The Chubbchubbs!

Forgive me father for I have sinned, sort of.  On Friday morning my wife, my daughter and I all packed up and drove 500-600 miles to visit my sister and her family.  We stayed for the Memorial Day weekend and drove back on Monday.  For those 4 days I didn’t watch any DVDs.  I love my DVDs, and I have been enjoying this little project, but when I have to choose between watching a DVD or spending a couple of extra hours visiting with family that I’m lucky to get to see once or twice a year, family wins out hands down.  So for 4 days, I didn’t watch a DVD.  Today I’m playing catch up.  I have watched 4 DVDs for the days I skipped and after my eyes rest a little, I’m going back to watch today’s disc.  All four of the DVDs I watched today came from the great Illinois vacation.

First up is The Chubbchubbs!.  When I decided to catch up by watching five discs today, I began looking for some short films.  The Chubbchubbs! was a DVD I found at the Big Lots near my sister’s house.  I remembered The Chubbchubbs! being nominated for an Oscar a few years ago.  Turns out it won the Short Film (Animated) Oscar in 2002 and that the DVD was only 5 minutes and 27 seconds long.  It’s short, but boy does it pack a lot into those 5 and a half minutes. 

The CGI animation is fantastic; some of the best I have seen.  The story is cute as well.  A loser alien who works as a janitor at a popular bar called the Ale E Inn is mopping the floor while a female alien singing Aretha Franklin performs on stage.  One tipped mop bucket later, the poor little guy has nearly fried the singer.  He is fired and thrown out of the bar where a dying alien crawls up to warn him that the Chubbchubbs are coming.  When the little alien looks over the horizon, he notices a dust cloud with these armoured marauders quickly approaching.  The alien makes several attempts to warn the patrons of the bar, but they all turn out the same.  He ends up injuring the singer, stopping the show and getting tossed back out.  When someone else shows up and delivers the warning, the place clears out in an instant.  The little alien tries to leave too, but now he notices four little fluffy baby chicks.  He rushes back to save them and in the process is unable to leave before the marauders arrive.

The Chubbchubbs features a plethora of science fiction cameos in the animation.  The alien from Alien is sipping a drink, Yoda and Darth Vader are arm wrestling, Robbie the robot and the Lost In Space robot are dancing (what else) the robot.   Even ET and Jar Jar Binks manage to pop in for a quick gag.  The short was so good I had to call the wife back in to watch it.  She loved it as well.

The DVD is extremely bare bones.  Some trailers and the short and that’s it, but I’m still very happy with it.  The Chubbchubbs! gets a perfect 10 on the Night Flight scale.  If you don’t want to run out to Big Lots and pay $3 for a 5 minute DVD, I understand it is also available on the Surf’s Up DVD.

Surrogates

I forget which film I was watching when I first saw the trailer for Surrogates.  I think it may have been Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.  I watched the trailer and didn’t feel any great desire to rush out and see the film when it came out.  I wasn’t even aware that the DVD was out until I stumbled across it at Wills.  I figured it should be worth the $2.50, so I picked it up.  I still wasn’t planning to put it on the top of my DVD must view pile, but as I scanned my discs for a movie to watch on Saturday, I thought it might be fun to watch a major studio release from the last year since most of what I have discussed have been older films.  I flipped it over and saw a run time of 89 minutes and decided that was a sign.  I had to go to work later and 89 minutes would work out just perfect.

I had read that Surrogates was based on a comic book, but I wasn’t familiar with the series.  All I knew was what I had seen in that one trailer.  I put the disc in and fired it up.  The film opens with voice over and news footage.  Super imposed titles flash up time line information showing in reverse how we got to where we are in the today of the film.  Apparently humanity has been changing.  A company named VSI has released a product that is a robotic surrogate body for people to use.  The original intent was to help the disabled by providing a body that could walk if they were paralysed, or arms if they were missing their own.  As the prices dropped. the use of surrogates became more wide spread until most humans don’t even go outside of their house any longer, preferring to let their surrogates handle things for them.  And just like in Second Life or The Sims or even Warcraft, the surrogate you choose doesn’t have to look a thing like you.  It can be young or beautiful or of a different race or gender.  The best thing is, if your surrogate gets damaged or destroyed, you’ll be perfectly fine.  Just send it to the shop for repairs or buy a new one.  The problem comes when someone gets their hands on a top secret weapon that destroys the surrogate and the operator as well.

Bruce Willis is a FBI agent put on the case, who suddenly finds that there is more to the two strange deaths and that the target may have actually been someone else.  He is blocked in his investigation by the military, VSI and his own agency as well.  The movie plays out as a mystery set in the future.  It reminded me of Blade Runner meets I, Robot with a dash of Minority Report.  Bruce Willis is once again reliably entertaining as the agent looking for the truth as well as a way to deal with his personal life.  The film doesn’t try to pad any of the sub plots as it rockets along at breakneck speed.  Sometimes this is good because it prevents you from asking too many questions,  Other times it can cause you to get a little disoriented trying to remember which person is controlling which surrogate (or surrogates). 

The DVD has very little in the way of bonus features unless you want to watch a music video for a song that plays over the end titles.  The movie however is a pleasant little action diversion.  I give it 2 3/4 stars.