Watch the Oscar-Winning Animated Short Film: Mr. Hublot
Posted on March 9, 2014 at 8:00 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT3C2kdMHOs
Related Tags:In this charming story, a man finds his life transformed by a robot pet.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Posted on March 6, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Jay Ward’s irresistibly daffy cartoons of the early 1960’s were charming and witty, with a post-modern meta wink at the fourth wall, wacky puns, and jokes that kids would suddenly remember and understand years later. This reboot is smarmy, overblown, dumbed down, and off-kilter. Who thinks it is a good idea to have a movie for children about time travel begin with a trip to the French revolution and the guillotine?
Cartoonist Ted Key, best known for the Hazel character played by Shirley Booth in the television sitcom, came up with the super-genius dog, Mr. Peabody, inventor of the WABAC machine, and his boy Sherman, for Ward’s “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.” In each episode, the duo would go back in time and somehow help a historical character solve a problem. In this computer-animated, 3D, full-length feature version, the wit of the original devolves into bathroom humor and slapstick. If the poster slogan is a doggie potty joke (“He makes his mark on history”), it is not a good sign.
As in the original, Mr. Peabody (“Modern Family’s” Ty Burrell) knows everything. He’s a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who advises world leaders and makes a mean cocktail. In one of the movie’s highlights, he is challenged to play musical instruments ranging from a flamenco guitar to a didgeridoo, and performs flawlessly. He has invented a WABAC machine to take Sherman back in time, where they have encountered a cake-loving Marie Antoinette, with Mr. P led to the guillotine, and an unhappy Mona Lisa (Lake Bell), refusing to smile for Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley Tucci).
He has an adopted son, Sherman (Max Charles), who attends a fancy private school, where a girl named Penny (“Modern Family’s” Ariel Winter) gets angry when Sherman corrects her answer about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, explaining that it never really happened. After a sloppy misuse of the term “sarcastic,” she insults Sherman in the lunchroom, calling him a dog because he has a dog for a father. They get into a fight, and Sherman bites her arm. Mr. Peabody is called to the principal’s office, where Ms. Grunion (Allison Janney), a representative from Child Protective Services, tells him Sherman will be removed from the home if he is not an appropriate parent.
Mr. Peabody invites Penny and her parents and Ms. Grunion over for dinner to straighten things out. Sherman shows Penny the WABAC machine that Mr. Peabody invented to take them back in time, and soon the two kids find themselves in ancient Egypt, where Penny becomes engaged to the young King Tut, until she finds out what that entrails, I mean entails (the bad pun thing is contagious–parents be warned). Soon they are zipping around through history, meeting up with Agamemnon (Patrick Warburton, hilarious as always, despite an Oedipus joke) and soaring over Renaissance Florence in one of da Vinci’s flying machines.
The time travel plot gets bogged down in time-space continuum anomaly mumbo jumbo. Then there are the father-son issues. Mr. Peabody, who wants his son to call him Mr. Peabody, has a problem with the l-word. Ms. Grunion’s blustery bullying and threats to remove Sherman from his home will make some families uncomfortable. It should also make them uncomfortable that the movie appears to portray kidnapping a woman as a romantic gesture that should make her instantly fall in love. Jokes about Oedipus and Bill Clinton are particularly disappointing. Warburton’s dry delivery and some good scenery and action sequences can’t make up for the fact that this movie is a disappointing come-down that completely misses the charm and humor of the original.
Parents should know that this movie has a lot of potty humor, some crude jokes, cartoon-style peril and action including a guillotine and a taser, a character is presumed dead but later shown to have survived, a woman is captured as a romantic gesture, and child protection services challenges an adoption and attempts to remove a child from his home.
Family discussion: If you could go back to any time in history, what would it be? Who would you want to meet? Why was Penny so mean?
If you like this, try: The original series
The Jungle Book
Posted on February 9, 2014 at 9:55 am
A-| Lowest Recommended Age: | All Ages |
| MPAA Rating: | G |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Some peril, predatory animals |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 1966 |
| Date Released to DVD: | February 10, 2014 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00GDT5T9Y |
The last animated film personally overseen by Walt Disney is “The Jungle Book,” inspired by the Rudyard Kipling story of a boy abandoned in the forest who is raised by the animals. It has some of the most endearing and memorable characters in all of Disney animation, including two voiced by top musician/singers Baloo the Bear (Phil Harris) and King Louie (Louis Prima). And it has some of Disney’s all-time best songs from the Sherman Brothers (the brother team recently portrayed in “Saving Mr. Banks”), featuring “The Bear Necessities” and “I Wanna Be Like You.”
A panther named Bagheera (the aristocratic-sounding Sebastian Cabot) finds a baby in a basket deep inside the jungle. It is Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman, the son of director Wolfgang Reitherman). Bagheera knows the infant will not survive unless he can find someone to care for him. So, he takes him to a wolf, who raises him for ten years along with her cubs. The animals call Mowgli “man-cub,” and he grows up happy and well cared for.
But then Shere Khan, a man-eating Bengal tiger (silkily voiced by George Sanders), returns to the jungle, and it is clear that Mowgli is not safe. Bagheera agrees to escort him to the village, where he can be with other humans. But Mowgli does not want to leave the only home he has ever known. He loves the jungle. And the animals she sees along the way only make him more sure that he wants to stay in the only home he has ever known, even after he is hypnotized and almost killed by Kaa the python (husky-voiced Sterling Holloway, best known as Winnie the Pooh). He marches with the elephant troops led by Colonel Hathi and his wife (J. Pat O’Malley and Verna Felton of “Sleeping Beauty”). King Louie is an orangutan who promises to keep Mowgli in the jungle if he will teach him the secrets of being a human, like making fire. But Mowgli was raised in the jungle, so he does not know how. He loves the easy-going Baloo the bear best of all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paf5QDNLEEQ
But the jungle is dangerous. When Baloo tries to tell Mowgli that he has to go to the village, Mowgli runs away. Kaa and Shere Khan are after him. The animals who love Mowgli will have to find a way to show him that it is time for him to leave the jungle.
This is one of Disney’s most entertaining animated classics, and it is a pleasure to see this gorgeous new Diamond edition.
The LEGO Movie
Posted on February 6, 2014 at 6:00 pm
A-| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for action and crude humor |
| Profanity: | Some schoolyard language ("butt") |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Cartoon-style peril and violence, no one hurt |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | February 7, 2014 |
| Date Released to DVD: | June 18, 2014 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00HEQOC2A |
Everything is awesome in this fast, fresh, funny, and utterly adorable movie set in the vast world of LEGOs.
Last year at Comic-Con the filmmakers said that there are two great things to do with LEGOs — you can follow the instructions and make something awesome. Or, you can ignore the instructions and make something awesome. Here, they pay tribute to both in the storyline and in their own meta-approach to the material, deconstructing classic movie narratives over here, re-constructing them over there, and adding in some delicious humor and sublime guest stars of both the LEGO and human variety. So when a Gandalf-y looking guy with the deep, familiar voice of Morgan Freeman intones a prophecy about a chosen one, we file it away as the underlying frame for the story — for a couple of seconds until he advises the confused crowd that it has to be true because it rhymes. Big-time Lugnuts and Brick-heads will find plenty of in-jokes and wonky charm and those who don’t know their minifigures from their master builders will enjoy the wit, the silliness, and the surprisingly touching conclusion.
The movie winsomely begins with LEGO logos, immediately welcoming us into a playful, tactile world. And then we meet our unassuming hero, the cheerful Emmet (a terrific Chris Pratt), who greets each day with joyful energy and loves everything about his life. At least, that’s what he tells us as he follows the instructions for getting ready for work on a construction site. The song “Everything is Awesome” (from Tegan and Sara) plays brightly everywhere. Instructions are clear and faces are painted in a smile. But Emmett is lonely. Everyone seems to have friends to hang out with but no one invites him to come along. He loves being part of a team but kind of misses having something special and different.
And then, the brave and glamorous Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), with her fetching streaked ponytail, shows up and he follows her down the LEGO equivalent of a rabbit hole to discover that everything he thought he understood about his world of following instructions and being part of a team is at risk. President Business (Will Ferrell) is about to unleash a terrible weapon, and apparently Emmet is the only one who can stop him. There are worlds beside and under worlds and within other worlds here — you could make an “Inception”-style map that takes you from the wild west and Middle Zealand to Cloud Cuckoo-land. The film makes clever use of the properties of LEGOs, their endless variety of characters and projects and their comforting sameness of structure and inflexibility. It avoids becoming an infomercial by keeping the focus on the story and the goal of creativity. Emmet and Wildfire are joined by Batman (Will Arnett’s dry baritone nails it), Vitruvious (Freeman), a pirate cyborg (Charlie Day), and a rainbow unicorn-kitty (Alison Brie). Their foes include President Business’ two-faced henchman whose head swivels to allow him to be both good and bad cop (a very funny Liam Neeson). It would be criminal to give away any of the movie’s many surprises and the mind-bendingly cool guest appearances, but I will mention that a couple of them arrive from a galaxy far, far away.
There are some unexpectedly heartwarming moments about family and the importance of imagination. The bad guy is not called President Business for the usual reasons. And there’s an unusually astute resolution to the final confrontation. I especially enjoyed some very clever satire about the kind of entertainment we too often settle for. If only they had known about Facebook’s 10th anniversary gift to each of its subscribers of “look back” mini-movies of their own lives — but not even “The LEGO Movie” could have come up with anything that solipsistically deranged. But this movie is itself the best possible antidote to the tendency to settle for lowest-common-denominator formula story-telling. It won’t just inspire you to see better movies; it will inspire you to make your own.
Parents should know that this film has cartoon-style peril and violence with many threatened injuries but no one hurt, a parent-child confrontation, some potty humor, and schoolyard language.
Family discussion: How do you decide whether you are special? Is it more fun to follow directions or make something up? What parts of the LEGO world do you recognize?
If you like this, try: the “Toy Story” movies and “Robots” — and build something with LEGOs!
Let It Go from “Frozen” — in 25 Languages
Posted on January 22, 2014 at 2:44 pm
And the LA Times explains how they do it.
As the film business has become an increasingly global one, Dempsey’s job has become ever more complex, with languages in emerging territories added every year. The newest additions include Bengali, Malay and Vietnamese. While “Frozen” is available in 41 languages, Dempsey recalls casting for about 15 languages on “The Lion King” in 1994….For Dempsey, “Frozen’s” music posed a special challenge: He had to mimic the vocal tone and texture of Menzel, a Tony Award-winning soprano famous for her penetrating pipes. “Idina has one of the best voices, period, in terms of her smooth tone, the warmth when she hits the lower end,” Dempsey said. “In certain territories — Taiwan, Cantonese — the voice might want to be thin because that’s part of the culture. It was always a challenge to find her match.”