THE GRINCH

****DISCLAIMER****These reviews are for entertainment purposes only. Contrary to popular belief, I am not in arms deals with Iran, I did not sell my soul to the devil, I did not take all of the marshmallows out of my Count Chocula cereal and I did not know she wasn't 18.

Lots of new movies coming soon involve not live actors, but are made entirely of hand drawn or computer animation. You've got Disney's new one coming soon, the 50th Rugrats movie, those Pokemon movies which look like they were made in someone's basement, there's one coming out next year called Final Fantasy which was done entirely in computer animation as was another new one called Shreck. Why the sudden surge of animated movies? I'll tell you why, because Hollywood is getting tired of pampering to all of these stars that want extra crap when they do a movie. They show up late, they whine and complain, they get sick, whatever. Sure, animated movies will never replace movies with live actors, but imagine how the porn is gonna turn out!!

Our 'move it mister' movie this week is The Grinch (a.k.a. What The Who Is Going On Around Here? ) starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch, a bitter Who'sman...Who citize....Who perso...Damn, this is gonna be harder than I thought.... Who dude who hates Christmas and is looking to take it away from the citizens of Whoville. 98% of you out there remember at one time or another reading the famous Dr. Seuss book or seeing the cartoon when you were growing up. If you didn't, may God have mercy on your soul. I shall break this review down into two parts, the first about the Grinch himself and the second part about Whoville. If you think I'm going to explain the plot in great detail you're nuts. Sit back, relax, grab your beer...and here we go!

Jim Carrey's last outing in Me, Myself and Irene wasn't very memorable. In fact, the movie sucked and I let everyone know it. Well, all 3 of my readers anyway. I always thought Jim Carrey was a brilliant actor and when he's given the right roles, can really shine in them. Well, playing the Grinch was the perfect part for Carrey. In fact, he's so good at it, you forget it's actually him sometimes because he just draws you into the character. Jim Carrey is The Grinch. That's the tagline for the movie and for once, it's true. And for the first time, he actually deserves that $20 million dollar paycheck. Ok, so no one deserves to get paid that much money, but he did a hell of a job and I'm going to move on because my nose is starting to turn brown from kissing his ass.

The second main vein of this movie is Whoville and it's citizens. The makeup and set designs of The Grinch are fantastic. Whoville looks like it did in the books and the cartoon, strangely comfortable yet wild at the same time. If you'll notice when watching the movie, there are no straight lines anywhere in the design of Whoville. Which means either Disney ripped off the idea from Seuss's books when they built Toontown, or Ron Howard ripped it off from Toontown's design in Disneyland. Since Disney can't do anything original but massive takeovers and covering up deaths on its rides, I'll bet on Seuss being the originator of this particular architectural achievement. But Disney still rules baby! In fact, on my exclusive backstage tour of the sets of Whoville which is only accessible to members of the press or good friends of Ron Howard, I happened to remark constantly about the intricate set designs and wonderful colors. Then that stupid tram driver at Universal Studios kept telling me to sit down. Bastard.

And now onto the citizens themselves of Whoville. Ron Howard makes these guys out to be total anarchists. I mean, no wonder the Grinch left that place, it was full of madmen...or madWho's....whatever. People always running and screaming, no one waiting in line, everyone nice to one another one minute, then yelling at them the next. And I thought America was a bad place to live. And what is up with their hair and noses? They have these huge noses and really bad hairdo's. I didn't know the citizens of Whoville were all Italian! You know what else I noticed? There are no African, Mexican or Asian citizens in Whoville. What...they couldn't come up with any names for them? What's wrong with Leroy Who or Laniqua Who or Lolita Conchita Gonzales Rodriguez Lopez Who or Fong Sclong Who or Woo Hoo Who?? Once again Hollywood has kept my brutha's down. I had no idea Seuss was racist. In fact, if you look closely in the background, you'll see some Who's wearing these really long pointy hooded white masks....strange, isn't it? My personal theory when watching the Who's was that they are actually a secret sick cult. Just watch how they act when they sing that song around the Christmas tree at the end. They all look like they're in a trance or something. I have a feeling that given the chance, the citizens of Whoville would slaughter each and every one of us.

So is it entertaining? Well, it's only around 90 minutes long but it still feels like it should have been 15 minutes shorter. They acting was good, the set design was killer, the Who's became more terrifying as the body count rose, but all in all, it was a lot of fun to watch and I felt like I was 8 years old again watching the same story I've seen a million times before but never got sick of. The bad? The songs were absolutely butchered. I don't know who came up with these renditions, but they were so bad I had to cover my Godchild's ears so he would stop screaming. But hey, it was a cool movie, Jim Carrey was awesome, and it was worth the moolah I spent on tickets, dried out popcorn, watered down Pepsi, and uncooked hot dog. Theaters rule.

My rating:

- Full Price
--- Matinee
- Wait For Video
- Wait For Cable
- Wait For Rosie starring in The Grinch 2: The Return of Big Booty Who