The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

Welp, because A) my Blu-Ray player has crapped out and a replacement won't be here until Thursday, B) Even if it weren't, the movie I had on hold for this week, Bigger Fatter Liar, is in limbo for whatever reason, and C) there's still one movie from a certain franchise that just happens to be on Netflix I need to take on, here's Norm of the North: Family Vacation, the latest film in the franchise that should probably have never been a franchise. 

• Well, it's nice to see the lemmings beating the crap out of each other for an excavation project.
  
• So, there's a shrub poking out of some extremely thin ice that's only noticed because the camera zooms in on it for some reason. How the fuck is that supposed to work?
  
• He is awake, Caribou, being asleep and playing with your phone are different things.
  
• And Socrates is back to his normal(ish) voice.
  
• Why does the orca sound like a mobster who got castrated?
  
• Well, it's nice to know that the consequences of Norm's very relaxed issues to being king of the north are coming back to bite him. It's a shame that the consequences (besides his rare uses of his kingly duties letting his kids down) are so nebulous.
  
• And the lemmings are trying to build a tower that looks a lot like a penis. Also, if they were supposed to be such good builders, why did they have to resort to peeing a hole in the ice cave in the last movie? And why did they have the rabbit try and make the ice sculpture if the lemmings were apparently such craftsmen? And why was that Mount Rushmore thing that the sequels keep rubbing in our faces so absent in the original film?
  
• So, this Asian guy that I hope isn't one of the guys from the last movie comes in on this old, Asian-looking ship and tries to steal Norm's crown and the presence of such a ship this far north, I feel like I should make a joke about the Franklin expedition, but I'm just kind of annoyed that the most I can do is equate the thief's struggles to escape Norm's wrath to what Alison and I do between the sheets.
  
• An endless winter falls upon the North? I'm just so baffled by why this would even be a problem in the fucking Arctic that I almost forgot to wonder why this would trigger a reference to the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz.
  
• And somehow the underwater scenes are the most visually appealing scenes i the entire franchise, even if the way the echolocation works makes no sense.
  
• So, a ship made entirely of ice is headed for China? To a city that's inland? To be fair, Harbin does seem to have some harsh winters comparable to Chicago, and - crap, the fucking PRC is the one bankrolling these endless sequels, aren't they? 
  
• And how does Norm's presence cause the sea around him to randomly freeze in one scene? And how does Fong know about this vacation?
  
• And why does China this time around look like it's just the North Pole except with a fairground that looks like it's made of ice and blacklight paint for some reason?
  
• Okay, fun fact, shortly before watching this, I watched Wolf of Wall Street, so by a bizarre twist of fate, I've just watched two movies in a row that involve characters eating a live fish out of a fish bowl.
  
  
  
• That dance looks more like the mashed potato than the watusi.
  
• Why do two of these funhouse mirrors look the same? I get the feeling that they're doing it wrong.
  
• So, there's one scene where the lemmings are riding what looks like a giant slide and I think they crap in mid-air and a stork child mistakes it for snow and...
  
• I have no idea what the chaos that breaks out when it turns out Norm's lost his crown even is. Just random fighting?
  
• Fucking Hell, that snow tiger's going to be the secret villain, isn't it? Now we've got latter-day Disney cliches that have grown stale even for Disney to deal with.
  
• Actually, it looks like they're going to subvert this trope, since the tiger seems legitimately shocked by his being robbed. 
  
• So, it's the tiger's twins who stole the crown, and once the movie reveals that they were the culprits, it just devolves into a bunch of set pieces and I just get so bored I keep watching JHS' video on "Why you need an EQ pedal" to keep up my interest.
  
• And that thunderstorm is why making a ship entirely out of ice is so impractical.
  
• Fucking Hell, that Orca is basically a walking Deus Ex Machina. Or is that a swimming Deus Ex Machina?
  
• And you gotta love that those newscasters are actually enjoying the coming eternal winter.
  
• And of course Norm comes just in time to avert the crisis because why wouldn't it work that way?
  
• And why would the coming of winter coincide with a shining sun? In the fucking Arctic? You know what? Fuck it. This movie's made for idiots and evidently some higher-ups in the People's Republic of China.
  
• And it all ends with, of all things, a fucking big musical dance number of, and I wish i was making this up, the orcas singing "I'm a Little Teapot." 
  
  
  Fucking Hell, I'd even prefer the one in the Down the Rabbit Hole video that apparently decided "sleves" was a word.

And thankfully, I'm now done with this franchise, because there's only ten movies left in the Project (barring the possible points where I have to go back to using movies uploaded onto YouTube) and hopefully I'll get through them all before Norm of the North 5 comes out. I don't even know if they're making that, but I'm not going to bother with it.

Okay, for those of you who want to know what I think about The Wolf of Wall Street:

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It's a damn good film. It's darkly comedic, insane, and it feels a hell of a lot shorter than 3 hours long. It definitely deserves its place on IMDB's Top 250 list. Two things worth noting that I finally picked up on:

• Close watching and finally figuring out how to do a proper progressive freeze-frame on the one Blu-Ray player in the house that actually works now, in that famous scene, despite her claims to have thrown away all her panties and the pretty heavy implication that she's going commando while she's teasing Jordan Belfort, is clearly wearing white panties when the camera shows her uncrossing her legs when she's finally found out that Mr. FuzzyBear is broadcasting her lady parts to the guards.
  
• This is the first time I've watched this film since I became a fan of Last Podcast on the Left, and I'm kinda disappointed that Henry Zebrowski's role was so small, and given his tangential remarks and his large-looking frame, I find myself wondering if maybe Ben Kissel should have been cast instead.
  

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