Rango

Gore Verbinski, 2011 (8.8*)
Academy Award, Best Animated Film

I loved this trippy, clever, irreverent film! You know you’re into something heady when a family's pet chameleon character, hilariously voiced by Johnny Depp, falls off the family car on a highway,  and  gets blown by traffic smack into the windshield of the convertible driven by Hunter Thompson with Dr. Gonzo in the back, and Hunter and the lizard are wearing the same shirt ! That’s an indicator right there that this film may be a little induced by altered states.

Director Gore Verbinski directed the Pirates of the Caribbean series, and once again he seems to have fun directing this wacky stuff.

After falling off the car, he meets various desert dwelling critters that give him advice, with Alfred Molina as an armadillo telling him he needs to find the town of Dirt, out there somewhere. When he does, it’s inhabited by an odd assortment of western dressing animals. He meets a snotty girl, tho tells him, after mutual insults, "strangers don’t last long here", but when he discovers the town needs a sheriff and a hero, he volunteers, being lost and having little choice. He picks up his name in a bar, but I won’t spoil how he gets it, it’s mostly visual.


Much of this film is like that, references to classic westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, High Noon, even the later Quick and the Dead. There are also scenes paying homage to Chinatown and Apocalypse Now, and likely others that escaped me.

Ned Beatty gives his best John Huston (a la Chinatown) voice, as the mayor, who may or may not be involved in a plot involving the town’s water supply. British actor Bill Nighy is a dead ringer for the voice of Jack Palance as the villain Rattlesnake Jake. The plot is eerily similar to that of Chinatown, a parched town needs water, it never rains, and for some reason the town’s supply faucet has gone dry, spewing out mud and no liquid, so everyone is about to die of thirst like the crops already have.

Depp is perfect for this, delivering lines like "and stay out of my peripheral vision", and  "we should follow the pipe to it’s hydraulic origin, capture the criminals and solve this aquatic conundrum".

If you like classic westerns, as well as Depp’s irreverent, inebriated style, this will be right up your alley. Perhaps more enjoyable for adults than kids, it’s still a G-rated comedy that the entire family can watch together with many guffaws – though I’m sure the kids will often ask “what did he say?”, just like the background characters do.

There’s an uncanny scene by Tim Oliphant as the voice of Clint Eastwood, delivering the film’s best line.
Depp: “The Spirit of the West. Hey, is this heaven?”
Spirit of the West (as Eastwood): “if it was, we’d be sharing Pop-tarts with Kim Novak.”

I’m sure all the kids are asking, who’s Kim Novak? Well, she and Clint Eastwood are 60’s stars that both live in Carmel, California now – that should clear that up somewhat, and of course, Pop-tarts imply breakfast, which insinuates.. er, the hokey-pokey – that’s what it’s all about!

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Bolt

Byron Howard, Chris Williams, 2008 (7.8*)
Another enjoyable Pixar-Disney animated film, with some incredibly realistic graphics, at least the landscape portions (the humans look a little stiff and plastic). Bolt is a small Swiss shepherd who is rescued from an animal shelter in the beginning, when he is being appropriately cute with a rubber carrot toy. His person, as he calls her, is a little girl named Penny.

The story inexplicably then skips forward five years, at a point when Bolt and Penny are the stars of a kids tv show, in which Bolt rescues Penny from various perilous situation, most involving a green-eyed man (voiced by veteran actor Malcolm MacDowell).

The only problem with Bolt is that in order to make the show work, he has been fooled into thinking that Penny is really in danger, he has no idea that it's all a TV show, and everything is make believe. Mistaking Penny to be really in danger while he's trapped in his studio trailer, he manages to escape and immediately gets packed up and shipped away.

He runs into an alley cat named Mittens (Susie Essman, perhaps the weakest cast member - I'd have rather heard a pro comedienne like Joan Cusask in this role), and a hilarious hamster in a running ball, named Rhino.

Perhaps the lead roles could have been better cast. John Travolta is just ok as Bolt, he was actually funnier in real action comedies like Get Shorty. Miley Cyrus was just ok as Penny, no doubt selected for her young fan base.

Filmed just after The Incredibles, this has a lot of similar action, but the screenplay isn't quite as good, but it was certainly more entertaining to me than Up, which was Pixar's worst film to date to me, losing their best character in the first 10 minutes, and sticking us with two unlikeable characters for the rest of the film.

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Bugville

Aka Hoppity Goes to Town, Mr. Bug Goes to Town
Dave Fleischer, 1941 (8.5*)
Early animated classic from the Fleischer Brothers studio, those animation pioneers who created Popeye and Betty Boop, and also many technical devices that advanced the art to cinematic proportions.

In this story, bugs have a nice community going in a deserted lot near Broadway, where people rarely go by – some that do pose a threat by tossing lit cigarettes or cans, which become housefires and earthquakes for bugville. It’s actually part of an estate that’s seen better days, but is now in the hands of a struggling songwriter, played by Kenny Gardner, but based on songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, who wrote the song “Castle in the Sky” used here. Dick Dickens (yep..) needs to sell this song to keep the house, and those metaphorical lyrics become important to this plot.

Meanwhile in Bugville, Swat the Fly and Smash the Mosquito are the eyes and ears of evil landowner C. Bagley Beetle, who wants everything for himself. They spy on the happy inhabitants which include Hoppity, who’s courting Honey Bee, whom Beetle also desires, and whose dad runs the local Honey Shop, which is the local hangout of all the other bugs. (Ya gotta love a film with Swat the Fly as a character)

Hoppity takes off one day and finds the main house, with a well-tended garden, which he sees as paradise, and returns to the lowlands bugville and convinces the others he’s found a nicer, safer home. Along with garden hoses causing floods, the bugs find many other impediments to finding a new happy home, including climbing a skyscraper, a story which is paralled by the human character Dick, the songwriter.

I saw this long ago as “Hoppity Goes to Town” [see below], and couldn’t understand why it’s not as well-known as the Disney classics. It’s certainly in the classic 30’s animation style, it’s full color, is pretty funny, and has some pretty good music, especially the Castle in the Sky song by Carmichael. Plus it has BUGS! Decades before Bugz, and A Bug’s Life, Antz, and all the others (I’m just making up titles now.. but you get the picture, lotsa varmints in the cartoons..)

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The Railway Children

Lionel Jefferies, 1970 (9.0*)
Catherine Morshead, 2000 (miniseries) (9.2*)

Edith Nesbit's wonderful 1906 novel about one English family's children thankfully has two wonderful film adaptations to recommend. They are both faithful to the novel and provide lovable cinematic tributes to her popular work, which is touching and humane without pretension or sentimentality. [see note below about Nesbit herself]

The original is the 1970 film from character actor turned director Lionel Jefferies. A happy family in Victorian London has everything change one night when some strange men come to their home, argue with the father, then leave with him. As a result these new financial hardships, the mother takes the kids and relocates in the countryside, where she barely earns enough for food by writing stories for magazines.

There's not a lot of activity in their new neighborhood, so they take daily walks down the railroad tracks, waving to the train's passengers from a nearby hillside. This somehow seems like a appropriate method of maintaining contact with the outside world, now relegated to nothing but newspaper stories.Some of the passengers always wave back, and include one important railroad man. This unique method of friendly conversation stirs his interest in the children, and the relationship proves mutually beneficial.

Jenny Agutter is wonderful as the oldest child, Bobbie, a young teen, almost a surrogate parent to the other two, Sally and Gary being pre-teens; all are surprisingly independent and risilient. Dinah Sheridan plays the mother, not onscreen nearly as much as the children.

The trains and station are as alive here as human characters, and provide a valuable literary metaphor. In fact, everyone in town gets to know the children through the railroad itself, which is a lifeline to their village. For me, this novel and film said a lot about the passage of time sadly removing our relationships to trains and a gentler, more leisurely time, one without the modern rush of autos and planes, which has removed the social interaction of the bygone era of steam, when most travel was on trains and ships.

The second version is a tv miniseries from 2000, directed by Catherine Morshead. In this version, Richard Attenborough plays the railroad man, Mr. Perk, and Jenny Agutter (Bobbie in the original), plays the childrens' mother, while Jemima Rooper has her original role. I think I may prefer the length of this longer version more, but both are excellent adaptations and make wonderful G-rated family films.


Note: Edith Nesbit's was a British socialist who wanted conditions improved for the impoverished workers of her country, and wrote over 60 books, mostly for or about children (over 40), the ultimate victims of poverty, as due to malnourishment many don't reach adulthood. She and her husband co-founded the socialst organization The Fabian Society, the precursor to the modern Labour Party.

Nesbit wrote about children without writing down to them. They are treated as intelligent, caring, and almost adult in maturity when having to deal with harsh life circumstances. This is likely why her writings are still popular today. In fact, she's considered the first author for children in dealing with the real world and it's problems rather than a fantasy world.

her page at Wikipedia

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The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

Roy Rowland, 1953 (8.2*)
Totally fantastic story by Dr. Seuss, who also provided the set design and some song lyrics. This wonderful spoof of childhood music lessons features Hans Conreid as diabolical Dr. Terwilliker, who is writing the world's first piano concerto for 500 boys on a monstrous serpentine piano of his own creation, hence the film's title - his concerto takes 5,000 fingers.

Tommy Rettig plays one of the music students, who are basically held prisoner, and forced to play rehearse nearly all the time, staying in cells, and with the music school surrounded by an electrified fence. His help comes in the form of a surrogate dad, played by Peter Lind Hayes, who is an amateur inventor with a planned surprise invention for Dr. Terwilliker.

This is a fun movie all-around, it's surprising that it's not better known, given it's Dr. Seuss connection. It's just crazy enough to be an unforgettable children's fantasy.

Just one of the goofy set designs of

Dr. Seuss in 5,000 Fingers

The piano that seats 500 boys

I want one of these hand beanies

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

David Hand, supervising director (5 others credited as "sequence directors"), 1937 (8.7*)
Notably, the first full-length animated film, from Walt Disney Studio, features songs for kids like "Hi Ho, Hi Ho", without which the film would seem even longer than it does. Snow White is pursued by a queen jealous of her beauty, and she flees into the forest and discovers the house of the dwarfs while they are away at work and invites herself in. Of course, the dwarfs fall in love with her and want her to stay. She is later given a poisoned apple by the queen and falls into a sleep that only a prince can awaken with a kiss.

The best artwork was in the static backgrounds, in the style of the earlier Silly Symphonies cartoons from Disney Studios, probably the height of their talents (check out the Oscar®-winning Water Babies sometime to see what I mean), which provided an artistic setting for the simply animated characters to exist in. Here, the two styles blended together well, and became the Disney standard for a few decades, later copied by The Triplets of Belleville (2003), hand-drawn by Sylvain Chomet as a tribute to the early Disney style. animation

As innovative as this was, when it came out it only received special awards from the New York Film Critics, the Venice Film Festival, and an honorary Oscar®.

You know, as a kid, I always wondered about this film - I mean, a single babe of a young woman is suddenly living with seven adult dwarfs - it kinda makes you wonder.

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A Boy Ten Feet Tall

Alexander Mackendrick, 1963 (8.6*)

aka Sammy Going South (the novel and original film title)
A young British boy living in Port Said, Egypt, played by Fergus McClelland, narrowly escapes a bomb from an air raid during the 56 Suez crisis that destroys his apartment block, killing both his parents. With little alternative, he decides he has to travel (on foot and any other way he can) to Durban, South Africa, to be his only remaining living relative, an aunt. During his 4500 mile journey from north to south africa, which mirrors his transition from boy to man, he experiences firsthand the varied cultures of the dark continent, such as the slave trading, animal poaching, and criminal smugglers.

One smugller he meets along the way is Edward G. Robinson, in one of his last film roles (Cincinatti Kid followed in 65) as a man who takes the kid under his wing, saves his life, and adds to his self-confidence as he makes his way down the continent. This was a perfect chance for the academy to give Robinson his first Oscar® nomination and first win; it's hard to believe he was never even nominated.

This was very inspirational to me as a kid of 12 when it came out, and features some stunning views of colonial Africa. It's hard to believe that it's not on dvd in the U.S. (just a PAL version in England under it's original title), and that only 213 people (now 214) have voted for it at IMDB, with an average rating of 6.9 - this is a much better children's film than 95% of the G-rated animated pablum being produced nowdays.

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Toy Story 3

Lee Unkrich, 2010 (9.0*)Another winner in the ongoing series, this one's about when the kid, Andy, is finally old enough to go off to college, and what happens to the childhood collection of stuff in the room that is now being passed on to a younger sibling. We've all been through this at some point, losing countless millions in old baseball cards and Beatles memorabilia tossed out by moms (these two from personal experience!)

Along with all the other belongings are the child's favorite toys - in this case, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), the dinosaur, Hamm the pig (John Ratzenburger), Jessie the cowgirl (Joan Cusack), the potato heads, and all the other toys from the first two films. The mom is pressuring all the kids to come up with toys to throw out, toys for the attic, and toys to be donated to a day care center. Of course, Andy's (John Morris) toys get mixed up with trash, and then end up at the daycare center, with hilarious results.

They've kept the story energized with some funny twists. My favorite is that Buzz Lightyear has a Spanish mode and when he is accidentally switched to Spanish we read his dialogue in subtitles, and he flits around like a flamenco dancer, so along with language his personality changes to a Spanish one.

This is another tear-jerking, crowd pleaser from Pixar, but it maintains the level of the first two, and forms a perfect complement for the trilogy. Winner of 19 awards so far, out of 41 nominations, and up for five upcoming Oscars® including best picture. #29 on the IMDB top 250.

Our review of the original Toy Story, from 1993, and it's sequel

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Mary Poppins

Robert Stevenson, 1964 (8.1*)
This film was a lot of family-oriented fun, with nonsense songs and fantastic happenings, all after a magical nanny shows up in the form of Mary Poppins (who floats in using an umbrella), played with energetic gusto by Julie Andrews in a star-making and Oscar®-winning performance. Dick Van Dyke co-stars as a lower-class chimney sweep, who also has a bit of magic and music in his veins. Don't look to deep into this one, but expect lots of family-style Disney entertainment, with some magical animation overlaid over live action, a la Song of the South.

There was more than a little irony on Oscar® night when Andrews won for actress and Rex Harrison won for actor in My Fair Lady, since the two made the London play a hit yet Andrews was snubbed for the film in lieu of big box office draw Audrey Hepburn, whose vocals were dubbed by off-camera specialist Marnie Nixon, who also dubbed vocals for The King and I and West Side Story. (Nixon finally got in front of the camera in The Sound of Music, singing "A Problem Like Maria".) It's a shame that audiences were robbed of Andrews brilliant interpretation of Eliza Doolittle, as she is British while Hepburn is American, and Andrews made the role famous to begin with; the original cast recording will bear out my argument. In the history of major cinema, this remains one of the major casting gaffs ever committed. One can only assume that the Oscar® for Poppins was the consolation prize for the snub of Andrews for the bigger film, which won best picture and seven Oscars® overall.

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Despicable Me

Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, 2010 (8.0*)
Another typical kids animation feature, not as good as the best ones (Finding Nemo, Wall-E), but better than some others (Up, Monsters Inc, Polar Express). This involves three very cute orphan girls and a Mr. Burns-like super criminal, Mr. Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), who adopts them on a trial basis as part of a scheme. The plot is actually science fiction, as various criminals want a 'shrinking-ray' device that reduces objects to a tiny portion allowing the fiendish to steal even one of the pyramids!

Of course, it's a preposterous story, with a obligatory chase sequence, and of course it's got the major cuteness-sentimentality factor going to make five-yr olds like it, but it does have a nicely warped sense of humor. As Mr. Gru goes into a secret bank, the sign reads "Bank of Evil - Formerly Lehman Bros"

The wonderful little yellow creatures you see in all the promotions for this film, the knee-high yellow thingies sometimes with two eyes, sometimes just one, are called Minions - of the rich criminal, basically personal servants. Steve Carell is just ok in the title role, it really needed someone more 'animated', pun intended.. like Robin Williams or Jim Carrey.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson, 2009 (8.5*)
A hilariously adult animated comedy, but still G-rated, in which the star, George Clooney as Mr. Fox, has no constructive line of work (he's a chicken thief), which causes constant stream of harangue from Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox. The dialogue is a throwback to the 30's screwball comedies style, so it's sparkling in comparison to most talking animal pictures, which seem aimed at five year olds. The talented comedic cast also includes Bill Murray and Owen Wilson.

The animation has the old style claymation/puppet look, which makes it look more like real objects than cartoons, so that adds to the element of reality the storyline establishes. This was a refreshing antidote to all the Disney-esque animated ventures which always seem to follow a similar heart-tugging path that requires sad violin music. If you're looking for a different kind of comedy, check this out.

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Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy

Gore Verbinski, 2003-2007
The first pirate films in history to actually make money are based on the tame kid's ride at Disneyland, another first. The three films grossed over 2 billion dollars, and actually cost over 600 million to make. They succeeded by being unabashed mindless adventure films with plenty of violence, special effects, and no sex, the perfect PG combination allowing them to provide daycare for parents hoping to raise kids typically immune to violence to prepare them for the adult world, where, as Tarentino said, "if you kiss a breast, it's a R rating, but if you slice it off, it's only PG."

(1) The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003 (7.7*)
[#233 in the IMDB top 250, rated 8.0 by 244k viewers]
The first film is named for the ship that is skippered by Johnny Depp in a drunken performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow, an engaging ne'er do well pirate with more makeup than an aging Keith Richards, who looks more like Cher than Depp. Ironically, he received a baffling Oscar® nomination for best actor. How cutthroat pirates are willing to follow a fairly effeminate buffoon of a pirate is never explained.

Olivier Bloom is only slightly more hetero as Will Turner, in love with Elizabeth Swann, played with vigorous anger by Keira Knightly, who somehow manages to keep from being mauled by shiploads of men as all battle the evil Dutch East India Trading Co, the first stock-based corporation in the world, which later went bankrupt in 1800. Here it replaces the British Empire, though seemingly run by British sailors, as the resident evil that has people cheering for the pirates. Geoffrey Rush shines as the former Black Pearl captain, intent on getting his ship back from Sparrow; to me, he actually steals the acting kudos for all three films.

26 awards, 73 nominations

(2) Dead Man's Chest, 2006 (8.2*)
[rated 7.3 by 155k viewers at IMDB]
Since these are really nothing but CGI based adventures for kids, I prefer the 2nd film due to two eye-popping sequences. Best in all the films is a swordfight with Depp and a company rep that begins on a water wheel, which rolls down the island hills and to the sea, while the two battle the entire time. Another involves the pirates being caught and bound in a giant net cage handing off a mountain cliff. The pirates rock it back and forth in order to grab land and pull themselves up. This also introduces us to Bill Nighy as Davy Jones, complete with a live beard of moving octopus tentacles, and a barnacle-encrusted crew.

30 awards (66 noms), 13 for special effects, including a special effects Oscar®. Two awards were for best film from MTV and People's Choice


(3) At Worlds End, 2007 (6.7*)
[rated 7.0 by 138k viewers]
The last film is the most disappointing, in spite of an eye-popping sequence at world's end where the ocean spills over into space, and two ships swirl downward into a giant vortex. This was a disappointing 'conclusion' to a story that had a promising beginning, a dreary slow-moving voyage to nowhere.
16 awards, 29 nominations

The three films totaled 72 awards out of 168 nominations, the lion's share for special effects and popular fan awards. In a hilarious dig at the series, on Family Guy, Peter Griffin wakes up and tells his family "I had the weirdest dream that I was on a pirate ship and the only one who wasn't gay was Oliver Bloom."

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The Black Stallion

Carroll Ballard, 1979 (8.5*)

One of the best horse stories ever, from the children's novel by Walter Farley. A young boy, played by Kelly Reno, on an ocean voyage is intrigued by a black stallion on board, when a sudden shipwreck strands them both on a deserted island. The boy and the horse become inseparable friends out of loneliness and mutual need.

After rescue, the two are returned home, and an aging Mickey Rooney, a former race horse trainer, gives a wonderful and Oscar®-nominated performance for supporting actor as he persuades the boy to race the almost wild stallion. Beautiful cinematography and an inspiring G-rated story make this one of the best family films. A classic in the Disney tradition established in the 1950's, this is my favorite Rooney performance on film; he's not so over-energetic and obnoxious in his older age.

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Carrie's War

Coky Giedroyc, 2004 (8.8*)
Thankfully the British never tire of two things: filming Masterpiece Theater, and WW2 stories. This is another film about child evacuees from London being sent into the British countryside, in this case Wales. From the excellent novel by Nina Bawden, this story is an engaging family-safe story about a teenage girl, Carrie, excellently played by Keeley Fawcett, who ends up with her brother at the home of a stern, religious shopkeeper, Alun Armstrong, and his widowed sister, Lesley Sharp.

Soon after arriving, they are sent on a short journey to nearby Druid's Bottom, owned by the shopkeeper's sister, to fetch a Thanksgiving goose, and meet the wonderful self-proclaimed white witch Hepzibah, lovingly created by appropriately named Pauline Quirke, who fills the children with timeworn tales of a curse on the house and a 'screaming skull' which must be kept in the house of ill befalls the homeowner. They also meet the shopkeepers estranged sister, named Mrs. Gotobed, Geraldine McEwan, an engaging elderly widow who's wearing a different ball gown daily that were gifts from her husband, saving his favorite for her last day on earth, which she seems to know is coming. Add Carrie's evacuee friend Albert Sandwich, Eddie Cooper, who is staying at Druid's Bottom, and you have some wonderful Dickensian names.

This is another coming of age story during wartime, a subject brilliantly explored in Goodnight Mister Tom, starring the late John Thaw of Inspector Morse fame in his finest film performance. These two Masterpiece Theater films would make a great double-feature for the whole family. Carrie's War won four BAFTA awards, for makeup, design, costumes, and music. It's hard to believe that no actors won supporting awards.

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Happy Feet

George Miller, 2006 (7.6*)
From the same George Miller that directed The Road Warrior and produced Babe, this animated feature won an Oscar®, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe. A penguin couple, played by Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, have a newborn called Mumble. While these Emperor penguins all have a song in their heart and attract mates with it, Mumble can't carry a tune but instead has Fred Astaire toe-tapping feet, which baffles the others and makes him an outcast.

The elders, led by Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, V for Vendetta), represent those who worship the "Great Wind" and leave it all up to the whims of nature, the invisible 'deity'. Mumble thinks the humanoids (called "aliens") have messed up their fisheries due to stories about them, so he sets off to find them and let them know they need to stop.

The first part of the film is almost non-stop pop and R-and-B songs, which get old fast. What saves the film is some amazing animation: the ocean, penguins underwater, long shots of thousands of them on glaciers. The story is really pro-environmental propaganda, which is ok but will likely be lost on kids, who are obviously the primary target audience for a film that is 75% pop music.

Robin Williams provides some comedy at least, as Ramon, leader of a gang of Hispanic sounding Adelie penguins, and as Lovelace (named for Linda, star of Deep Throat? now that's just bizarre..), a self-promoting guru who charges pebbles for advice and answers to questions, as these penguins use pebbles to build nests to attract females. Brittany Murphy is Gloria, who is Mumbles love interest. This would be a lot better with more dancing and less singing, but should still be quite engrossing to kids, who seem amazed that animated characters can sing and dance like people.

Happy Feet actually won 14 awards (awards page at IMDB), most for animated feature, and a sequel is due out this year.

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Whale Rider

Niki Caro, 2003, New Zealand (10*)
Sundance Audience Award, World Cinema
One of those amazing films that comes along all too rarely in life, one that blends myth into reality, and one that exposes a unique culture, the Maoris of New Zealand, being swallowed up by modern society. Lovingly directed by Niki Caro, from a novel by Maori author Witi Ihimaera, with beautiful music from Dead Can Dance singer Lisa Gerrard, who also scored Gladiator and The Insider.

This film is the story of Paikea, a young girl searching for self-identity in a tribal culture dominated by males for centuries, and whose grandad is intent on finding the next male tribal chief to lead his people back to their ancestral heritage and maintain time-honored ritual as a connection to their identity.

The cast is amazing, the adult Maori actors are excellent, especially Rawiri Paratene as the grandad, Koro, but the entire film is stolen by newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes, a schoolgirl with no prior experience who was discovered in a classroom by the same casting director that found young Anna Pacquin for Jane Campion's The Piano.

Keisha Castle-Huges, a Maori who relocated from Australia to New Zealand at age 5, was nominated for 13 international awards for this role, including an Oscar for Best Actress, and was a winner of five awards: Broadcast Film Critics: Best Young Actor/Actress, Chicago Film Critics: Most Promising Performer, New Zealand Film and Tv Awards: Best Actress, Online Film Critics: Best Breakthrough Performance, Young Artist Awards: Best Actress in an International Film. In my opinion, this is one of the best performances I've ever seen by either a woman or a child, she definitely deserved some type of Oscar®.

Awards Page for Keisha at IMDB

Awards Page for Whale Rider, with 28 wins and 29 other nominations, including 9 New Zealand Film and TV awards, winning picture, director, screenplay, music, and four for acting

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Up

Peter Docter and Bob Peterson

2009 (6.8*)

I'm not the first to jump off the Pixar bandwagon over this film. In spite of the Oscar® nomination for best picture, this is certainly Pixar's most disappointing effort, and many fans online agree. They forgot the two main attributes animated comedy films should have: good animation and funny humor. This film opts for the pseudo-realism of real 3-d objects rather than funny or even attractive characters. Ed Asner (usually great to me) voices Carl, a bitter elderly widower whose wife died before they could achieve their dream of moving to or at least visiting the adventurous Paradise Falls in South America, where an adventurer named Muntz (Christopher Plummer) discovered a rare bird skeleton, only to be accused of fraud, then driven out of the scientific community, and vanished, never to be heard from again. Sound like a great premise for a comedic animated feature? Well, if you think like me, you're right - it not only isn't a good premise, but the best parts of the movie are when Carl's wife Ellie are still alive, which are unfortunately only the first ten minutes.

Carl strikes a construction worker who destroys his mailbox, and before being forced by court order to a retirement home (more humor?), he floats his house away with thousands of helium filled balloons, which is really the best part of the animation. Once you've seen that, you've seen the best part of the artwork. There's a fat boy, Russell, fed on ice cream til he resembles "a tick about to pop" (to quote Jean Shepherd), who was under Carl's porch when this happens, tricked by Carl into a snipe hunt at night (more bad-natured attempt at humor), who is not only not attractive to look at but has not one funny line in ninety minutes of animation. (Ironically, this screenplay is Oscar-nominated; did they even see this film?)

To make matters worse, the film is full of the worst-animated and least funny dogs in film history. Give me Bruno from The Triplets of Belleville anyday - these dogs make one wonder if Pixar has ever even seen 101 Dalmations. I blame co-directors Peter Docter and Bob Peterson, who also co-wrote the terrible screenplay with about three mild chuckles (most involving Carl's elderly devices - there's a denture joke and a hearing aid joke - sound like more terrific comedy? believe me, it's as mediocre as it sounds). Even the big colorful bird running around, which they call Kevin, is not funny nor attractive looking as a character - it's just stupid and will only appeal to five year olds, who won't get the elderly humor. And don't get me started on Christopher Plummer's homicidal, self-centered adventurer character - totally despicable, never funny, and homicidal - a real "jungle fuerher"; what the heck were they thinking? Cruella De Ville (101 Dalmations) was classy, and an inspiration for Halloween costumes no doubt, compared to this monstrosity.

This film got lost trying to be an Indiana Jones adventure, only without even that much humor. The animation is just plain terrible for Pixar, nothing in the film is either unique, well-drawn, or funny. I can't believe they could ever sell any toys of these characters either, which I'm sure is their goal. Who's gonna want a fat kid in a boy scout uniform or a squat old man in a suit, with a walking cane? Watch Triplets of Belleville, for a hand-drawn masterpiece that got both points of classic animation: show us something unique in the artwork, and give us some funny characters. It has about 200 more laughs than this film. I was really looking forward to this movie - I loved Wall-E with a passion, and it should have been nominated for best picture in 2008. That film had a much better story, terrific animation (the robots on the loose, the spaceship tilting), much more creativity, and was far more touching as well - and made some hilarious comments about mankind, like "red is the new blue", causing everyone to instantly change their clothing color.

As for the 3-d realistic look, this is not even as good as either Toy Story, which were both even far below Nick Park's brilliant claymation series, Wallace and Gromit - four of those won Oscars® for Park, and if not for little or no competition, Up wouldn't win any, I'm afraid. WHY they didn't let Ellie survive to make this trip with Carl is beyond me - that would have made a much more likeable story as Ellie had 5 times the personality of boring and quiet Carl; that much was evident from the opening scenes of them as kids. If one had to die before this journey, it should have been Carl, not Ellie. I suppose kids and die-hard Pixar fans will like this, or at least say they do - but I'll wager that even most of them will be at least a little disappointed with this lackluster effort.

Pixar needs to get back to using imagination, and not resting on their software laurels. Just because they can now animate hair, or show all five fingers, that doesn't add to humor or make it artful. It's really impossible for any review of this to have "spoilers", as they've done that themselves. How this got nominated for best picture is beyond me - it must be on Disney's reputation or contribution to ads for the Academy Awards - especially when Wall-E and Finding Nemo were passed over.

[Note: I'm only reviewing this here because fans of animation should see this; and no doubt many easily pleased people will like it anyway - it's actually winning some critics awards for best animated feature, likely due to no competition. This film makes all the other Pixar and Disney films look great, so in that regard, it gives us something for comparison, making us appreciate the classics from Snow White, to Beauty and the Beast, Nemo and Wall-e, even Cars..]

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Grave of the Fireflies

a.k.a. Hotaru No Haka
Isao Takahata, Japan, 1988, anime (8.4*)
This is a tough film to watch, as it concerns the efforts of two children to survive in Japan in WW2, but is a very poetic war fable, rarely seen in films. While their dad is off in the navy fighting in the Pacific, a young teenage boy, Seita, is forced to take care of his 4 yr old sister, Setsuko, when their mother is killed by U.S. bombers. Times are harsh for everyone, the schools and factories have been bombed, there's no work, little food, and children like this, in both Japan and Europe, had to fend for themselves in order to survive, and many didn't.

This is done without much preaching or propagandising at all, which is one reason this film is #185 on the IMDB top 250, and placed #324 on our compendium of internet film polls. The story is a nice mix of reality and childish fantasy. The animation still has the cheap "doe-eyed" simplicity on the people, but the backgrounds, landscapes, rain, ponds, and fireflies are all very artistically done, and reminded me of early Disney cartoon art (Silly Symphony series) and actually have the quality of full-length films. The story is from a novel by Akiyuku Nosaka, based on that author's real wartime experiences, so it's a universally authentic war tale that is bound to tug the heart of those with compassion for children orphaned by wars, and the struggle of all the innocent civilians facing wartime deprivations.

[Note: one ignorant commentor at IMDB said, "hey, get a job" - typical uncaring American response. Hey dummy, the country had been bombed into oblivion, there were no schools nor jobs available. Are people really this stupid here? Even in our wealthy, non-wartorn society there are few jobs available and we don't have any excuse other than criminals running a system which is not working for the common person.]

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The Wizard of Oz

Victor Fleming, 1939 (8.4*)
The GOOD news: the remastered colors will blow you away, all fans should see this new dvd version. Toto and the creepy flying monkeys were terrific, having a seemingly gay lion (Bert Lahr's only memorable role) was a stroke of comic genius, Margaret Hamilton was the perfect evil witch, Frank Morgan the perfect wizard, and I hope everyone got the reference to poppies putting them to sleep and snow waking them back up.

Otherwise, everyone's favorite children's fantasy just could be the most overrated film of all time, #18 on our Top Ranked survey (I'd put it about 200th). This actually followed the classic animated Snow White by two years, which makes me wish that Disney had at least had a hand in this. Can you imagine this film if they made it today, with the technology used for Lord of the Rings? My problems began in my own childhood, thinking this was "one giant-sized kid", even bigger than the witch - one would think they had good enough child actors to have cast this movie appropriately. Judy Garland looked like she was in her 20's (though just 17), but this was supposed to be a little girl, maybe ten years old. It always seemed to me that "Over the Rainbow" was just thrown into this movie, didn't fit the rest of the film's music (its certainly not a kid's song), and seems like it should have been in Meet Me in St. Louis instead (a more appropriate vehicle for Garland, imo). Buddy Ebsen was supposed to be the tin man but had a reaction to the metallic makeup and dropped out. Could't they get Donald O'Connor? (Don't get me wrong, I'm a Garland fan since I love great singers, I just prefer her in other roles: St. Louis, and Star is Born; she's miscast in this, it's a popular choice, not an artistic one)

All that aside: This is great fun for kids, with lame humor (unless you're under 10) and very slow scenes, but with the "Yellow Brick Road" refrain to seemingly link it all together and keep it moving. In fact when the film came out, Harvard's awards dubbed it "the worst film of all time". Of course, that was 1939 and they didn't have many films to choose from. For kids and fans only, you know who you are, or if you just need something entertaining!

Update: upon considering the religious implications, I upped my rating a little. Did anyone else notice that the only other American Dorothy sees on her journey has set himself up as "god" in Oz, which rhymes with "Gods" by the way? He rules by fear and intimidation ("dare you question the great Oz?"), using magic (smoke, mirrors, illusions) to convince people he's something supernatural, then sends people on tasks in his name that he hopes will get them killed so he's done with them and won't have to deliver anything material. Then when Dorothy's group succeeds, all he has to offer is homespun advice and common sense wisdom, and they have nothing more than what they already had, only self-realization. This could be nothing but a satire of religion to me (or history of religions), or at least America's version of religion; perhaps the way U.S. politicians use religion to scare and control people, and to get votes. I'm not sure of author Frank Baum's original intentions way back when he wrote this, but it sure seems that this is a clear parody of how we are controlled, even in this 'new millenium'.

[Updated: 7.29.09]

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A Little Princess

Alfonso Cuarón, 1995 (9*)
Sometimes you get one of those little unexpected gems of a movie, and you ask where the heck did that come from? This wonderful and magical children’s film came from a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett and has the look and feel of a 50’s Disney film that adapted a Victorian novel. The story is a about a little girl named Sara, whose dad tells her all little girls are princesses. They move from India to New York, so she can attend the same private school for girls her late mom once attended, as her father goes off to World War I for England. Eleanor Bron is perfect as the strict headmistress of the school, Miss Mitlin, not allowing the girls to speak a word during meals or really enjoy any portion of childhood. Much of this movie works because the kids are all excellent actors, especially newcomer Liesel Matthews as Sara.

The story evolves into one of class barriers, when Sara befriends an African-American servant and they later become best friends. She also becomes friends with the chubby girl with glasses that's shunned by everyone including the teachers. Sara dazzles the girls with fairy tales of her own invention and is able to transport herself and those around her into a more magical place, in spite of Miss Mitlin ire. The special effects of the fairy tale of an Indian princess and Rama coming to her rescue have a beautiful storybook feel, as they should, coming from the mind of a young girl, and in one brilliant sequence Rama’s arrows emit a yellow gas as we are shown Sara’s father in the trenches fighting poisonous gas himself.

There are a couple of plot twists that I won’t reveal, only to say that the story seems to evolve perfectly into the final conclusion, and you find yourself wishing there was a sequel. This is one of the best serious children’s stories, made better by excellent music from Patrick Doyle, which always seemed to be perfect but without distracing. Director Alfonso Cuarón showed a nice sensitivity to the literary touch here, and later made some big films: Y Tu Mama Tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Children of Men; all of these are worth seeing, yet they're all so different as well.

They need to make more intelligent family films like this, it’s becoming a rarity in the age of instant musical divas, characters ready for simultaneous video game and toy spinoffs, when the major media companies don’t seem to be interested in just good films, they want a blockbuster enterprise. Oscar® nominations for cinematography and art direction.

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