Highly Anxious to Get Over the Hedge

So I’m sick as a dog. Wooooo! I picked up whatever Vicki had minus the vomit, so that part is good. The bad part is I’m at work. I’m hitting the Dayquil pretty heavily. So far so good.

I grabbed Over the Hedge for the girls this week. That was one that Stacy took them to, so I hadn’t seen it yet. I snuggled down with the girls and watched it Tuesday night. It was pretty good. Excellent animation, as I am accustomed to when it comes to DreamWorks. The great thing about the company that Shrek built is that they can afford top-notch voice actors. The cast was filled by A-listers to C-listers. As far as A-listers go, Bruce Willis got back to his Moonlighting roots as the wise-cracking con raccoon, RJ. Filling out the B-list was Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes and Nick Nolte. Shandling did a passable job as the straight man/turtle, Verne. Sykes was Sykes as the skunk with an attitude, Stella (has she ever done anything that is not just Sykes being Sykes?) I’m not a fan of Nolte, but his villainous bear, Vincent, was only on the screen for a few minutes. The C-list included William Shatner, Thomas Haden Church, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hara. Shatner did what he does best and lampooned himself as an opossum named Ozzie. His death scenes (and there were many) were subtle and nuanced as only a Shakespearean actor could deliver. Church played one of my favorite characters on the 90’s sitcom Wings, Lowell, the maintenance man. Here, he played a self-important graduate of VermTech, Dwayne, called in to rid the neighborhood of the harmless woodland creatures. Where I was exaggerating with Shatner, I am serious when I say that Church gave a subtle and nuanced performance. He apparently ad-libbed some of his funniest lines and peppered his dialog with humor. Levy and O’Hara played husband and wife porcupines, Lou and Penny. Their work is reminiscent of the old SCTV days (Canadian SNL for the uninitiated) and passably entertaining. The reason I left Carell for last should be obvious for anyone that has seen the movie. He is a show stealer. His hyperactive squirrel, Hammy, dominated every scene he was in for very good reason. Carell could possibly be my current favorite comedic actor. I look forward to his work on The Office every week, as should you!

I also finally watched the movie Jon got me for my birthday, High Anxiety, this week. Thanks, Jon! High Anxiety is standard Mel Brooks fare. I have not been a fan of him in starring roles of his own work in the past, but he pulled this one off. Brooks played a renowned psychiatrist with his own deep-seated psychosis taking over an asylum whose previous head had left in suspicious circumstances. It was made as an homage/parody of Alfred Hitchcock movies. I haven’t actually seen many of Hitchcock’s thrillers, but I recognized a lot of the references. The movie featured many of Brook’s recurring actors such as Hedy LaMar, I mean Hedley LaMar, I mean Harvey Korman, Frau Blucher, I mean Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, and Dick Van Patten to name a few. Korman and Leachman stole the show as the psychiatrist gunning for Brooks’ job and the dominatrix nurse behind his treachery respectively. It was good for a few laughs, which I needed as I lay in bed coughing my lungs out.