The result is something so unique, entertaining, and Fantastic, that I can't even complain that I'm using an adjective straight out of the film title. 

My Neighbors the Yamadas is like the Charlie Brown and Rose is Rose of Japan. The stories are simple, taken straight out of everyday life. The themes and subjects are clear and upfront. And the depth of the characters grows little by little with each story. I think quaint is the best word to describe it. Sure enough, like Presepolis, this film was inspired by by a comic/manga series in Japan. 

The visual style is very simple and unique keeping true to the style of the original comic. Make no mistake though, studio Ghibli still finds moments to flex their animation prowess. With a fluid scrolling scene here, and a very smoothly transitioning wedding metaphor scene there Ghibli, like Gainex, shows that there is plenty of room for animation and expression using an art style that's light on details.

Many of the stories were enjoyable, but there are some that I found really touching. I failed to write down the titles of these short stories as I watched the film, so I'll simply describe a few. Mr. Yamada forgetting his umbrella in the rain. Mr. Yamada taking a picture of his family on a snowy day. Mr. Yamada settles for a banana. The day everyone forgot things. The young boy Yamada gets a phone call from a girl. And the sad moonlight Mr. Yamada fails to stand up to some bullies. 

The music is wonderful especially considering theres lots of classical music. Studio Ghibli continues to prove that they're the masters of domestic storytelling. Despite many cultural differences, the Yamadas are very similar to American families, which helps make the film very relatable. And it wouldn't be a Ghibli film if it didn't have flying in it.  

With splashes of color like highlights for special emphasis on a coat or the lips of a stranger, the film makes a sharp contrast between the colored present and the black and white past. Most of the film is told via retrospection. Memories, descriptions, and events are all passed through the flat comic strip stylization. War, revolution, tears, and lavenders all fall in and out of the life of young Marjane Satrapi. I knew when I first saw how the faces were drawn, flat and resting upon the backgrounds, that the film was heavily inspired by some unknown comic. And i was right. 

From what I can tell the original comics are based on a true story which makes the film based on true events. Aside from it being foreign, I could tell that it had such roots. There's something about the type and order of presented details that screams "this is how it was" and not "this is what I think will be the most interesting." At some point, I stopped trying to be wowed and enjoyed simply being impressed. I don't know enough about the world. Foreign countries, foreign people, and foreign problems are all... foreign to me. The more learn the more it seems like I'll never know, which makes it difficult to imagine the kind of life Marjane lived. And this is why I find the story so wonderful. 

And the telling of it. Marjane comes of age, but what does that mean? What kind of resolution am I left with? What did I learn? Did we change for the better? Marjane is such a real, awkward, and hard to fully root for character that I feel like I met her in person. The telling of her story is neither western (American) or eastern (Japanese). Time rolls along without dwelling on any event major or minor. Things just happen and as a view you sit there and collect them. With no universal or binding theme to speak of, we must make what we can of Marjane's story. You might not have expected an easy answer, but this film doesn't even pose the question.  And that is inspiring in itself. 

It's like the Iranian version of My Neighbors the Yamadas, a Ghibli film I watched last week and haven't gotten around to writing a Netflix Journal about. Yes, Netflix. I "like it." 

Ah youtube. Rarely fails. 

Like most children's book the story is fairly short, rich in details, and simple featuring no main character. In the book, a grandfather tells a tale to his kids of a unique town called Chewandswallow and its odd weather. I think it's worth pointing out that the book frames the fantasy story as a fictional story. 

Many years later we have a movie adaptation of the storybook. Aside from making the plot epic, creating a villian, and adding a love story (which movie adaptations tend to do) I'm always interested in how the writers adapt the core creative conceit of a book to film. The writers of the film took the book and used it like a menu. The man with a noodle on his head and the giant jell-o are just two details in the book that the film writers used in a minor way and a major way. But the main difference between the book and film versions is in the film the food weather is created by the main character Flint Lockwood's invention. The reason this seemingly small change is significant is because it shifts the core theme of the story from man vs nature to man vs man.

It's clever how the book carefully outlines the food-weather eco system of Chewandswallow. Food rains down, people eat up, people store food for later, and then the sanitation department cleans up the town while using the extra food to feed the local animals, sea creatures, and to fertilize the flower gardens. On the other hand, in the movie the food wasn't treated with a similar level of realism. It rained food, but instead of creating a system that fed back into the earth, there's a machine that simply flips the leftovers out of the city to pile up in a dam. While this "solution" is less creative it fits right in with the man vs. man theme. In other words, people create all kinds of short sighted, temporary solutions and enact them on a large scale. Furthermore, because Flint is in control of the food weather machine, the film could use the concept of "supply and demand" making that the people responsible for their disaster. When the towns people ignored the potential issues of larger food potions, I could only think of American and the dietary problems we face. 

Though the film has a more versatile and strong creative conceit, it doesn't use the potential to craft a particularly tight story with great characterization. The writing heavily uses a sort of neo-internet style humor that I'm not particularly fond of. With jokes coming from out of nowhere and hyper exaggerated action (ex. Earl Devereaux the cop), it was too hard for the writers to also develop the relatable human side of the characters. On top of this, scenes seemed to be crafted to quickly usher the plot along while making a quick joke. In other words, there was little internal struggle for the characters and even less iintrospection that was externalized. Explaining things through dialog wast he preferred method. 

The plot that is communicated is very reminiscent of Dreamworks' "How to Train Your Dragon." Take one part boy inventor, one part dead mother, one part father who doesn't understand son (or visa versa), one part girl who learns to see the value of the inventor's odd world, and one part epic showdown and you've got the mother sauce that both movies take after. Did you notice also that both films champion"nerd culture?" Dragons has a pacifist inventor for a main character (and a large D&D stats spouting nerd character) while Meatballs has an inventor main character with a highly intelligent weather girl for a perfect nerdy match. I'm simplifying some, but the similarities are more than uncanny. While How to Train Your Dragon took its time to really develop its main character and world scene by scene with externalized introspection, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs opts for the laugh. 

Fortunately, the movie is hilarious. In general the film is light hearted, goofy, and packed with the neo-internet style comedy. Like the book, the film is filled with quirky food-weather scenarios and clever puns. The film is rounded out with running gags, visual jokes, and some dark humor sprinkled in like when Flint "kills" an unsuspecting family with snowball shots. Though sentient food and a massive meatball in the sky is a bit of a stretch in my opinion, the film overall is very well composed. Compared to the final action scenes in Iron Man 2 or Sherlock Holmes, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs action makes and takes the cake. 3D animated films have an easier time creating exciting and seamless action scenes. Remember the opening scene in Bolt? It's getting harder and harder for live action movies to keep up in the action department. 

The character design of most of the characters is decent to good. Instead of going for the more anatomically correct design, the characters in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs have big heads, big eyes, and modeling clay limbs. I must say that I have a problem with Sam Sparks. Her eyes are just too big compared to the rest of the characters. Technically speaking, the film is very clean with special effects (sparks, lighting, and smoke) that are top notch. My final gripe is that this fairly enjoyable film and The Princess and the Frog (a highly disappointing film) edged out Ponyo for a nomination slot in the last Oscars. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes to make for this to happen, but I'm not happy about it.