Mmm, Tasty Crow

[ladysprite]

I believe that I owe Jack Black an apology.

I've always avoided his movies, figuring that he was just another practitioner of the lowbrow, slapstick/insult school of humor. I loved him in 'King Kong,' I'll admit, but I truly believed that was just the exception that proved the rule that the rest of his movies were crap. Friends had told me that 'School of Rock' was good, but I didn't believe them. I have fairly particular tastes when it comes to comedy, and I had absolutely no interest in watching it.

Last night, however, I had a heck of a lot of crafty-work to do, and nothing to watch. It's hiatus time for the few shows I follow, and I've watched just about all the shows we have on DVD. I'm not a TV junkie, but I do like having something to listen to while I'm crocheting, or stitching, or sorting through recipes. So my sweetie and I went to Hollywood Video, and the lack of anything else we could both agree on drove us to rent 'School of Rock.'

I hate to admit it, but it was pretty darn good. Funny, and cute, and the music was impressive, and the interaction between Mr. Black and the kids was wonderful to watch. It has all the appeal of a feel-good, underdog-powered high school movie, without quite as much of the moral sledgehammer. Plus, Joan Cusack is almost always marvelous.

I'm not quite about to reconsider my opinion of his other movies - I sincerely doubt there's anything that could ever convince me to watch 'Shallow Hal.' But I'll at least pay attention to movies he makes in the future.

Oh, and while I'm talking about movies, go see 'Happy Feet.' Today, if possible. It's not quite the feel-good hit of the year, but it's still amazing. It's cute, and clever, and there's enough of a story and a moral to make it slightly more socially relevant than your average animated-tap-dancing-social-misfit-penguin movie. And that's aside from the fact that watching Hugh Jackman as an animated penguin doing Elvis impersonations is worth the price of admission alone....

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Shallow Hal is awful. You are right to not waste those two hours of your life.

However, a friend just saw a sneak preview of The Holiday, (With Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, Kate WInslet and Jude Law) and said it was really good- and Jack Black was good.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

From your description of what you like about School of Rock, I would unreservedly recommend 'Sky High' to you. Which is set in the high school where all the superheroes' kids go. :-> Cool powers, very well-written; the characters are all very human; plus, Bruce Campbell is the gym teacher, which is almost worth the price of admission by itself.

Very little pure slapstick, and lots of cute have-to-pay-attention worldbuilding humor. Plus, each of the kids with a 'useless' superpower gets to use it to help win the problem at the end.

[baron-saturday.livejournal.com]

As an aside to your aside, anyone who liked Sky High should go and read the comic book PS238 from which Sky High is blatantly ripped off.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

I have seen Sky High, and loved it. :) And thank you for the comment on the comic book - a friend had recommended it to me before, but I couldn't remember the name. Now I can go hunt it down....

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I thought it was blatantly ripped off from the graphic novel 'Sidekicks', actually.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

I'll echo the comments about Hugh Jackman, but don't forget Robin Williams' trio of roles (as the head of a gang of short penguins [from the species different from Mumble's—do you know what species they were supposed to be?] as well as the other species' guru).

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

The other penguins were rock hoppers, I believe.

[madamruppy.livejournal.com]

I can say that I liked Shallow Hal - an as a fat person I was not offended. I can see how someone might be, but just not me. My $ .02 Oh and I loved Nacho Libre.