Angry Birds: A Dad's Review

Many of you parents of younger kids are probably thinking about taking them to see The Angry Birds Movie.

My kids were excited for it from the first trailers months ago, and quite frankly so was I. I played all the games on my iPhone. Plus I love animation and thought the visuals of the movie looked fun. As a writer, I thought creating a story around the games would be an interesting challenge that, done right could be a huge success.

As stated, that could have been the case.

We took the kids last night, and overall I have to admit I was disappointed. On a scale of 4 stars, I'd give it 2. There are moments where I really laughed, as did my wife. My two oldest kids, 9 and 5, thought it was hilarious. My youngest, who turned 4 that day became bored and restless by the halfway point. Let me state she's gone to and sat through a number of movies so it's not just her age or personality. It didn't capture her, for whatever reason.

I also found at numerous points, it wasn't capturing me. The story was boring and the plot weak. They shoehorned a number of cheap jokes as well as humor that was clearly intended for us parents (usually appreciated) that fell flat for me and went straight over my kids' heads.

The bigger issue for me was there were a number of bits throughout the movie that really skirted dangerously close to inappropriate. Listen, I'm no prude. Go check out my other Twitter feed for proof. As a dad I respect the line between what's okay for adults and what's ok for children. This was unquestionably packaged as a movie for kids. Some scenes made me uncomfortable. Why they felt the need to have pigs performing a "cowboy show" that would have been better suited for another Magic Mike sequel, I can't say. Even a scene featuring a mythic character dancing before a throng of screaming female birds in a leather Speedo and signing a character's chest was just out of place. The bird getting the chest autograph did turn out to be male, and more importantly, it went by quickly.

Without spoiling anything, I should mention the movie features one of the longer peeing gags I've seen in a movie. It's up there with Austin Powers and A League of Their Own. It's also a tad more graphic than those, where we thankfully only heard it. Then there's the realization that slowly sets in with both kids and parents alike of what we've just witnessed our main characters doing beforehand, and it's gross-out humor like I may have never seen in children's animation.

That said, yes, I laughed hysterically because sometimes I do have the mentality of a ten year-old. Again, I'm not a prude.

In the plus column, the big climactic battle between birds and pigs is extremely clever and well created. It's as close as seeing an Angry Birds game come to life as we may ever get, right down to how each bird flies and the way the buildings fall. I enjoyed that tremendously. Visually the entire movie is beautiful. The animation is superb. And as I said before there are many funny moments.

Sadly there are just as many unfunny attempts. As a movie, it was just mixed up. They even tried to impress with switching up animations styles and speeds a few times.  Perhaps that's the problem with this movie is they tried too hard to give us grown-up's a wink and nod, but forgot who their real target demographic should have been.  Maybe they were worried they had a weak premise (though in fairness they didn't, if done right) so they tried to distract and impress us. They should have focused harder on story. I didn't even find the main character Red to be all that angry. He was more of an outcast and an anti-hero. His big offense at the opening of the film is flimsy. Story always needs to be right above all, or flashy animation and funny gags won't be enough (says the writer.)    

So take it for what it's worth. Two out of four stars . . . or feathers. See what I did there?
I can only speak for my own feelings as a parent, and at times I was glad my kids are still innocent enough that they didn't get a few jokes. Although I remember being 9 and I suspect my son got more than he let on. Which as a parent makes me a bit annoyed with the studio, Columbia Pictures. They'll never compete with animation kings like Disney and DreamWorks or even Sony, or Illumination, whose Despicable Me franchise is setting the bar for how to combine offbeat animation with good stories by giving us offerings like this.

I'm going to recommend just renting this one. Actually, when it comes to the kids, I'd just download the game and let them play for a while.


p.s. Lest we forget . . .

Birthday Girl

Wednesday is our youngest child, Macy’s birthday. She’ll be four. We already had a party –her sister Maya is only 14 months older, to the day. I’m starting to feel guilty that we aren’t really doing anything additional. Although we’ve left most of the decorations up and I’m sure we’ll get a cake or something. The question will be, will she remember she already got her present from us? It’s amazing how quickly they can forget little things like me saying “if we give you your present now, that’s it. Are you okay with that?”

Guess what. She said she was. Of course she did. She’s 3. She knew it was her very own tablet. Of course she said yes.

Truth be told, it’s very likely we’ll have a few little things for her on Wednesday just so it feels like a birthday. I like giving my kids things. Crazy, I know. Sure, I worry about raising spoiled children who don’t appreciate hard work (which is a dumb phrase anyway - I don’t appreciate it -I just know I have to do it every day or we’ll lose the house) and the value of money.

Honestly, I don’t worry about Macy so much. She’s a very sweet, appreciative kid. Those other two . . . well, let’s keep talking about Macy.

If you’ve kept up with this blog thus far, it’s not hard to use simple math and a little deductive reasoning to determine that she was what they call “a surprise.”  One that floored my wife and me. We had such a hard time even having one, that when we were fortunate enough to have two, we said we were through.

As John Lennon said, life is what happens when you’re making other plans. One winter’s eve, we were watching television after the kids were in bed, and my wife casually mentioned she’d gotten dizzy at work and almost fell down. She said she’d made a doctor’s appointment just to be safe. I asked her at the time, “you don’t think you’re pregnant . . . do you?” I should mention that a month or so before, I’d gone in for a procedure to shutter the baby-making business for good.

So of course my wife answered “no, of course not!”

Turns out, yep, of course so! Apparently the doctor said with a chuckle “hey, let’s do a pregnancy test just to rule that out.” Nope. Problem solved. Cause found. Bun placed squarely in oven.  My wife says she cried for ten minutes when she got the news – not because she didn’t want another baby – just that, we were already exhausted. We didn’t start having them until our 30’s and now we were both nearly in our 40’s. We already felt too tired for the ones we had. She called me and it was as if she was speaking in a dead or alien language. I couldn’t comprehend the word pregnant.

After doing a few laps around my office building, I called her back and said everything would be fine. We’d figure it out. We’d make room for three. After all, I told her I loved having kids (which I did and do) and would be happy to have three, four, even five if I felt we were financially sound enough for it. We weren’t of course. We’re still not. But screw it, you find a way.

Macy’s arrival was a bit turbulent. They scheduled an induction. We checked-in at the hospital early and we were there all day, and into the night. Nothing was happening. She didn’t want to come out. Then things went south. Our doctor, Vernon, said the baby’s heart rate was dropping . . . and cue the chaos.

One nurse pushed me back and the rest began yanking chords and plugs out of the wall and in a matter of seconds, my wife, the bed, and all those electronics were gone. I was standing in an empty delivery room with just one machine making an insane, screeching beep.

In his book A Pirate Looks at Fifty, Jimmy Buffett wrote “remember that it can all go to hell in an instant.” In that moment, I got it. Every “what if” scenario races through your head. I tried to tell myself “they do this all the time.” That didn’t make it any less scary. Just as the fact women give birth every day doesn’t make it any less miraculous and amazing. In the moment, I was terrified. I couldn't imagine losing either or both of them.

At first they told me I couldn’t go. It was an emergency C section and I had to stay put. Then a minute later a nurse returned with some scrubs and said they would let me in with her, and to put them on. The scrubs were medium. You may not know this, but I’m a big boy. I can’t get my thigh in a medium. I tried to put the shirt on and looked like Chris Farley doing “fat guy in a little coat.”

Someone scurried off to get my size from the tent and awning company down the road. They finally brought me my plus-sized scrubs and we raced down the corridor. As I finally entered, our doctor was leaving and he congratulated me on a beautiful (they have to say that – the thing is covered in strawberry jelly and crazy glue-like material) baby girl and off he went. My wife was shivering and overwhelmed, but she was okay too.

While her entry into the world was full of surprise and terror, Macy was the greatest baby. Although she did not like me the first month of her life. For a few weeks I couldn’t pick her up, feed her, or anything of the kind, without her having a full DEFCON 4 meltdown. An act of Mother Nature brought us closer together – I’ll tell that story another time. Now she’s the sweetest child, and has a face befitting the angel that she is. Most of the time. She loves to help others, make people laugh, and give and share freely. She’s been the greatest “surprise” of both of our lives.

So I’m happy to spoil her with an extra gift this year!

For the love of . . . just eat a green bean!!!

How do parents get kids that eat healthy?

Notice I didn’t say “raise” or “get them to” eat healthy. I think if your kid loves spinach, broccoli, or even green beans after the age of 4, you hit the kid lotto. We tried. We fed all of our kids nothing but fruits and veggies when they were babies. We weren’t going to make the “same mistakes” our parents made of feeding us junk.

In fairness I was raised on junk because it was cheap. That was the early 80’s. We ate a lot of frozen fish sticks because I guess they were cheap. Mom would make a big pot of chili with little noodles in it and that would last us days. And there were nights she went to bed without dinner to make sure we ate enough. I also recall bricks of unmarked cheese. Sad thing is, the “we eat bad because it’s cheap” excuse is still true and the same reason so much of our country is out of shape and sick all the time. But I’m so not the guy to get off on that rant.

Our son used to love green beans. I mean hard! He would inhale them. Del Monte were his label of choice. Cooked or cold out of the can, didn’t matter. They were like Reese’s Pieces to him as a baby through age 2 or 3. Then something happened. Almost overnight, he just decided that was it. He’d fulfilled his green bean obligation to us. Now they’re repellent to the boy. He’s similar to Buddy the Elf now in that he only has a couple food groups, and one of them requires syrup. Otherwise it’s hot dogs (which we have more or less put the kibosh on because, come on), chicken nuggets, and pizza. That was it for years.

Recently he’s added cheeseburgers (but only plain – meat and cheese) and steak. Even steak was a battle. “It’s the same thing,” I’d explain, “just different, and may I add tastier formatting.” By the way, I apologize in advance to any vegetarians or vegans who happen upon this. I admire your resolve, but I’m a big hairy carnivore, as are my young.   

All three of my kids are picky eaters. I never realized how frustrating it is. We try not to give in but there are nights just to avoid arguments I find myself cooking (and by cooking, I mean microwaving or boiling water for) three different meals. Breakfast is the worst. The only thing they’ll agree on is bacon. Go figure. Many days the extensive breakfast buffet I will lay out looks like this:

Just feel the high fructose corn syrup seeping through you, let it envelop you!

I admit I’m not the best role model. I love junk food. I’ve committed to really working on it, for my weight but also to try to be more of a role model. Maybe I need one of those books like Jerry Seinfeld’s wife wrote (or stole, allegedly) about disguising healthy food as junk food. We did try giving the kids mashed cauliflower as mashed potatoes. Didn’t work. What can I say? I make smart kids.

Although I might make a better example if I didn’t make videos like this!