Movie Day

We all went to see Madagascar yesterday, as a kind of a Father's Day outing. We were going to go on a hike, but it was kind of drizzly and cold and miserable, so we figured spending the day inside would be better. Not a bad movie, had some pretty funny parts, though I found it strange that I couldn't for the life of me figure out who did the voice of Alex the lion through the whole thing (it was Ben Stiller). The zebra was Chris Rock and the giraffe was David Schwimmer - hard to mistake their voices. Anyway, Gail had been told that it was more a kids movie than a grown-up movie -- by "grown-up movie" I mean that even though things like The Lion King and Toy Story and The Incredibles were kids movies, they had enough grown-up stuff in them that adults found them funny as well. Gail was told that this wasn't true (or at least as true) for this one and that there was lots more potty humour, but we found it funny. There were references to other movies that kids wouldn't get ("Darn you! Darn you all to heck!"), and I didn't find that there was any more potty humour than any other similar movie -- there was a lot more of that in Shrek, and I loved that movie. Strangely, there were a couple of references in there that looked very Disney-like, though it wasn't a Disney movie. I did find the animation a little choppy, which I thought unusual for a big-budget not-straight-to-DVD movie.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner (because I love Chinese food and it was Father's Day), and watched Tarzan II, which Gail had rented. (Yes, in case you're wondering, having the kids watch two full movies in one day is atypical) Another pretty good movie, which the kids really enjoyed. George Carlin does one of the voices, and he's really good, as always. He even had a line where he talked about someone messing with "his stuff", a reference to one of his classic stand-up routines. The animation was much better than Madagascar as well -- Disney tends to do a great job on animation on the first movie (eg. Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan), and not so good on the animation of any sequels (#2 of any of the above), but this was an exception, as was Lion King 1 1/2.

Once the kids were in bed, Gail and I started watching Hitch, with Will Smith and Kevin James (confession: had to check IMDB cause I couldn't remember his name). He's the dude from King of Queens, which I have never watched, but he was very good in this movie. The dance sequence was classic ("Q-Tip, Q-Tip, Q-Tip, throw it away"). Pretty funny movie overall, though we have about 45 minutes left to watch. Will Smith is his usual smooooooth self - I really like him.