The Monthly Roundup -- June 2024

Movies & TV

• A Goofy Movie (1995) -- You know you and your partner are perfect for each other when you can mutually agree on having a Goofy Movie double-feature movie night. I loved this movie as a kid, and I continue to appreciate it just as much now. For me, this movie exists on the same plane as The Spongebob Movie (2004), in that it was clearly first envisioned as a nonsensical kids movie, but it turned out to be something so much more than that. There's an unprecedented amount of heart in this film compared to any Mickey Mouse-verse project that came before, and arguably since. You're robbing yourself if you have Disney+ and have somehow not seen this movie before. It has great music, incredible voice acting, and is definitely worthy of being Disney's biggest cult-classic of the 90s.

• An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000) -- All right, I'm probably going to make some enemies here, but this movie just... exists. This was part of the great Disney direct-to-DVD boom of the 2000's, and yeah, it sure feels like it. The cross-country road trip with pivitol familial and interpersonal breakthroughs has been followed up by a movie about a petty college rivalry and a serious invasion of privacy. On top of that, Max's character was completely nuked for this movie, completely deflating his entire arc from the '95 film. Because of that, I'm just assuming Roxanne noticed that he was kind of a selfish a-hole and broke up with him, and that's why she's not in this movie at all. I'm sorry, I know I'm roasting this movie more than it probably deserves, but I really hold that orignal movie in such high regard, and this just feels kind of gross.

• Inside Out 2 (2024) -- I'm not lying when I say that I started bawling in the first three minutes of this movie. Not only was this a genuinely great follow-up to one of my favorite Pixar films, it felt so authentic while it was at it. Other Pixar sequels such as Finding Dory or Incredibles 2 had this quality to them that didn't feel 100% legitimate to their source material -- a je ne sais qua that made them feel more like corporate products than honest continuations of the originals' stories. Inside Out 2 was not like that for me. It was the exact same characters and world that I already loved, now expanded! Like any sequel, it's debatable if this one really stacks up to the impact of the first one, but that shouldn't stop fans of the original from giving this one a look.

• Trolls (2016) -- This is the first time I've seen this movie since it came out in 2016. I saw it at Cinema Grille (rest in peace), and never felt like coming back to it, or seeing the sequels, for that matter. However, Jack impulsively felt like watching it after work one night, so that's what we did. The humor and tone is certainly funnier than I remember, and the animation was fun, creative, and original. It's inoffensive, though I'm not sure to what extent its theme is trying to reach. Without spoiling anything, a lot of this film's message kind of boils down to "Just be happy," which feels kind of hollow and meaningless. I know I'm saying that as a 23-year-old, which is an age this film was definitely not made for, but even as a kid, I don't know if I could figure out what I'm supposed to take away from this movie. All that said, I enjoyed coming back to it more than I thought I would, so I'm sure I'll get around to seeing the sequels eventually.

• Theater Camp (2023) -- I recall seeing the original Theater Camp short film when it came out several years ago, and I thought it was charming and funny back then, but this film is a whole different beast. The laughs hit hard when they pop up, and despite largely being a satire of the ridiculousness of a lot of theatre curriculums, there's a lot of heart in this film. You can tell that everyone in this movie has some memories of camps like this from their youths, and it's generally a love letter to those childhood memories. This is definitely worth a watch if you have Hulu or can find it elsewhere. "Camp Isn't Home" is going to be on my personal playlist for a loooong time.

• Blackberry (2023) -- I don't have any connection to the Blackberry brand besides remembering that my mom owned a Blackberry in the late 2000s. Nonetheless, I'd wanted to watch this movie for quite some time before finally buckling down this month (it was because the guys from the Wii Shop Channel sketch are in it). I don't tend to tune into movies with a lot of business jargon, but this one held my attention for a little longer. The drama in this movie can be really engrossing, even if it's not entirely accurate to the real-life events that inspired it. My main takeaway from this film was the acting. Every character felt so fully realized, even if a lot of them were just textbook nerds.

Books

• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton -- With the musical adaptation of this book taking home the Tony for Best Musical this year, I felt compelled to revisit this classic work for the first time since middle school. I listened to this as an audiobook through Hoopla (support your local library!!!), and while not quite as gritty as I remember it being, I still felt exactly how I did when I first read this book ten years ago. I hope schools are still assigning this book in one way or another. While I don't read quite often enough to feel as though I should join a book club or anything, I miss having socratic seminars on books like this from high school or college. Even if I can't share it with anyone, I'm glad I got to reacquaint myself with Ponyboy and the greasers. Maybe I'll give the '86 movie a watch soon enough.

Games

• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) (Xbox 360) -- I've never played through this entire game before. It's always been a for-gits-and-shiggles thing every so often. Now that I've played a fair amount of it, I can safely say that nothing can hurt me anymore.