The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, a movie I would have covered over two months ago if the Skokie Public Library actually checked the kids' DVD shelves (this is despite A: Their being among the only AV materials that weren't being shuffled around, and B: their being able to find other kids' DVDs with no problem), but I finally got around to it when they finally reopened the building last week: The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure.

The backstory behind the film is fascinating: basically, Kenn Viselman, the man who brought Thomas the Tank Engine and Teletubbies to America tried to convince the makers of the latter to adapt it into a movie. After they refused, Viselman got the idea to take characters from an obscure TV show called My Bedbugs, sand-blast off the serial numbers, and put them into a movie... with a twist: interactivity. Inspired by a showing of Madea Goes to Jail where the audience yelled at the screen, he decided to take it to the next level by encouraging kids to yell, scream, and run around in movie theaters. Jah only knows how horrible the whole moviegoing experience would be if this caught on and annoying kids decided the had free rein to disrupt the experience. But it didn't. Why? Let's find out.

• Well, these costumes look kinda creepy, made all the worse by the fact that their mouths barely move, if they do at all.
  
• Zoozie's fluent in every language? Maybe you can translate this: izorratu zaitu, Narrasa artaburu!
  
• The most amazing movie ever? Odd, I'm sensing a complete lack of constructed languages, ultraviolence, and synthesised classical music. 
  
• It's fun to swim? You know, putting water in the bowl will help with that.
  
• The pillow pukes up some of its own stuffing when it wakes up briefly.
  
• Is that it for puppets in this movie? Either shitty-looking suitamation or just statues you could make from shit you buy at Michaels'? That's the best you can do for a $20 million budget?
  
• So, here's the plot on the movie: the Oogieloves are having a birthday party for their pillow Schluufy (if I did this last year, I'd be balking at the whole idea of giving a party for a pillow, but I'm watching this with my Alison Lohman dakimakura, who I seriously considered going on an IRL date with before shit got real, but I can still fault them for going to an absurd effort to create a huge party for a pillow that's asleep most of the time.) They buy five magic balloons for him, but their vacuum cleaner friend J. Edgar (Yes, that's his name) loses them, and they have to retrieve all five of them because those are the last five magical balloons in LovelyLoveVille. Also, for whatever reason, they have to bring their fish Ruffy to help them somehow.
  
• Why does Jubilee look like she was filmed separately from the Oogieloves?
  
• "My totally square new friends?"
  
  
  
• And is it just me or does Grandma Jubilee look like the Chevalier from Barry Lyndon?
  
• Talking balloons are scientifically impossible? You do know you have a talking window, vacuum cleaner, barely sentient pillow, and a fish who can talk and thrive without having water in his fish tank, right?
  
• Ho! Ho! Is funny because owl says "Hoo!"
  
• And why is Special Agent Kujan pretending to be Andrew Dice Clay in a kids' movie?
  
• So, they go to a milkshake drinking contest where they have to drink a single milkshake. Not sure that this is how competitive eating contests work. But, anyway, they're flavours like "banana bacon blueberry chili."
  
• Okay, fun fact, Toni Braxton plays a superstar named Rosalie Rosebud who surrounds herself with roses, despite being allergic. In reality, when Toni Braxton filmed her scenes, she had a bad cold. And I Would Like To Think This Was Only A Matter Of Chance.
  
• So, a plane cannot launch if there's a balloon on its tail?
  
• Leaning 49.7 degrees? Okay, fun fact: Well, that's more than Michael Jackson was able to do with special shoes, special effects, and a damn good center of gravity that there's no way in Hell that the Oogieloves had. 
  
• So, a pillow is dreaming of itself dreaming about itself? Why do the oogieloves think he can appreciate all the effort that'd go into all this?
  
• No, I'm not disturbing you. I can out disturb most of the people you'd meet in any given day:
  
  
  
• I have a sparkleliciousness idea? Parts of Speech Are Your Friends!
  
• And apparently, the target audience is supposed to be able to know what cataracts are?
  
• Fucking God, the Mexican stereotypes are even worse than in the Bratz movie. So, there's a giant sombrero that cab apparently move when its inhabitants dance, and it's inhabited by Lola and Lero Sombrero, played by Jamie Pressley and Christopher Lloyd. And to think that if this was released a few years later, politically inclined YouTubers would be turning this problematic bullshit into a cause celebre, and not just let it die a natural death.
  
• Well, it's nice to see the movie fast forward itself. 
  
• Well, I have to admit, seeing weird insect-people riding a giant tulip to get to a balloon is an original idea. Now let's see if you can come up with some good ones.
  
• Also, I can't help but notice some strangely chiaroscuro lighting that's really out of place in a kids' movie.
  
• Goofy Toofie, Get a fucking belt!
  
• "Good luck on your big balloon adventure?" Didn't it just fucking end? You got the last balloon...
  
• This is probably the worst birthday song I've ever heard in a movie.
  
  
  
• A feather milkshake?
  
• ...So, they could have just blown kisses to get the balloons back? Then why the fuck did they have to do all this shit?
  

So, for next week, I've got something a bit less horrifying for the project: it's a movie about a man who happens to be rather... slender.