Movie: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

No person who thinks of him- or herself as a “maker” should miss Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which is loosely based on Judi and Ron Barrett’s eponymous 1972 children’s book. I don’t have kids, but I loved it, and this movie kind of made me want to have an adorable little nerdy maker-child, at least for a day, so I could watch it with her. The scene where Flint is curled up in a waste barrel, lamenting all his failed inventions (“Spray-on shoes!” “Ratbirds!”), while his relentlessly uncreative father looks on helplessly, is particularly choice.