Journey to the Center of the Earth

Posted on July 10, 2008 at 5:09 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for intense adventure action and some scary moments
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	A great deal of action-style violence with some intense peril, many jump-out-at-you effects, reference to a sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 11, 2008

journey to the center of the earth.jpg The most impressive achievement from Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson in this 3D action -adventure is holding our attention as it feels like we are being chased by a drooling dinosaur and squirted with something really ooky. Fraser plays a scientist and Hutcherson is the nephew who joins him on the title journey, and these two attractive and capable performers keep us interested in the story as the (almost literally) eye-popping special effects.
Unlike the the 1959 movie version , this is not based on the pioneering 1864 science-fiction Jules Verne Journey to the Center of the Earth. Instead, it is based on the idea that the book, also about a professor and his nephew who descend into the inside of the planet, really happened, and these two modern-day characters are following in their footsteps.
Fraser plays Trevor Anderson, a vulcanologist whose program is about to be shut down by the university for failing to produce any results. Distracted and upset, he has forgotten that his nephew with the obligatory attitude problem (Hutcherson as Sean) is about to come for a visit. Sean’s father Max, Trevor’s brother, disappeared years before. Trevor looks at Max’s copy of the Verne book and realizes that Max had figured out a system for predicting volcanic activity. He and Sean take off for Iceland to see if they can find Max’s discovery and perhaps find Max as well. Led by a beautiful guide with the obligatory skepticism problem (Icelandic native Anita Briem), they set off for the volcano and are soon descending into the earth’s core, where they find dangerous plants and animals, terrifying terrain, endearing little glow-birds, and many, many things that jump out at the audience.
Fraser is one of Hollywood’s most underrated actors. His range is limitless — in drama (“Crash” and “Twilight of the Golds”), romantic comedy (“Bedazzled”), silly comedy (“Encino Man”) and fantasy-adventure (“The Mummy” series) he is always completely compelling and authentic and perfect pitch in calibrating the size and tempo of his performance to the material. Hutcherson is a promising young performer. Both of them make it all believable and just plain fun, whether they are trying to jump across stones suspended in air or trying to stay on board a roller-coaster-ish runaway mine car. Part thrill ride, part video game, part virtual reality, it is a lively and satisfying update of a good old-fashioned Saturday afternoon serial adventure saga.

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Interview with Hugh Welchman of “Peter and the Wolf”

Posted on March 23, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Peter and the Wolf,” this year’s Oscar-winner for best short animated film will be shown on PBS this Wednesday from 8-9 Eastern Time. It is a brilliantly imaginative film and well worth setting aside some family time to watch it together.
“Peter and the Wolf” was originally written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 as a way to introduce children to the instruments of the orchestra. A brief narration tells the story of the little boy who goes into the forest with his pet duck and cat. They meet up with a little bird and have an encounter with a scary wolf. Each character in the story is represented by a different instrument.
Bird: flute
Duck: oboe
Cat: clarinet
Grandfather: bassoon
Wolf: French horns
Hunters: percussion
Peter: strings
There have been many film versions of the story. Perhaps the most famous is a Disney animated cartoon made in 1946. This latest version, produced by Hugh Welchman of Breakthru Films, dispenses with the narration, which only takes up three minutes of the half-hour-long musical composition, but creates a complex and involving story with a contemporary setting that remains very true to the themes of the original. I spoke to Welchman about the challenges of creating Peter’s world for the painstaking stop-motion animation to create the film.
How big was the set?
“We were working at a one in five ratio. That’s the normal scale for stop-motion animation. The set was truly enormous. The forest had 1700 trees, each 6 feet high. The set was 80 feet long; it was like going into Wonderland. We also did all the close-ups at 1 in 3 . The grandfather puppet was 3 1/2 feet high. With that size, you get so much more detail. The grandfather’s hands were incredibly detailed which gave it a real different quality and makes it much more real.
The set was built in Poland and they worked amazingly quickly to build it. That was one of the fastest part of the process; making the models took much, much longer. We wanted it set in modern Russia and so we went there to take photographs. On a playground somewhere they found Peter. And they were arrested by the KGB for taking photographs of a power station! The Russian police didn’t really know what to do with these two women. They thought they were eco-terrorists. So, they wiped their photos.
But the Russians are very knowledgeable about film, especially animation.
Yes, they’ve got a heritage with stop-motion.

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I am Legend

Posted on March 18, 2008 at 8:00 am

Will Smith plays the last man on earth in this third movie based on Richard Matheson’s novella. Scientist Robert Neville was immune to the virus that wiped out everyone. He spends his days hunting for food in the deserted streets of Manhattan, now overgrown with brush and inhabited by deer, and working in the lab to find a cure for the virus. And he spends his nights barricaded to protect himself from the infected creatures who are hunting him. Once human, they are now mindlessly enraged vampire/zombie killers who can do nothing but devour.
Okay, they can do one other thing. They can learn. In their feral, furious way they can cooperate and plan. Neville can trap them for his experiments or throw them off his trail, but they keep getting smarter. He is not just their prey — he is their teacher, and he is teaching them how to get him.

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No Reservations

Posted on February 12, 2008 at 8:00 am

It may be a three-star movie about a four-star chef, but it is still a sweet summer treat and a great date night hors d’oeuvre.
Kate (Catherine Zeta Jones) just does not understand what everyone’s problem is. All she wants is to have every single detail in her kitchen meet her uncompromising standards. And for every single detail in her life to be as easy for her as coming up with an exquisite new recipe to enchant her foodie groupies. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently, it is, because the owner of the restaurant where Kate presides (one could never say “is employed”) has insisted that she get therapy if she would like to continue to preside. It is not good for business if Kate insults customers who fail to appreciate the subtle flavors and delicate complexities and just want undercooked steak. So, Kate goes to therapy, where she recounts the details of her food preparation in terms so swoonably delectable that for a moment both patient and therapist get a glimpse of a perfectible world. But that would mean a world in which we could be in control. And Kate is reminded of just how little control she has when her adored sister is killed in an automobile accident, leaving Kate as guardian for her young niece, Zoe (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin).

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Charlotte’s Web

Posted on November 30, 2006 at 4:27 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Mild peril, theme of protecting the main character from slaughter, sad death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000NA6CPE

E.B. White’s book, Charlotte’s Web, is a genuine classic for readers of any age, a beautifully written literary novel about loyalty and loss, friendship and the importance of a perfectly chosen word.

The book began with a little girl named Fern rescuing a runt of a pig her father intended to kill. She names him Wilbur and bottle feeds him until he is too big to live at home and then brings him to her uncle’s farm. At this point, at the end of Chapter One, she pretty much exits the story, and the primary characters for the rest of the book are Wilbur and his best friend, a spider named Charlotte.

The movie follows this story with a couple of changes geared to marketing, not story-telling. First, if a studio is lucky enough to grab the number one box office actress in the country, she cannot disappear from the movie after the first fifteen minutes, so Fern, played by Dakota Fanning, gets an expanded role. Second, the focus-group types at the studio decided that E.B. White somehow overlooked the importance of and boy-girl romance (gently inserted) and potty humor (not-so-gently inserted).

The voice talent seems selected for marquee value rather than the ability to create a character on voice alone. Julia Roberts is fine as Charlotte, Steve Buscemi is just right as Templeton the Rat, but the standout is Thomas Hayden Church as a crow. Most of the others are flat or distracting. But the power of the story retains its genuine magic and, like Fern, audiences will find this barnyard a place they want to stay.

Parents should know that the theme of the movie concerns pigs getting slaughtered. This issue is presented gently, but it may be disturbing for some children. There is also a very sad death of a major character. There is some potty humor and some slapstick peril.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Wilbur was important to Fern and why Charlotte wanted to be his friend. Why was Wilbur friendlier than the other animals? Families should also talk about why Charlotte’s work made people think it was the pig who was special, while no one paid any attention to the spider.

Families who enjoy this movie might also enjoy the earlier animated version, with the voice of Debbie Reynolds as Charlotte. And every family should read the wonderful book. Families will also enjoy Babe.