Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Lonely and overworked, Dracula (Adam Sandler) needs to take a break. Luckily, his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) gets tickets for them and the rest of the Drac Pack to go on a luxury cruise just for monsters. As they indulge in some down time, it seems that Dracula may have found what he's looking for in the ship's captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). However, it seems that this cruise isn't all that it seems, and Dracula's old adversary Dr. Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) lays in wait to wreak his revenge on all monsters.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) - Movie Review

In the realms of modern comedy, there really only seem to be two groups that are holding the charge in terms of white guys doing funny but still well composed comedic hip hop: Epic Rap Battles Of History and The Lonely Island. One of the few properly consistent acts to spawn from the current era of Saturday Night Live, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone have entered the realms of meme legend on numerous occasions with hits like Jizz In My Pants, I Just Had Sex and their Yuletide slow jam Dick In A Box. Their music, while not exactly the most consistent on an album basis, combined a keen eye for poking fun at pop music trends with an actual ear for beats and music to create some seriously funny songs.

Naturally, when news hit that they would be bringing a full-length cinematic production this year, you better believe that I was anxious for it… until, for some reason, it was pulled from Australian cinemas. Luckily, this did get a DVD release so I could include it in this year’s list of films, but how is the film itself? Is it a gem that our screwed-up priorities just let slip through the cracks, or should we be thankful that this didn’t get a wide release?

Storks (2016) - Movie Review

When I was a young-in and still naïve to the world around me, I had some… interesting ideas about where babies came from. For some reason, I was under the impression that when a couple is married, the wife’s wedding ring sends a little UFO into the stomach which creates the baby. Feel free to laugh at this in all its preciousness, because I honestly never stopped. What I’m getting at with all this is that, because of my own misconceptions about conception, recurring ideas like “storks deliver babies” don’t seem as ludicrous to me as they probably should. Not that I’m advocating lying to children or anything, but I do understand not telling them the whole truth when they’re too young to understand ideas like sex. I mean, hell, some adults are still struggling to deal with sex in its many bizarre facets. Considering all this, today’s film centred on probably the oldest wives’ tale involving baby-making already gets the head-tilt seal of approval. Does it get any other seals of approval?

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) - Movie Review

If you spent any amount of time watching Cartoon Network during its heyday, or even grew up on it like I did, then you owe a lot to one Genndy Tartakovsky. The man’s work on shows like Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated mini-series has gone on to make him one of the most vibrant creative minds that Hanna-Barbera has ever been associated with… yes, seriously. As such, the next big step in terms of flexing animated muscle is going on to do feature films, and so he was brought on to direct 2012’s Hotel Transylvania. That is, he was brought on as the sixth reported director of the film. Usually a pretty bad sign, especially for a first-time film director, but he nevertheless gave it his all and made the film his own. The result was a surprisingly fun and not-surprisingly well animated family film; sure, it had its annoying/stupid moments but the good points far outweighed the bad. Since it made over four times its budget at the box office, it of course got a sequel. Let’s hope that this isn’t another sequel made for its own sake, because I want to maintain my respect for Genndy as best I can.