Lileks Goes To the Movies

Remember the times when people would go to the movies just to get in out of the summer heat? Well, I do..., and so does Lileks.

He reviews both the weather and the latest kids flick, "Ant Bully." here. and does a great job with both -- but then we've come to expect nothing less out of James.

The money quotes:

First the reaction of an intelligent, sophisticated observer --

"[T]he geewhiz spirit computer animation once gave me has been replaced by a splenetic grumpy annoyance."

And what does the movie have to tell us? What else? The endless lefty project of indoctrinating our kids into the wonders of communal, anti-humanistic, sacrifice continues unabated.

The wizard [ant] asks [our hero..., don't ask] about human society, and he is amazed that humans don’t all work together. That is not the Ant Way, which is selfless and communal. John Galt wept. I mean, is it too much to ask that the kid at least stick up for humans? A little? Nope! We’re all selfish and individualistic, scorning the common good, which is why the distant city they’re observing is brightly lit and reaches for the heavens, and the ants are all naked drones giving in a defenseless hole, ruled by a gigantic maternal ant (Meryl Streep.)

That's right -- posthumanist, primitivist communalism is just the ticket. How did America's cultural elites get themselves into such a fix? Why do they loathe us so much? Something to think about....

What about the scripting?

“Ant Bully’ ladles out one thin cliché after the other; every line of dialogue is witless, strained, leaden, derivative, or annoying. It’s one of those movies where everything everyone says could be replaced with “I’m shouting out Expository Dialogue!” and every scene would have had the same impact.

And the length?

Any movie that seeks to immerse you in the wonderful world of insects yet makes you learn for the exterminator to show up has gone on too long.

There's more, but you get the drift.

There's really something sick about Hollywood's offerings for kids these days. I haven't the stomach to look too closely at it, but thank Ghod we have people like Lileks to do our looking for us.

Thanks, James.