Sunday, November 29, 2009

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Boy 1 in Animation


Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Rated G

Flint Lockwood, voiced by BILL HADER, is a young inventor who lives on Swallow Falls, a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean. His experiments don’t always work very well, and his father, JAMES CAAN, wishes he’d pack it in and join him in his fishing tackle and bait business. When Flint invents a device to turn water into food, he becomes a hero in the eyes of the opportunistic Mayor, BRUCE CAMPBELL, and catches the eye of tyro TV weather reporter Sam, ANNA FARIS.
Writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have expanded a 30-page children’s book by Judi and Ron Barrett into a 3D animated feature which boasts intricate design and goofy humour. The thrust of the narrative is that being an obsessive, indoors kid isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as you wind up creating something useful, but the message – as always in this sort of film – takes a back seat to the inventive design and animation and, in this case, the clever 3-dimensional effects.

What can I say? Boy 1 in all his potential glory, animated. To quote the boy himself:

"Mum, it's me, look, he's just like me, HE'S ME!"

David Stratton does not mention the inadequate social skills, lack of eye contact or the brilliant, constantly revolving mind.Even Boy 2 stage-whispered early on in the film: "Flint is an Aspie, isn't he Mum."
Flint gets the girl in the end, after much bumbling misinterpretation of emotional cues. But what the whole Madmother crew loved was Flint helping Sam realise being true to yourself really is all that counts. And of course Flint coming to the same realisation about himself. I LOVE these sorts of films.







Aspies Rule!



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