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Ferngully, a spectacular rainforest where a bat named batty, whose radar has gone haywire, joins together with Crysta, Pips and the Beetle Boys to save their world from the evil Hexxus. Ignoring the warnings of her friends, Crysta, the curious tree fairy, explores the world beyond Ferngully. She discovers Zak, a human who is helping to demolish the rainforest. Once Zak sees the beauty and magic of Ferngully, he vows to save it. But it may be too late. The diabolical Hexxus is on the loose and is intent on destroying all of Ferngully.
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Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
Iron Giant, The (Animation,Drama,Family,Sci-Fi)
It came from outer space!
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"Iron Giant" is based upon the 1968 story,'Iron Man,' by the British poet laureate Ted Hughes. The film is about a giant metal machine that drops from the sky and frightens a small town in Maine in 1958, only to find a friend named, Hogarth, that ultimately finds its humanity and saving the towns people of their fears and prejudices.
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Garfield (Animation,Comedy,Family)
coming to theatres 2004... whenever he wants
Get ready for frisky business
Hits The Big Screen On June 11... Whenever He Wants
It ain't the Cat in the Hat.
It's all about me-ow!
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Meet Garfield. One of life's greatest answers to the fattest cat in the world. All he does all day long is sleep, watch TV and eat lasagna. But things change for the fat cat when his faithful owner, Jon Arbuckle (Brecken Meyer) brings home a new rival for Garfield - a dog named Odie. Garfield opposes his new puppy rival until Odie runs away and is picked up by a nasty dog trainer, Happy Chapman. Now it's up to Garfield to finally leave his precious 'cul-de sac' and go on a daring rescue mission to rescue his opponent before its too late!
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I don't watch a lot of television, because if you spend all your time on the couch you could become the cat equivalent of a couch potato, which would be one of those pillows with the crocheted message, "If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here with me." I have kneaded and muzzled such pillows so many times I even know the author of the quotation: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who on the basis of this pillow must certainly have been a cat lover.
But I confess I watched "Ebert & Roeper" on TV when they reviewed my first movie, "Garfield," two years ago. I was eager to get my first review. Having spent years within the cramped panels of a newspaper comic strip, I gloried in the freedom of the cinema. It allowed me to show off my body language: My languorous stretches, my graceful pirouettes, my daring leaps and bounds, my shameless affection for my owner, Jon (Breckin Meyer).
There will be malcontents who claim I am not the real author of this review, because how could a cat know that after you mention a character in a movie, you include the name of the actor in parentheses? Do these people believe a cat lives in a vacuum? I read all the movie reviews, especially those of Ebert, a graceful and witty prose stylist with profound erudition, whose reviews are worth reading just for themselves, whether or not I have any intention of viewing the movie. I need to read movie reviews because Jon watches DVDs all the time and likes to have me within petting distance, and I need advance warning about movies I will want to avoid, so I can slink off for a snooze under the sofa. Last night, for example, he watched "Cat People" -- which, judging by the soundtrack, had no cats in it.
But I digress. Ebert, the smart and handsome one, gave thumbs up to my first movie, but Roeper, the other one, gave thumbs down and was particularly unkind. He went on forever attacking Ebert for liking "Garfield." This from a man with enough taste to praise "Duma." How very disappointing. One of Roeper's complaints was that I was animated and all of the other characters in the movie were "real." Do you have any idea how a statement like that hurts an actor who has worked all of his life as a media cat? Yes, Richard Roeper, I was animated. Read my lips: I am a character in a comic strip. What Roeper should have done for perfect consistency is complain that Dennis was not animated in "Dennis the Menace."
But forget his review of "Garfield." No use mewling over spilt milk. This week, my new movie comes out, inspired (I am happy to report) by the gratifying box-office success of the previous one. "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties" is my most ambitious work to date, starring me in a dual role as (ahem) Garfield and also as a British cat named Prince. As in the first movie, I do Bill Murray's voice while playing myself. In my role as Prince, I do the voice of Tim Curry, an actor I have admired ever since Jon took me to a drive-in to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" while he smoked human catnip.
I physically perform both roles, which as any cat knows, is easier for a cat than a human, because we are always playing multiple roles, such as looking gratefully toward humans while shooting daggers at dogs. I love the scene where they use visual effects to show both cats at the same time, in a kind of mirror scene inspired by the Marx Brothers.
"Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties" is actually funnier and more charming than the first film. The plot contrives to get me to England in the suitcase of my master, who has flown over to propose to his girlfriend, Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who is attending a conference on animals at Castle Carlyle, which Prince has just inherited from the late Lady Eleanor, a cat lover. With intelligent estate planning, I'm sure we'd see a gratifying rise in the numbers of home-owning cats.
Anyway, Prince is dumped in the river by the unspeakably vile Lord Dargis (Billy Connolly), Lady Eleanor's nephew, who will inherit the castle when Prince dies. He is washed through the sewer systems into London, where he gets his first taste of pub life, while meanwhile I arrive at Castle Carlyle and am mistaken for Prince by the barnyard animals. These are all real animals, and good actors, too; they do the voices of such actors as Bob Hoskins, Richard E. Grant, Jane Horrocks and Rhys Ifans.
That all of these animals can talk goes without saying. No doubt some carpers in the chat rooms will observe that Jon's other pet, a dog, does not speak but only barks. I could give you the name of Jon's dog, but (yawn) frankly I can't be bothered. In this movie, Jon's dog may not be able to speak but can apparently read, which was as much of a surprise to me as to everyone else. Dogs, in my experience, have hyperactivity disorders that prevent them from concentrating on reading, because they are compelled to leap up in a frenzy and bark at every moving object. Some dogs do this to frighten, but most do it as a pathetic attempt to draw attention to themselves.
In any event, my career as a movie star now seems to be the real thing, and I am speaking with my agents about a third Garfield movie, in which I would like my character to be based on Casanova or Neil Armstrong, with a score by Josie and the Pussycats. Whether I get "thumbs up" from Richard Roeper is a matter of profound indifference to me. Profound. (yawn) Really, seriously, pro ...Download here
Monster House (Animation,Comedy,Family,Fantasy,Mystery)
A living, breathing, nightmare of a house!
There Goes The Neighborhood.
This Summer......Cross Over to the Other Side........Of the Street.
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The teenage DJ is observing his neighbor Nebbercracker on the other side of their street in the suburb that destroys tricycles of children that trespass his lawn. When DJ's parents travel on the eve of Halloween and the abusive nanny Zee stays with him, he calls his clumsy best friend Chowder to play basketball. But when the ball falls in Nebbercracker's lawn, the old man has a siege, and sooner they find that the house is a monster. Later the boys rescue the smart Jenny from the house and the trio unsuccessfully tries to convince the babysitter, her boyfriend Bones and two police officers that the haunted house is a monster, but nobody believes on them. The teenagers ask their video-game addicted acquaintance Skull how to destroy the house, and they disclose its secret on the Halloween night.
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In a year when the Academy Award nominations are more diverse and international than ever before, it's anyone's guess who will win best picture. "Dreamgirls" garnered more nominations than any other movie, but was passed over for both picture and director.
But there are four categories that can be predicted with certainty -- best actress: Helen Mirren; supporting actress: Jennifer Hudson; best actor: Forest Whitaker, and supporting actor: Eddie Murphy. They have won almost every award, including the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Golden Globes. If any one of them doesn't snag the Oscar at the Feb. 25 ceremony, it will be an upset.
BEST ACTOR
The world of the Academy Awards seems universally convinced that Forest Whitaker will take home an Oscar for "The Last King of Scotland." It would be well deserved, not only because Whitaker has a solid body of good acting behind him over the years, but because Oscar voters love it when actors remove themselves from the typecasting game and play a totally original character. Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator in "The Last King of Scotland," is such a character. Whitaker's performance somehow combines Amin's blend of cruelty and jovial good fellowship in the portrait of an extroverted madman.
Whitaker will win the Oscar, although there are strong contenders, including Will Smith in an affecting role as a homeless dad determined to raise his son in "The Pursuit of Happyness"; Ryan Gosling as a crack-smoking but well-meaning junior high school teacher in "Half Nelson," and Leonardo DiCaprio as a mercenary Rhodesian diamond smuggler in "Blood Diamond."
Oh, and I left for last the sentimental favorite: Peter O'Toole in "Venus." What a one-of-a-kind performance from this actor, whose work always finds a new place to start from. Playing an aging, decrepit, broken-down actor relegated to mostly corpse roles, his character stumbles into an unlikely love affair with a troubled young woman, and finds it is too much a test for his frayed libido. In generous close-ups and sad, weary monologues, he shares with her what he knows about life, which he has apparently found mostly in barrooms and Shakespeare. O'Toole is such an interesting actor, who seems to know so much more than he tells, or dares to tell. He got an honorary Oscar in 2003, but has never won a "real" one.
Still, it is Whitaker's performance that will bring home the Oscar gold. I have especially great affection for O'Toole's work here, so I'll split my ballet, with affection on both sides.
Prediction: Forest Whitaker
Preference: Peter O'Toole
SUPPORTING ACTOR
The classic path to a Hollywood comeback is for a fading major star to find a great supporting role and work it for all it's worth. I predict that formula will win an Oscar for Eddie Murphy. Not many years after standing atop the box-office charts, Murphy became the victim of too many ego-generated projects and the enterprises of cronies.
Now, in Bill Condon's "Dreamgirls," Murphy forces Hollywood to take another long look at him. Bursting with what seems like fresh new talent, he plays James "Thunder" Early, a Motown star as a combination of James Brown and Jackie Wilson. Early gives a soul trio (think the Supremes) its start in show biz while fighting to preserve his own career. He's slick, extroverted, brimming with an inner joy (even in the sad scenes) because both he and his character know how good they are.
It would be an upset if anyone else wins this category. Yes, all four are worthy nominees -- (the most fun comes from veteran actor Alan Arkin as the earthy, foul-mouthed grandfather of a dysfunctional family in "Little Miss Sunshine"). Mark Wahlberg is compulsively watchable as a motormouth cop in the Scorsese film "The Departed." Jackie Earle Haley ventures far from earlier roles to play a pedophile in "Little Children" -- one of the least likable characters in recent movies. And Djimon Hounsou's portrayal of a proud, small-town fisherman in "Blood Diamond" is genuinely moving as he fights to regain his son from the reaches of a corrupt regime.
But Eddie Murphy wins the category, deserves to, and will be back in starring roles unless he continues to choose unfunny comedies done just for the money.
Prediction: Eddie Murphy
Preference: Eddie Murphy
BEST ACTRESS
In movies where a famous character is being portrayed, there is always the dramatic "reveal" moment when we see ... why, that's Warren Beatty! This moment will inspire reams of disposable prose about how much the performer playing the famous character does or does not resemble its real-life counterpart. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, and most of the time it makes no difference to the success of the film."The Queen" is a movie in which Helen Mirren, a British actress of limitless skills, often seen as a very ordinary person, plays the Queen of England. The "reveal" is boldly stunning -- not a coy glance over a shoulder, but a straight-on head shot. She levels a steady gaze at the camera. It contains a vast self-confidence that she truly and deeply takes very seriously her role and responsibilities. It is the best performance by any actress this year and deserves the Academy Award. It embodies all of the ways in which she tells us who this queen is, and why she is so stubborn about holding the line against a state funeral for Princess Diana.There are four other notable nominated performances by actresses this year. Penelope Cruz embodied joy and fancy as a high-spirited woman who inherits the ghost of her own mother in "Volver." Judi Dench always great, doesn't disappoint as the ruthless and sly schoolmistress who discovers a new colleague is having an affair with a young boy -- and uses that information to advance her own erotic ambitions -- in "Notes on a Scandal." Meryl Streep was superb as a fashion editor of great ego and heartless ambition, whose career depends on cutthroat rivalry in "The Devil Wears Prada." And Kate Winslet gives an erotic performance as one of a group of suburbanites whose lives are played out in the playgrounds and bedrooms of their less than satisfied existences in "Little Children."All good movies, powerfully acted. One of the strongest actress categories in years. All deserving of the Oscar. But I will not soon forget Mirren's sober conviction that she and no one else is the Queen of England, and don't you forget it!Prediction: Helen MirrenPreference: Helen Mirren
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
It's not often that a movie audience breaks into spontaneous applause, but you're likely to hear it after Jennifer Hudson's solo in "Dreamgirls," and there's no doubt the audience is sincere. Jamie Foxx plays a music impresario loosely based on Berry Gordy Jr., explaining to Hudson's character, Effie White, why they are breaking up personally and professionally. Effie sees this not as a matter of business but of the heart. "And I'm telling you ... I'm not going!" she sings, in a broadside of talent and feeling and emotion. That moment isn't the only reason she'll win as best supporting actress, but it's a good one.Hudson's story is the kind beloved by movie audiences -- how she was voted off "American Idol" and now seems on the brink of an Oscar. And it's the kind of performance movies like this need to anchor its show-biz familiarities.Also nominated: Cate Blanchett, ethereal in her role of a teacher having an affair with her young student; Abigail Breslin as a smart, irrepressible offspring of a dysfunctional family in "Little Miss Sunshine" (she has her emotional hooks into everybody); Rinko Kikuchi, as a deaf grieving teenager in "Babel" whose life becomes a target in her world, and Adriana Barraza as the Mexican maid who becomes the victim of a border guard while returning from her son's wedding in "Babel." These latter two characters symbolize the way no one in "Babel" really seems to communicate. Hudson's character doesn't communicate very well with the others in her rags-to-riches story of three girls who become overnight singing stars in the 1960s. Maybe that's because she speaks with honesty and openness, and doesn't understand their lingo of ambition and career shortcuts. Not since Barbra Streisand's show-stopper "Don't Rain on My Parade" in "Funny Girl" has an actress brought a movie to a sudden, shuddering halt of emotion and applause. But Hudson does, showing the kind of talent she must have been born with.Prediction: Jennifer HudsonPreference: Jennifer Hudson
BEST FOREIGN FILM
I've seen four of the five foreign film nominations this year and they are so gloriously diverse, hold such promise for the future that you could do worse than starting your Oscar viewing here. I'm predicting that Mexico's submission, Guillermo del Toro's brilliant "Pan's Labyrinth" will win this category -- not least because it is probably the most widely seen. The political fable of a young girl drifting between emotional times at home and a scary forest wonderland amidst the backdrop of Spanish fascism and war, it crosses the visual fancies of comic books, video games and graphic novels, combining them in a work stirred up from the depths of his soul.Consider also the other nominees, including Algeria's "Days of Glory" by Rachid Bouchareb. It involves young North Africans, mostly Algerians, who are required to leave home and family and fight for their French "homeland." After the war, their sacrifice is completely forgotten. Consider, too, Canada's submission, Deepa Mehta's "Water," the heartbreaking story of young brides, already widows, who are expected to live the remainder of their lives in solitude and involuntary labor. And also nominated from Germany is "The Lives of Others" by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Using long-secret files of the Stasi, the East German secret police, it shows lives being methodically destroyed by a sadistic bureaucracy.All four of the films I've seen (I have not seen "After the Wedding" from Denmark) are serious, focused, take their mission seriously. Any of them would be a worthy nominee. To choose one is not to choose against the others. But "Pan's Labyrinth" is fresh and innovative, and was rumored to be in the running for a best picture nomination. It is the one to beat.Prediction: "Pan's Labyrinth"Preference: "Pan's Labyrinth"
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
A dark, scary, visually inventive sleeper named "Monster House" came out of nowhere to become an artistic success. But it has no chance to win the Oscar ahead of "Cars," a bright and cheery story with a little something profound lurking around the edges. This Disney/Pixar production is smart in the way that its 1951 Hudson Hornet manages to look simultaneously like itself and Paul Newman. And I suspect the academy voters will agree with the picture's nostalgic look at the simplicity of the "good old days."Neither will "Monster House" win over another real sleeper, the unexpected "Happy Feet," which audiences loved for its heart and sentiment, not to mention its music and dancing penguins. Nevertheless, I don't predict these little penguins will waddle right up to the Oscar like "March of the Penguins" last year. I predict that the more mellow "Cars" will take home the gold. But I wish more people had seen "Monster House," the story of a group of children mesmerized by a seemingly intelligent haunted house.Prediction: "Cars"Preference: "Monster House"
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Screenplays are the mysterious engines that lurk beneath a movie, often much edited, sometimes rewritten beyond recognition. But the general rule is, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the screen. I haven't read one of the actual screenplays of any of the nominees, but how many Oscar voters will have? Nonetheless, that doesn't prevent me from predicting that Guillermo Arriaga's work for "Babel" will win this category. It will win in part because it generated the best movie, and in part because its great complexity and ingenuity takes on a dread fascination.Of the other nominees, isn't it a shame that the Academy Awards make no distinction between drama and comedy? Michael Arndt's work on "Little Miss Sunshine" uses inspired casting and Arndt's rapid-fire dialogue to create a comic gem. It's a story of a dysfunctional family driving cross-country to enter its beloved daughter in a beauty pageant. It has a lot of heart and soul, and is very funny. It deserves to compete in a separate category. Peter Morgan's "The Queen" not so much creates but evokes a convincing Queen Elizabeth. Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of the most original fantasies since Grimm's Fairy Tales. Iris Yamashita's "Letters From Iwo Jima" hauntingly humanizes the Japanese soldiers fighting in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and shows the chilling realism of that war.But the academy will honor "Babel," not only because of its complex achievement, but also because of the thought and care that went into it.Prediction: "Babel"Preference: "Babel"
BEST DIRECTOR
I reviewed Martin Scorsese's first film in 1968, something I never tire of reminding patient readers. In the review, I predicted, essentially, that he would stand astride the film world in, oh, say, 10 years. And so he did. But where is the recognition? Where is the Oscar after 39 years?America's greatest director has been passed over time and again for the Academy Award. This time, with his popular "The Departed," I have a feeling he will finally win his golden trophy. It is only a feeling, an instinct, but let's see if I'm right. The movie returns to Scorsese's favorite subject, gangsters in America, and once again stars some of the most colorful of American actors, led by Jack Nicholson. And in its story of double identities, it is surprisingly entertaining. I admired all the other nominees, not least Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel." The mercurial young director moves far outside genre to portray a world where terrorism criss-crosses with crime and ordinary lives. I also admired Stephen Frears' "The Queen," with Helen Mirren's haunting portrait of Queen Elizabeth; Paul Greengrass' uncanny realism in "United 93 (which deserved the comparisons with a documentary), and Clint Eastwood's visionary, incredibly ambitious war drama, "Letters From Iwo Jima," which considered the bloody struggle from the Japanese point of view.But Eastwood has won twice in recent years, the others are less familiar to Oscar voters, and Scorsese's time has come around at last. And, to cement this, he recently won the Director's Guild Award. Prediction: Martin ScorsesePreference: For reasons of tact, I prefer not to reveal my preference.
BEST PICTURE
Five films more different in style, subject and form would be hard to imagine, but here they are, the nominees for best picture. The daring, original "Babel" is thought to be the frontrunner, and I think deserves to be, but each of these movies is excellent in its own way. Rumor has it that "Little Miss Sunshine" is poised to be an upset winner, and in fact it won an ensemble SAG Award.Martin Scorsese has made better films than "The Departed," but then he has never made a bad film. The prospect of a great young director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, winning his first Oscar is matched by the possibility that Scorsese will win a much-delayed one. With the loss of Robert Altman, is any active director more senior and better than Clint Eastwood? And what a pure, stark war movie he has made in "Letters From Iwo Jima." His conception is so original -- two movies (the other is "Flags of Our Fathers"), one in English, one in Japanese. Both considering the same battle, both detached, low-key, lacking in action cliches. No movie is harder to make, in a technical sense, than a comedy. But what a priceless one Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have made in "Little Miss Sunshine." It has this combination of the transgressive and the risk-taking of this particular American genre, with Alan Arkin leading the parade as a vulgar but family-loving grandpa.And what an achievement from Stephen Frears in "The Queen," where Helen Mirren bares everything in an original closeup that asserts she "is" the Queen, not an imitator, but an embodiment.And yet Oscar voters often prefer serious, big-themed subjects of the kind seen in "Babel," a powerful group of international stories in which the secret human connections only gradually unfold. But the big upset could be "Little Miss Sunshine" because it touched something deep in the American psyche, and had people identifying with this odd family who pulls together when it matters the most.Prediction: "Babel"Preference: "Babel"
BONUS CATEGORY: BEST DOCUMENTARY
I have only once in my almost 40 years as a film critic written these words: "You owe it to yourself to see this film." That was the power of Al Gore's movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." My review was divorced from politics or political leanings. It reflected the truth as I understood it, that global warming is real, and is partly caused by human activity. That view has just been ratified in a recent meeting of scientists. But aside from the content, the movie is well done cinematically. The other nominees: "Deliver Us From Evil," "Iraq in Fragments," "Jesus Camp" and "My Country, My Country."Download here
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (Action,Adventure,Animation,Comedy,Family,Fantasy)
How do they solve a mystery when they don't have a clue?
Real life has never been so animated
The biggest animated adventure ever to hit real life
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Fed up with all the attention going to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck quits Hollywood, teams up with recently-fired stuntman Damien Drake Jr.(Fraser) and embarks on a round-the-world adventure, along with Bugs and The VP of Warner Bros (Elfman). Their mission? Find Damien's father, and the missing blue diamond... and stay one step ahead of The Acme Corp., who wants the diamond for thier own purposes.
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As "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" opens, Daffy Duck is in a heated salary dispute with Warner Bros. For years Bugs Bunny has been pulling down the big bucks, and now, as they prepare to co-star in another movie, Daffy is fed up. He wants equal pay for equal work. But Kate (Jenna Elfman), the studio VP in charge of animated characters, won't budge. She cites demographic studies that indicate Daffy's fan base "is limited to angry fat guys in basements." Daffy throws a tantrum, and Kate orders a security guard (Brendan Fraser) to throw him off the lot.I don't mind telling you my sympathies were entirely with Daffy in this scene. Let me tell you a personal story involving Daffy Duck, which also takes place on the Warners lot. I quote from an interview I did with Albert Brooks in 1991, when his new movie "Defending Your Life" was about to be released.As I was getting up to leave his office, Brooks said, "Look at these funny coffee mugs the studio sent over."He had four or five of them on a shelf, cups shaped like the Warners cartoon heroes."Here," he said. "Have one. I want you to have one."He pressed Elmer Fudd into my hands."No, that's OK," I said."Take one. What is this, a bribe? They're worth 10 cents apiece; 25 cents, tops.""You know," I said, looking at the shelf, "I've never really been a fan of Elmer Fudd. My hero has always been Daffy Duck."Brooks took the Daffy Duck mug from the shelf."Here, take it," he said. "I want you to have it. Really."I could tell from the subtle intonation in his voice exactly what had happened. He had given me Elmer Fudd because he didn't like Elmer Fudd, either. He liked Daffy Duck. I had taken his favorite mug."No, you keep Daffy," I said. "I'll bet it's your favorite.""Come on, come on," he said. "Take Daffy Duck. Take the one you want."I tried to put Daffy back on the shelf. He pressed Daffy into my hands. I left with Daffy, but I would have bet a hundred bucks that the moment I was out of his office, Brooks had his secretary call Warners to see if they could send another Daffy Duck over.And so now we are back in the present, and my eyes lift up from this review and regard the very same Daffy Duck coffee mug, which has pride of place in my office. And I reflect that while things always came easily for Bugs, Daffy had to fight every inch of the way. Bugs was insouciant. Daffy was outraged. Bugs was always a step ahead. Daffy was always a step behind.In "Looney Tunes: Back in Action," Daffy walks out of the meeting, and it doesn't take Kate and Bugs long to realize that without a foil the bunny is just spinning his paws. The security guard, whose name is D.J. Drake, and who is the twin brother of the egotistical Brendan Fraser, joins them in following Daffy to Vegas, where they get into trouble with the Acme megacorporation run by Steve Martin, discover Drake's dad is a secret agent (Timothy Dalton), and encounter the new Q (Joan Cusack) and a lot of amazing new inventions. With the same kind of anarchic temporal and spatial logic that always inspired the Warners cartoons, the animals are soon in Paris and jumping into paintings in the Louvre. You can imagine the characters in a painting by Dali, and maybe even in Seurat's pointillist style, but in Munch's "The Scream"? You have to see that for yourself. This segment is possibly a tribute to the late, beloved Chuck Jones, who liked to plunge his cartoon characters into high art.A whole gallery of cartoon stars eventually get involved, including Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, Tweety Bird and Speedy Gonzalez, who may be seen in some circles as Politically Incorrect, but seems quite Correct to himself, thank you. How the action ends up in earth orbit I will leave you to discover.The director is Joe Dante, whose segment of "Twilight Zone" (1983) involved a traveler who unwisely entered a house where the reality was warped by a kid's obsession with cartoon characters. Again this time, he combines live action with animation, in a film not as inspired as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" but in the same spirit. It's goofy fun. Or maybe we should make that daffy fun.Download here
Aladdin (Animation,Comedy,Family,Fantasy,Musical)
Imagine if you had three wishes, three hopes, three dreams and they all could come true.
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Aladdin is a street-urchin who lives in a large and busy town long ago with his faithful monkey friend Abu. When Princess Jasmine gets tired of being forced to remain in the palace that overlooks the city, she sneaks out to the marketplace, where she accidentally meets Aladdin. Under the orders of the evil Jafar (the sultan's advisor), Aladdin is thrown in jail and becomes caught up in Jafar's plot to rule the land with the aid of a mysterious lamp. Legend has it that only a person who is a "diamond in the rough" can retrieve the lamp from the Cave of Wonders. Aladdin might fight that description, but that's not enough to marry the princess, who must (by law) marry a prince.
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Robin Williams and animation were born for one another, and in "Aladdin" they finally meet. Williams' speed of comic invention has always been too fast for flesh and blood; the way he flashes in and out of characters can be dizzying. In Disney's new animated film "Aladdin," he's liberated at last, playing a genie who has complete freedom over his form - who can instantly be anybody or anything.The genie is the best thing in the movie, which is good fun but not on a par with "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast," the two films with which Disney essentially gave rebirth to featurelength animation. The weakness of the film is in its leads, a street urchin named Aladdin and a sultan's daughter, Jasmine. As a romantic couple, they're pale and routine, especially compared to the chemistry between beast and the beauty. They look unformed, as if even the filmmakers didn't see them as real individuals.All of the film's best moments come from the genie and the other supporting characters, which include a plump little sultan, his scheming vizier, an angry parrot named Iago, a chattering monkey, a friendly flying carpet, and even a magic cave that turns into a fearsome face so that Aladdin has to venture down its throat.Ever since Jiminy Cricket first danced onto the screen, Disney animators have created entertaining supporting casts, and the magic carpet is one of the most ingenious: with only tassels and body language to work with, it somehow possesses a complete personality, whisking Aladdin and Abu, his monkey, on terrifying swoops around the kingdom.But it's the genie who stops the show, and I would like to know which came first, the pictures or the words, because Williams sounds like he's improvising as he careens from one character to another: from Ed Sullivan to Elvis to Arsenio Hall to a tailor to a Scottish terrier. There is genuine exhilaration in these passages.The plot is basic fairy tale. The sultan informs his daughter that she has three days in which to get married (fathers are always providing fearsome deadlines to their daughters in these stories). Distraught, she flees from the palace and encounters Aladdin, who knows his way around the streets and alleys of the city, and enchants her with his cheerful ways.Meanwhile, the evil adviser schemes to marry the princess and become the sultan - not difficult, since the sultan falls under his spell and doesn't seem too alert at the best of times. Meanwhile, Aladdin explores the magic cave, finds a lantern, rubs it and unleashes the Robin Williams scenes, which are so captivating we almost forget about the rest.One distraction during the film was its odd use of ethnic stereo types. Most of the Arab characters have exaggerated facial characteristics - hooked noses, glowering brows, thick lips - but Aladdin and the princess look like white American teenagers. Wouldn't it be reasonable that if all the char acters in this movie come from the same genetic stock, they should resemble one another? Original music was one of the key qualities of both "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast," and the composers of those films, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, collaborated on three songs for this one before Ashman's death last year (their work includes Williams' showstopper, "Friend Like Me"). Menken then collaborated with Tim Rice on three more songs, but some ineffable quality seems missing; the music isn't as magical as in the two previous films. The bottom line is that "Aladdin" is good but not great, with the exception of the Robin Williams sequences, which have a life and energy all their own.Download here
Magic Roundabout, The (Adventure,Animation,Comedy,Family,Fantasy)
Things Are About To Get Hairy.
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A group of friends embark on a dangerous journey in an effort to imprison their oppressor — the evil wizard ZeeBadee.
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Shark Tale (Animation,Comedy,Family)
A new school's gonna rule...
Behind every little fish is a great white lie.
In fall, a new school will rule.
The story of what happens when one little fish tells a great white lie...
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The sea underworld is shaken up when the son of the shark mob boss is found dead and a young fish named Oscar is found at the scene. Being a bottom feeder, Oscar takes advantage of the situation and makes himself look like he killed the finned mobster. Oscar soon comes to realize that his claim may have serious consequences.
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"Casablanca" was only 25 years old when I started as a movie critic, but I thought of it as an old movie. "The Godfather," which is behind most of the inspiration for "Shark Tale," is 32 years old, and "Jaws," its other inspiration, is 29 years old. Time slips into the future, and movies still fresh in our hearts are considered by younger audiences to be ancient classics.
Since the target audience for "Shark Tale" is presumably kids and younger teenagers, how many of them have seen the R-rated "Godfather" and will get all the inside jokes? Not a few, I suppose, and some of its characters and dialogue have passed into common knowledge. But it's strange that a kid-oriented film would be based on parody of a 1972 gangster movie for adults. Strange, too, that the movie's values also seem to come from "The Godfather," a study in situational ethics that preferred good gangsters with old-fashioned values (the Corleone family) to bad gangsters who sold drugs. Sure, it would be better for your kids to grow up to be more like Don Vito than Scarface, but what a choice.
The movie is the latest production of DreamWorks Animation, co-directed by Vicky Jenson ("Shrek"), Bibo Bergeron ("The Road to El Dorado") and Rob Letterman. It takes place on an underwater reef where sharks are the local gangsters, and run things from their headquarters on the hulk of the Titanic. Coral formations, undersea debris and vegetation combine to create an aquatic Times Square, and, as in "Shrek 2," real retailers have their Toon equivalents.
The movie doesn't follow the plot of "The Godfather" so much as recycle its characters, and the "Jaws" inspiration gets an early smile when the famous theme music, scary for people, is as inspiring to sharks as the national anthem. The story's hero is Oscar (voice by Will Smith), who works down at the Whale Wash. It's a mob front, run by Sykes (voice by Martin Scorsese), a puffer fish who has extraordinary eyebrows, for a fish. Oscar is deep in debt to Sykes, who assigns a couple of Rastafarian enforcers (Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug) to take him on a trip and teach him a lesson he'll never forget.
The mob is ruled by Don Lino (voice by Robert De Niro, channeling Marlon Brando), who is a ruthless but, by his own standards, a fair shark. His two sons are Frankie (Michael Imperioli), who has grown up to be a shark any dad can be proud of, and Lenny (Jack Black), who has disgraced the family by becoming a vegetarian. Lenny could found a reef chapter of PETA (Predators for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on the basis of his activist intervention one night at dinner, when he sets a shrimp cocktail free.
Don Lino is fed up with Lenny, and orders Frankie to take the lad on a swimabout and teach him the life lessons of sharkhood. As luck would have it, they cross paths with Oscar and the enforcers, and when a ship's falling anchor kills Frankie, Oscar gets the credit. Since the reef lives in terror of the sharks, this makes him a local hero, and creates romantic suspense: Will he remain faithful to his long-time girlfriend Angie (Renee Zellweger), or be seduced by the charms of the local finne fatale, Lola (Angelina Jolie)? Reporting on all of this is the local anchorwoman, Katie Current, played by Katie Couric.
The problem with this story is that the movie pays too much attention to it, as if we really cared. Most successful animation has a basic level where even small children can easily identify. Little Nemo wanted to escape from the fish tank and return to his father in the ocean. Every kid understood that. But how much will they care in "Shark Tale" that Oscar wants to clear his debt with the loan sharks and become rich and famous? Will they follow the romantic struggle involving the Zellweger and Jolie characters?
The movie lacks a port of entry for young viewers -- a character they can identify with. All of the major characters are adults with adult problems like debt, romance, and running (or swimming away from) the mob. In dealing with their concerns, the characters do way too much talking, maybe because the filmmakers were so thrilled to have great voice-over talent.In earlier days the voice-over dubbers for cartoons were anonymous, unless they were named Mel Blanc. Now they "star" in the movie, so that the posters for "Shark Tale" list De Niro, Smith, Zellweger and Jolie in big type at the top, as if we were really going to see them in the movie. To be sure, the fish look a little like their voice talents; I wonder if salaries go up when the voices for animation agree to have their faces and mannerisms borrowed.
There are a lot of funny moments in "Shark Tale," free-standing gags, clever lines, neat twists, but the movie never comes together into a convincing enterprise. It's so in love with its origins in gangster movies, and has so much fun with the voices of its famous actors, that it never really defines and sells the characters in a way the audience cares about. There's a point when you wish the filmmakers would drop the in-jokes and the subtle Hollywood references and just get on with it. The movie is likely to appeal to movie buffs more than to typical family audiences.Download here
Hoodwinked! (Animation,Comedy,Family)
A Granny Who Kicks Fanny
Armed And Dangerously Dumb
Red Riding Hood, The Woodsman, Granny, The Wolf. Not Your Typical Crime. Not Your Usual Suspects.
Trouble In The Hood
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The "Little Red Hiding Hood" fairytale gets an imaginative update. After The Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is found at Granny's charged with an intent to eat an investigation starts up by Nick Fippers (David Odgen Stiers). Red (Anne Hathaway), The Wolf (Warburton), The Woodsman (Jim Beluchi) and Granny (Glenn Close) give their stories, Flippers and Cheif Grizzly (Xzibit) and the rest of the police try to find out who is the Goodie Bandit. Bill: Anthony Anderson, Twitchy: Cory Edwards, Boingo: Andy Dick.
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So said Malcolm X, as quoted by Spike Lee in the production notes to "Bamboozled," his perplexing new film. To Malcolm, the bamboozlers were white people in general, but in Lee's films they're the television executives, black and white, who bamboozle themselves in the mindless quest for ratings. The film is a satirical attack on the way TV uses and misuses African-American images, but many viewers will leave the theater thinking Lee has misused them himself.That's the danger with satire: To ridicule something, you have to show it, and if what you're attacking is a potent enough image, the image retains its negative power no matter what you want to say about it. "Bamboozled" shows black actors in boldly exaggerated blackface for a cable production named "Mantan--The New Millennium Minstrel Show." Can we see beyond the blackface to its purpose? I had a struggle.The movie stars Damon Wayans as Pierre Delacroix, a Harvard graduate who is a program executive at a cable TV network. He works under a boss who is, in his own eyes, admirably unprejudiced: Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport) says Delacroix's black shows are "too white," and adds: "I have a black wife and two biracial kids. Brother man--I'm blacker than you." Well, Delacroix isn't very black; his accent makes him sound like Franklin Pangborn as a floorwalker. But he's black enough to resent how Dunwitty and the network treat him (when he's late to a meeting, his boss says he's "pulling a Rodman"). In front of his office, he often passes two homeless street performers, Manray (Savion Glover) and Womack (Tommy Davidson). Fed up with the news that he's not black enough, Delacroix decides to star them in a blackface variety show set in a watermelon patch on an Alabama plantation.The new show shocks and offends many viewers, but turns into an enormous hit, sending the plot into twists and terrorist turns that are beside the issue. The central questions any viewer of "Bamboozled" has to answer are: (1) How do I feel about the racist images I'm seeing, and (2) Is Spike Lee making his point? I think he makes his point intellectually; it's quite possible to see the film and understand his feelings. In conversation, Lee wonders why black-themed shows on TV are nearly always comedies; why are episodic dramas about blacks so rare? Are whites so threatened by blacks on TV that they'll only watch them being funny? An excellent question. And when Lee says the modern equivalent of a blackface minstrel show is the gangsta-rap music video, we see what he means: These videos are enormously popular with white kids, just as minstrel shows were beloved by white audiences, and for a similar reason: They package entertainment within demeaning and negative black images.Lee's comments are on target, but is his film? I don't think so. Lee's spin on a gangsta-rap video or an African-American domestic comedy might be radically revealing. And what about executives rewriting scenes and dialogue according to their narrow ideas? (Margaret Cho's concert documentary, "I'm the One That I Want," tells of executives at CBS asking for rewrites to make the Korean-American comedian "less ethnic.") To satirize black shows on TV, Lee should have stayed closer to what really offends him; I think his fundamental miscalculation was to use blackface itself. He overshoots the mark. Blackface is so blatant, so wounding, so highly charged, that it obscures any point being made by the person wearing it. The makeup is the message.Consider the most infamous public use of blackface in recent years. Ted Danson appeared in blackface at a Friar's Club roast for his then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg. The audience sat in stunned silence. I was there, and I could feel the tension and discomfort in the room. In his defense, Danson said the skit had been dreamed up and written by Whoopi. One of his lines was about how he'd invited Whoopi home to dinner and his parents had asked her to clean up the kitchen after the meal. Not funny when Danson said it. If Whoopi had said it about herself, it would have been funny, with an edge. But if Whoopi had said it while wearing blackface? Not funny. After Danson's flop, comedian Bobcat Goldthwait summed up the mood: "Jesus Christ, Ted, what were you thinking of? Do you think black people think blackface is funny in 1993?" No, and white people don't, either. Blacks in blackface eating watermelon and playing characters named Eat 'n Sleep, Rufus and Aunt Jemima fail as satire and simply become--well, what they seem to be. Crude racist caricatures.I think Spike Lee misjudged his material and audience in the same way Whoopi Goldberg did, and for the same reason: He doesn't find a successful way to express his feelings, angers and satirical points. When Mel Brooks satirizes Nazis in the famous "Springtime for Hitler" number in "The Producers," he makes Hitler look like a ridiculous buffoon. But what if the musical number had centered on Jews being marched into gas chambers? Not funny. Blackface is over the top in the same way--people's feelings run too strongly and deeply for any satirical use to be effective. The power of the racist image tramples over the material and asserts only itself.Download here
Titan A.E. (Action,Adventure,Animation,Sci-Fi)
Get ready for the human race
Prepare for life after Earth.
The Next Generation In Filmed Animation
When Earth ends, The Adventure Begins.
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One thousand years from now, aliens destroy Earth in fear of the Titan project. Some humans escape, becoming a downtrodden Diaspora, living in impoverished settlements. The mysterious Titan spacecraft also escapes, and its inventor has hidden it before dying. A spacecraft captain and its pilot, Korso and Akima, two humans, seek out Cale, the youthful son of the dead scientist and explain that he must help them find the Titan, which holds a mechanism to unite and save humanity. Cale refuses, but the arrival of the killer aliens persuades him to join Korso. Can he avoid his pursuers, know friend from foe, find the Titan, and embrace his humanity, a nature he has despised until now?
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Here's the animated space adventure I've been hoping for--a film that uses the freedom of animation to visualize the strangeness of the universe in ways live action cannot duplicate, and then joins its vision to a rousing story. Don Bluth's "Titan AE" creates the kinds of feelings I had as a teenager, paging eagerly through Asimov and Heinlein. There are moments when it even stirs a little awe. The movie is pure slam-bam space opera. Its stills could be transferred intact to the covers of old issues of Amazing Stories. Yet it has the largeness of spirit that good sf can generate: It isn't just action and warfare, but also a play of ideas. Some of its galactic visuals are beautiful in the same way photos by the Hubble Space Telescope are beautiful: They show a careless hand casting colors and energy across unimaginable expanses of space, using stars and planets as its paintbox. As the film opens, in 3028 A.D., the earth has been destroyed by the evil race of Drej, who fear the intelligence of humans. Survivors flee on space ships, one of them the gigantic Titan, which carries crucial information on board. That ship was designed by the hero's father, who apparently disappears along with the Titan. When we first meet Cale (voice by Matt Damon), he's a "colony bum," working in a space dump floating between the stars, where conditions are harsh ("I wish they'd kill my food before they give it to me"). He's bitter and indifferent because he believes he was abandoned by his father. Yet he holds the key to the future of earth and mankind in the palm of his hand--literally, in the form of a genetically-coded map that reveals the hiding place of Titan. Soon he's on a mission to find Titan, with partners including a beautiful girl named Akima (Drew Barrymore), who treasures earth's heritage, and collects artifacts of its past, like baseballs. The captain of their expedition is the grave, responsible Korso (Bill Pullman); Gune (John Leguizamo) is the navigator. The main story involves their journey to find Titan before the Drej can capture or destroy it. This quest involves high and low comedy, an exciting chase scene, and then one of the most involving hunt sequences I've seen in any movie, animated or not--a cat-and-mouse game played out in the Ice Rings of Tigrin. These are massive structures of interstellar ice, which form a ring like a miniature galaxy. They offer some protection from the sensing devices of the Drej, but can tear a space ship to pieces with their huge jagged masses. The Ice Rings sequence is a perfect examine of what animation can do and live action cannot. The vast frozen shards of ice are clear and ominous, with a convincing presence, and the sound track does a masterful job of adding a dimension. We know sound does not travel in space, but do not care, because the groanings and creakings of the ancient ice masses are like cries of despair, and somewhere within the frozen maze lies Titan with its precious cargo. The movie is rambunctious in its action scenes, which owe more than a little to "Star Wars" (just as "Star Wars" owes more than a little to old pulp sf and Saturday serials). But it's not simple-minded. I liked a scene where the heroes are trying to sneak past a hostile and suspicious guard. They've constructed counterfeit uniforms. The guard leads them on, pretends to be fooled, and then laughs in their faces, telling them their uniforms are obviously constructed from bedspreads. "An intelligent guard!" says one of the good guys. "Didn't see that one coming." The movie adds small details that evoke the wonder of the universe. At one point in the journey, the ship is followed by space sprites--energy beings that follow space vessels, and mean good luck, as dolphins do at sea. We get a sense of space not merely as a fearsome void, but as a place big enough to include even whimsy. And "Star Wars" is evoked again with the tradition that the human heroes have cartoonish sidekicks. Preed (voice by Nathan Lane) is a first mate who seems to have a genetic similarity to Jar-Jar Binks, in "Phantom Menace." Stith (Janeane Garofalo) is the weapons-master who looks like an extremely calipigian kangaroo. The evil Drej are seen as crackling white-blue force fields, seemingly at one with their ships. One test for any movie is when you forget it's a movie and simply surf along on the narrative. That can happen as easily with animation as live action, and it happens here. The movie works as adventure, as the Star Wars" pictures do (and as live-action sf films like "Starship Troopers" do not). It tells a story cleverly designed to explain more or less reasonably why Cale, in the words of the ancient sf cliche, "has the future of Earth in his hands!" There is a sense of wonder here. I argue for animation because I believe it provides an additional dimension for film art; it frees filmmakers from the anchor of realism that's built into every live-action film, and allows them to visualize their imaginations. Animation need not be limited to family films and cheerful fantasies. The Japanese have known that for years, and "Titan AE" owes as large a debt to Japanese anime as to "Star Wars." This may be the instrument by which anime breaks loose at last from its imprisonment in the video stories, and finds a home on the big screen.Download here
Hoodwinked! (Animation,Comedy,Family)
A Granny Who Kicks Fanny
Armed And Dangerously Dumb
Red Riding Hood, The Woodsman, Granny, The Wolf. Not Your Typical Crime. Not Your Usual Suspects.
Trouble In The Hood
Download here
The "Little Red Hiding Hood" fairytale gets an imaginative update. After The Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is found at Granny's charged with an intent to eat an investigation starts up by Nick Fippers (David Odgen Stiers). Red (Anne Hathaway), The Wolf (Warburton), The Woodsman (Jim Beluchi) and Granny (Glenn Close) give their stories, Flippers and Cheif Grizzly (Xzibit) and the rest of the police try to find out who is the Goodie Bandit. Bill: Anthony Anderson, Twitchy: Cory Edwards, Boingo: Andy Dick.
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So said Malcolm X, as quoted by Spike Lee in the production notes to "Bamboozled," his perplexing new film. To Malcolm, the bamboozlers were white people in general, but in Lee's films they're the television executives, black and white, who bamboozle themselves in the mindless quest for ratings. The film is a satirical attack on the way TV uses and misuses African-American images, but many viewers will leave the theater thinking Lee has misused them himself.That's the danger with satire: To ridicule something, you have to show it, and if what you're attacking is a potent enough image, the image retains its negative power no matter what you want to say about it. "Bamboozled" shows black actors in boldly exaggerated blackface for a cable production named "Mantan--The New Millennium Minstrel Show." Can we see beyond the blackface to its purpose? I had a struggle.The movie stars Damon Wayans as Pierre Delacroix, a Harvard graduate who is a program executive at a cable TV network. He works under a boss who is, in his own eyes, admirably unprejudiced: Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport) says Delacroix's black shows are "too white," and adds: "I have a black wife and two biracial kids. Brother man--I'm blacker than you." Well, Delacroix isn't very black; his accent makes him sound like Franklin Pangborn as a floorwalker. But he's black enough to resent how Dunwitty and the network treat him (when he's late to a meeting, his boss says he's "pulling a Rodman"). In front of his office, he often passes two homeless street performers, Manray (Savion Glover) and Womack (Tommy Davidson). Fed up with the news that he's not black enough, Delacroix decides to star them in a blackface variety show set in a watermelon patch on an Alabama plantation.The new show shocks and offends many viewers, but turns into an enormous hit, sending the plot into twists and terrorist turns that are beside the issue. The central questions any viewer of "Bamboozled" has to answer are: (1) How do I feel about the racist images I'm seeing, and (2) Is Spike Lee making his point? I think he makes his point intellectually; it's quite possible to see the film and understand his feelings. In conversation, Lee wonders why black-themed shows on TV are nearly always comedies; why are episodic dramas about blacks so rare? Are whites so threatened by blacks on TV that they'll only watch them being funny? An excellent question. And when Lee says the modern equivalent of a blackface minstrel show is the gangsta-rap music video, we see what he means: These videos are enormously popular with white kids, just as minstrel shows were beloved by white audiences, and for a similar reason: They package entertainment within demeaning and negative black images.Lee's comments are on target, but is his film? I don't think so. Lee's spin on a gangsta-rap video or an African-American domestic comedy might be radically revealing. And what about executives rewriting scenes and dialogue according to their narrow ideas? (Margaret Cho's concert documentary, "I'm the One That I Want," tells of executives at CBS asking for rewrites to make the Korean-American comedian "less ethnic.") To satirize black shows on TV, Lee should have stayed closer to what really offends him; I think his fundamental miscalculation was to use blackface itself. He overshoots the mark. Blackface is so blatant, so wounding, so highly charged, that it obscures any point being made by the person wearing it. The makeup is the message.Consider the most infamous public use of blackface in recent years. Ted Danson appeared in blackface at a Friar's Club roast for his then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg. The audience sat in stunned silence. I was there, and I could feel the tension and discomfort in the room. In his defense, Danson said the skit had been dreamed up and written by Whoopi. One of his lines was about how he'd invited Whoopi home to dinner and his parents had asked her to clean up the kitchen after the meal. Not funny when Danson said it. If Whoopi had said it about herself, it would have been funny, with an edge. But if Whoopi had said it while wearing blackface? Not funny. After Danson's flop, comedian Bobcat Goldthwait summed up the mood: "Jesus Christ, Ted, what were you thinking of? Do you think black people think blackface is funny in 1993?" No, and white people don't, either. Blacks in blackface eating watermelon and playing characters named Eat 'n Sleep, Rufus and Aunt Jemima fail as satire and simply become--well, what they seem to be. Crude racist caricatures.I think Spike Lee misjudged his material and audience in the same way Whoopi Goldberg did, and for the same reason: He doesn't find a successful way to express his feelings, angers and satirical points. When Mel Brooks satirizes Nazis in the famous "Springtime for Hitler" number in "The Producers," he makes Hitler look like a ridiculous buffoon. But what if the musical number had centered on Jews being marched into gas chambers? Not funny. Blackface is over the top in the same way--people's feelings run too strongly and deeply for any satirical use to be effective. The power of the racist image tramples over the material and asserts only itself.Download here
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (Animation,Family,Fantasy,Romance)
The Magic Didn't End At Midnight!
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The movie explores Cinderella's "happily ever after" life as a princess in 3 stories, with help from the Fairy Godmother. First, Cinderella's awkward first days at the palace, when she tried so hard to fit in that she forgot to be herself. Second, how Jaq felt so left out that he wished to be a human. Third, how Cinderella taught one of her nasty step-sisters how to smile which leads to her own true love.
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Pokémon: The Movie 2000 (Adventure,Animation,Family)
One person can make all the difference
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Ash Ketchum must put his skill to the test when he attempts to save the world from destruction. The Greedy Pokemon collector Lawrence III throws the universe into chaos after disrupting the balance of nature by capturing one of the Pokemon birds that rule the elements of fire, lightning and ice. Will Ash have what it takes to save the world?
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Lilo & Stitch (Animation,Comedy,Drama,Family,Sci-Fi)
He's coming to our galaxy
His Name Is Stitch
Meet Stitch. This Summer, He's Coming to OUR Planet.
There's one in every family.
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In a place far, far away, illegal genetic experiment #626 is detected: Ruthless scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba has created a strong, intelligent, nearly indestructible and aggressive being with only one known weakness: The high density of his body makes it impossible for the experiment to swim in water. The scientist is sentenced to jail by the Grand Council of the Galactic Federation. The experiment is supposed to be transported to a prison asteroid, yet manages to escape Captain Gantu, who was supposed to deliver him there. With a stolen police cruiser (the red one), the destructive being races towards a little and already doomed planet: Earth. Stranded on Hawaii, experiment #626 can't actually do much harm: water all around, no big cities and two well-equipped representatives of the Galactic Federation already following close behind to catch him again. But Dr. Jookiba and the Earth expert Pleakley never could have guessed that earth girl Lilo adopts the experiment as dog, gives him the name Stitch and actually causes an emotional development in the little beast. Her dysfunctional family, consisting only of Lilo and her sister Nani, is about to be ripped apart by social worker Cobra Bubbles. Stitch as the new family member brings quite some action into all their lifes, and after a while, not even Pleakley and Dr. Jookiba can recognize their former target. But how shall they bring the news of failure to the Grand Councilwoman without being punished?
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Barnyard (Animation,Comedy,Family)
Have a cow.
The Original Party Animals
The Secret Lives Of Animals Revealed!
What happens in the barn stays in the barn
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The armrest of your seat contains a little console with red, orange and green buttons. You do a test run, clicking them. The lights go down, the "Interfilm" trademark appears on the screen, and an announcer encourages you to talk, scream, shout and snort during the following film: "Feel free to generally behave as if you were raised in a barn." "Mr. Payback," the first "interactive movie," is supposed to inspire these reactions because you, the lucky audience member, will be able to make key decisions affecting the progress of the story.The first "interfilm" opens this weekend in 44 specially equipped theaters around the country, and you can see for yourself.If you feel, for example, that the headmistress of a private school should torture the handcuffed hero with a cattle prod, you will want to push the red button. Other choices include a paddle or a rod. I was for the paddle, but the majority voted for the cattle prod, after which the hero was given electric shocks to the genitals (thankfully below screen level) and then dropped in a dumpster while a subtitle cheerfully assured us that his "family jewels" had survived intact.I went to see "Mr. Payback" with an open mind. I knew it would not be a "movie" as I understand the word, because movies act on you and absorb you in their stories. An "interfilm," as they call this new medium, is like a cross between a video game and a CD-ROM game, and according to Bob Bejan, president and CEO of Interfilm Inc., "suspension of disbelief comes when you begin to believe you're in control." I never believed I was in control. If I had been in control, I would have ended the projection and advised Bejan to go back to the drawing board. While an interactive movie might in theory be an entertaining experience, "Mr. Payback" was so offensive and yokel-brained that being raised in a barn might almost be required of its audiences.Few adults are going to find the process bearable. The target audience is possibly children and younger adolescents. That's why I found it surprising that "Mr. Payback" shovels as much barnyard material into its plot as possible.The movie seems obsessed with scatology: excrement, urination, enemas, loudly passing gas, stepping in dog messes, etc. It also involves a great deal of talk about sexual practices, not to mention every possible rude four-letter word except, to be sure, the ultimate one. The movie bends over backward to be vulgar. It's the kind of film where horrified parents might encourage the kids to shout at the screen, hoping the noise might drown out the flood of garbage.Hey, I'm not against four letter words - in context, and with a purpose. But why did "Mr. Payback" need to be gratuitously offensive? Nonstop? Knowing there would be young children in the audience? Now what about the process itself? True, you can "influence" events. You sit through the movie once, choosing villains, choosing "paybacks," choosing fates, even choosing celebrity guests (Paul Anka, Ice T) for a final game show.That takes 20 minutes. Then you're allowed to sit through the movie again, and this time of course you choose different villains, paybacks, etc. In one version, you can force that evil headmistress to be strapped into a leather bondage uniform and walked on all fours. In another version, the villain might be forced to eat monkey brains. Ho, ho.How are these choices conveyed to the screen? Four laser disc players with various plot choices are standing by in the control booth, and double-brightness video projectors are suspended from the theater ceiling. The image is acceptable and the sound is excellent; there is no perceptible delay between the audience vote and the scene it has chosen.It was clear after two viewings that most of the movie remains essentially the same every time, and that the "choices" provide brief detours that loop back to the main storyline. Choose a different villain, and he or she still gets gassed in the back seat of the limousine. It's said that two hours of material are shot for every 20-minute movie. Nothing on Earth could induce me to sit through every permutation of "Mr. Payback." Is there a future for "interfilms?" Maybe. Someday they may grow clever or witty. Not all of them will be as moronic and offensive as "Mr. Payback." What they do technically, they do pretty well. It is just that this is not a movie. It is mass psychology run wild, with the mob zealously pummeling their buttons, careening downhill toward the sleaziest common denominator.There were lots of small children in the audience. I thought about asking one little girl if she had voted for the paddle, the rod or the cattle prod. Because she must have voted for one of them. I saw her pushing her buttons.Download here
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