Hotel Transylvania

Premiered September 28, 2012

In this family film offering from Sony Pictures,  Dracula (Adam Sandler) capably runs a five-star resort for monsters.  It is secluded and surrounded by booby traps to prevent it from being discovered by humans.  (Drac and his fellow monsters have had some problems with humans in the past.)   One of Dracula's primary motivations for creating the hotel is, Mavis (Selena Gomez), his only daughter and the apple of his eye. 

Dracula sings to li'l Mavis - "Hush little baby, don't say a word, papa's going to bite the head off a bird"

As tends to happen with children, they grow up, and as Mavis' 118th birthday approaches, she begins to express a desire to go out and explore the world on her own.

Mavis has wanderlust

This worries Dracula, but he allows her to venture out of the castle  ...

 

Mavis on her first trip out of the castle - it must be fun to be able to turn into a bat

But his fatherly over-protectiveness of his daughter causes him to enact an elaborate scheme involving a fake village and zombies disguised as torch-weilding humans to convince Mavis that the outside world is a scary place so that she will not want to leave home.

Mavis is disappointed but Dracula tries to comfort her with the party he's got planned for her.  He has invited Frankenstein's monster (Kevin James) and the Bride of Frankenstein (Fran Drescher) as well as Wayne & Wanda Wolfman (Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon) (and their large unruly brood of little wolf pups), Murray the Mummy (CeeLo Green),  Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade) and a host of other monsters to help celebrate.  

Drac and friends are ready to celebrate

Much to Dracula's dismay, an unexpected guest in the form of Jonathan (Andy Samberg) - a surfer-dude human who has somehow penetrated the castle's elaborate defenses -- arrives on the scene.  Rather than have the human terrorize his guests, Dracula disguises him as a monster (Johnny-Stein!) and attempts to spirit him out of the castle without success.   In desperation,  Dracula tries to pass him off as a party planner.
Johnny meets Mavis and (gasp!) seems to be developing an interest in her.  Worse still (from Drac's point of view), Mavis seems to reciprocate Jonathan's interest!  As far as Dracula is concerned, this situation is truly monstrous.    A comedy of hidden identities and silly misunderstandings results.

Mavis and Jonathan (in a monster disguise) meet-cute

RigbyMel says:

Hotel Transylvania is the feature-length directorial debut of Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls, among other shows).   While it is a fun little family film, it's  not a great one, due to a rather pedestrian storyline - overprotective father needs to learn to let his child grow up, blah blah,  romantic comedy style meet cute, boy meets-loses-regains girl - "zing" blah blah. Granted,  I am not the target audience and the children at whom the movie is aimed haven't seen this sort of plot a million times before, but I found myself wishing for just a bit more cleverness from the screenplay overall.  After all, the best family films have something to keep the adults just as engaged as the kiddos.

What do you mean, it's not as interesting for adults? 

This is especially unfortunate because the visuals are rather amazing.
There are all kinds of delightful details to dig up if you're paying attention -- which you might not be as the story is so ... well ... boring.

What visit to a luxury hotel is complete without a dip in the pool? 

For example, the bellhops are zombies,  the housekeeping staff is comprised mostly of witches, security is headed up by a seemingly empty but animate suit of armor and Quasimodo Jones (Jon Lovitz)  is the chef/villain who is suspicious that Jonathan in Monster-Drag might not be the monster he says he is.  There is even a Day of the Dead style skeletal mariachi band, which made me very happy.

"Day of the Dead" mariachi band

Also Mavis (especially in bat form) is adorable.  Witness:

Mavis rocking the "Bat Eyes"

Plus,  there is some well-deployed voice talent at play here - I am not generally a fan of Adam Sandler or Andy Samberg, but they work well in this.   Also, the supporting cast is great,  especially Steve Buscemi as the beleaguered family/wolf-man.   It's just too bad they aren't given more to do that evokes more than the odd weak chuckle every now and again.

Although this film is not explicitly set on or around Halloween,  the monsters and the spooky details (plus the autumnal release date) certainly seem intended for the spooky season. There is even a "Monster Festival" that comes into play.

All in all, this is an okay family flick that could have been great had they taken a little more time and trouble with the story.   There are worse ways to spend an afternoon and it will certainly get children in the Halloween spirit.

My rating:
2 Jack O'Lanterns

Saturday Night Live's Tradition Of Thanksgiving Songs

Hi again everyone,
We're big fans of Saturday Night Live, especially of the show's classic eras.

SNL has never had a "Thanksgiving episode", but the show has featured quite a few Thanksgiving-themed musical numbers over the years.

In 1976, host Paul Simon opened the show by singing "Still Crazy After All These Years"...in a turkey costume:


Sorry I couldn't find any video of this online.  Simon stops in the middle of the performance and calls it "one of the most humiliating experiences of my life!"

EDIT (2019):  Since we first published this post back in 2011, a Youtube video of the Paul Simon clip has become available, so here it is: 

Perhaps the most famous Thanksgiving song in the show's history was performed on November 21, 1992. Adam Sandler introduced "The Thanksgiving Song", a new song he'd written about eating turkey. It also contains a plethora 90s pop culture references that have nothing to do with Thanksgiving:

A year later (November 20,1993 to be exact), Sandler did an excellent impression of Bruce Springsteen performing a Thanksgiving song.
Here's a Springsteen Thanksgiving:

In 1996, we got a sketch featuring multiple singers auditioning new Thanksgiving songs for a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. This sketch includes the debut of Cinder Calhoun, played by Ana Gasteyer. "Cinder" would become a recurring character on the show for several years. Tim Meadows also stands out in this sketch performing a sultry, soulful and innuendo-filled Thanksgiving ballad.
Watch "Thanksgiving Song Auditions" here:

And speaking of Cinder Calhoun, she showed up the next year on Weekend Update to perform another Thanksgiving song. The song condemns the killing of turkeys on Thanksgiving and compares Butterball to Hitler and Stalin! She was joined by musical guest Sarah McLachlan on "Basted In Blood:
Here's a photo from the bit from 11/22/97:

EDIT (2019): And here's a link to an article with the video clip:  https://www.thecut.com/2015/11/basted-in-blood-your-lilith-fair-holiday-jam.html

And just last year, current cast member Jay Pharoah appeared on Weekend Update and wondered what a Thanksgiving rap written by Jay-Z or Biggie Smalls would sound like. Pharoh proceeded to rap about Thanksgiving and its trappings, from November 20, 2010:

So maybe if you're musically inclined, you'll find yourself leading your family in a singalong of one of these songs tonight after you've finished all the pumpkin pie. Okay, that probably won't happen (considering some of these songs contain outdated references George Wendt and Darryl Strawberry), but these songs are still lots of fun.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

J.A. Morris and RigbyMel

Eight Crazy Nights

Eight Crazy Nights

Originally released November 27, 2002

Directed by Seth Kearsley

And now we have our first Hanukkah review.

In the town of Dukesberry, New Hampshire, local drunk Davey Stone (Adam Sandler), described by the narrator as a “33 year-old crazy Jewish guy", leaves a restaurant without paying his tab, goes on a drunken rampage and ends up in a high-speed chase that results in the destruction of Dukesberry’s Christmas and Hanukkah displays. Davey is about to be sent to prison when his old basketball coach Whitey Duvall(also voiced by Sandler) comes forward and begs the judge to give Davey one more chance and sentence him to community service. The judge agrees and Davey becomes Whitey’s assistant youth basketball coach.

Later, Davey’s trailer burns down, so he’s forced to move in with Whitey and his sister Eleanore (voiced by, you guessed it, Sandler).

Davey spends most of the rest of the movie belittling and abusing Whitey & Eleanore…blah blah blah…(SPOILER ALERT!) he gets redeemed at the end, reforms himself and lives happily ever after with his childhood sweetheart Jennifer Friedman. That’s all that needs to be said about it.

JA Morris says:

Let me begin by saying Adam Sandler's ‘The Hanukkah Song’ is one of my favorite “modern” Holiday songs. I’ve bought two versions of the song and played it at every office Holiday party I’ve organized. I even have a “karaoke” version of the song. So I was excited when I first heard that an animated feature length movie was being made based on the song. I also don’t mind “gross-out” humor when it’s done right.

This was not only one of the worst holiday-themed movies I’ve ever seen, it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen full stop. The movie opens with Davey committing multiple felonies. After he avoids prison time and gets a second chance, he makes fun of an obese child, knocks down a port-a-john while an old man is inside (yes, he winds up covered in excrement, which is eaten off him by some reindeer) and breaks into a mall before he has a moment of clarity, admits he's an alcoholic and shows he’s really not so bad after all. Actually, Davey IS bad, the filmmakers just want us to think he’s not so bad. But Davey is one of the most unsympathetic “protagonists” you’ll ever see in a movie.

In the middle of the story, we learn that Davey is such a repulsive human being because his parents died in a car accident when he was a kid, which led to his drinking problem and life of crime. But by this time in the story, Davey has been presented as irredeemably bad, so giving him dead parents doesn’t build any sympathy for him.

Lots of Holiday films & specials end with a villain coming to their senses, seeing the error of their ways and reforming (The Grinch and The Bumble from ‘Rudolph’ being obvious examples). I believe in rehabilitation, but Davey Stone is a walking obscenity, utterly without redeeming social value, his “change of heart” can’t be taken seriously. He doesn’t deserve a “happy ending” with Jennifer, he should have gone to prison.

‘Eight Crazy Nights’ also has some of the most annoying usage of Product Placements I’ve ever seen. Corporate logos in the backgrounds (in some cases the foregrounds too!) of just about every scene. During one of the musical numbers, logos even come to life and sing!

Speaking of musical numbers, there are several forgettable new songs in this film, sung by the likes of Allison Krauss and Ann Wilson (singer for the band Heart), who deserve better material. 'The Hanukkah Song' does not show up at all during the movie, only plays over the closing credits.

Avoid this at all costs. Listen to ‘The Hanukkah Song’ again instead of watching this.

We have our first ever lump of coal.

RigbyMel says:This movie is a steaming pile of reindeer poop! ‘Nuff said.