The Interview

I am not a fan of Seth Rogan comedies; The sophmoric, stoner, potty humor isn’t my style. I am not a fan of James Franco either; I just don’t understand the hype.
It is unlikely I would have chosen to watch The Interview without the surounding hubbub or if it involved paying money. Since Netflix picked up The Interview and suggested it as a popular on Netflix thing, H and I decided we should probably see what all the fuss was about.
The Interview is not a terrible movie. I didn’t hate it. Largely it was what I expected: drug jokes, gay jokes, sex jokes, basic stupidity being passed off as humor. Towards the end some over the top violence is tossed into for shock value.
I’ve read that what sets The Interview apart is its meta-narrative. It pokes fun at American infotainment journalism and the CIA and propaganda in general. I think that critique gives the movie too much credit. Those elements can be dredged out of the film and its use of the lowest of low comedy to appeal to a mass audience can also be seen as a stroke of brilliance. I think that is a happy accident.
If you are going to see The Interview see it soon before the central joke gets stale. If you decide to skip it, you are not missing much. Better yet, go see *Team America: World Police* instead.

Annie

Bug has been a obsessed with Annie for a few months. We took her to see a live performance in the fall and H plays the songs in the car all the time. When the new Annie movie opened, we knew Bug would see it.Last Saturday we decided to give Bug the choice of activities for the afternoon. She had been doing our choice for days and days. She choose to see Annie.It was playing at a bunch of theaters and it was out for a few weeks. We decided not to preorder tickets. The chances of a show being sold out was crazy low....
We got to the theater 30 minutes early and discovered that there were only two seat, that were not together, left for the showing we wanted.....
The Internet saved the day. I opened the Movies app on my phone found a nearby theater that had three, just three, tickets left that happened to be together. Not sure when theaters started using assigned seating... Crying averted.
The seats were spectacular. The theater was equipped with powered recliners. Our assigned seats were in the front row and the reclining made watching the movie doable. Bug was particularly thrilled. The seat wrapped her in cushy comfort.
The movie itself was a fine update. The music updates the original while maintaining a clear heritage. The new Annie was well acted. The star walked the fine line between upbeat and saccharin. The adult cast was passable. Cameron Diaz almost pulls off Ms. Hanagin as a basically good person. Jamie Fox is wooden. The poor adult acting doesn't really detract from the movie. Annie manages to carry the weight on her own.
The writing is bad. Jamie Fox's character, aside from his acting, is hard to believe. The new Ms. Hanigan character is also pretty poorly drawn. I never really bought her sudden change of heart. The only character who is well drawn is the villain. He is appropriately over the top.
On a personal note I did appreciate that the new Annie is African-American. It is nice to have a young, strong, positive role model for Bug.
Bug sat through the whole movie without much fidgeting and only one potty break. There was occasional quiet singing. After the movie she danced it out to the end credit songs. Since she has repeated some of the lines in the movie and talked about the story. When asked thumbs up or thumbs down, she responded thumbs up.

Annie is a nice movie for the kiddie crowd and not a terrible one for the adult crowd.