Eye Candy #121 - "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Easily one of my favorite children’s books, about the town of Chewandswallow, where there are no grocery stores because food falls from the sky like the weather. And while the book never gives an explanation of the food/weather phenomenon, the film endeavors to explain how it all came to be. Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is an amateur inventor with many more misses than hits. In an effort to help feed the island of Swallow Falls, whose previous economy was based on sardines, he invents a machine that turns water molecules into food. Suddenly, food begins to fall from the sky, to the amazement of all and Swallow Falls becomes Chewandswallow, a tourist destination. But the gluttony of the fair folk of Chewandswallow overpowers the machine (particularly the machinations of the greedy mayor, played by Bruce Campbell), resulting in a destructive food storm system. So Flint, his friend, reporter Samantha (Anna Faris), his monkey Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), and rival Brent (Andy Samberg), have to stop the machine before it destroys Chewandswallow. James Caan, Mr. T, and Benjamin Bratt act in support. Some good laughs here, some of which were geared more towards the adult members of the audience (at one point Steve the monkey rips the “heart“ out of the chest of a killer gummi bear…I found this amusing). I liked Hader a lot and I think he and the animation suited one another, and Farris was fine in that good girl-next-door part she can now play with her eyes closed. Woodchuck sez, “Good stuff.”