Adorable Golden Retriever puppies Rosebud, Buddha, Budderball, B-Dawg, and Mudbud return in Space Buddies, an epic adventure that takes them to the moon, to be released on DVD . Moving at warp speed, dodging asteroids and more, the Buddies and their two new friends, Spudnick, a sweet bull terrier and Gravity, a resourceful ferret, must summon their courage and ingenuity to launch plans for a moon landing and a rocketing trip back home. Will they have the right stuff?
Win a Space Buddies DVD! I’ll send one to the first three people to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Space Buddies DVD” in the subject line.
Or enter to win a set of Space Buddies plush toys! The first three people to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Space Buddies toys” in the subject line will win these adorable little guys.
Under the earth’s surface for so long they have forgotten how and why they got there and even that there is another place to be, the citizens of the City of Ember have just about lost their sense of hope, of wonder, of imagination, and adventure. On “assignment day” kids pick their careers out of a hat. The idea of special interest, curiosity, or competence never comes up. And neither does the idea of creating or improving anything. All of the jobs that occupy the time of the citizens of Ember are about maintenance. All of the clothes, all of the infrastructure, everything is made from broken pieces of other things. Decay and breakdown pervade everything. Learning, reading, and creating, are ideas that have just about disappeared.
There is a genial but disengaged mayor (Bill Murray). Everyone seems to accept everything the way it is except for two kids, Lena (Saoirse Ronan), who lives with her dotty grandmother and little sister, and Doon (Harry Treadaway). Together, they race to solve the mystery of how their city was created before it becomes uninhabitable.
An almost Junior Great Books version of Brazil, this is a gorgeously imagined and visually sumptuous but still bleak and dystopic vision. In most stories featuring young lead characters, at some point they consult with a wise older person or get help from an adult. But here all of the other characters, the adults and even Lena’s little sister all seem oddly passive and disconnected and the kids are on their own. It does not have the brightness and energy of many films for this age group, and that may take some getting used to for kids used to a lot of flash.
But like a good book, it rewards patience and thoughtful attention. As with Wall∙E, some audience members will complain that this film is a one-sided and thinly-veiled allegory about current controversies or that it promotes rebellion. But that a very superficial mis-reading of the movie’s message, which is about the much more important and much more fundamental importance of independent thinking and not being satisfied with the status quo. In a time where both candidates for President are competing to persuade voters which will be the most effective in bringing change, it is an important reminder that we can all find ways to make things better.
In the town of Malaria, anatomy is destiny. Boy babies get their assignments at birth. Those without hunchbacks become evil scientists. Those with hunchbacks become Igors and spend their days saying, “Yes, master,” when ordered to “Throw the switch!”
Malaria was once a happy farming community. But some sort of climate change resulted in constant thunderstorms and now the entire economy depends on evil inventions and the biggest event of the year is the annual evil science fair competition. But not all of the people in Malaria are right for their assigned roles. Dr. Glickenstein (voice of John Cleese) is not a very good evil scientist. His Igor (John Cusack) has the hunchback of an assistant but the heart of an inventor. And the most evil scientist of all, Dr. Schadenfreude (voice of Eddie Izzard) cannot invent anything at all and relies on tricks and spying to steal the inventions of others. Igor, with the help of two assistants he invented, the immortal cat-like Scamper (voice of Steve Buscemi) and a brain in a jar named Brain (voice of Sean Hayes), invents a bride-of-Frankensteinish monster (voice of Molly Shannon). But she, too, turns out not to fit into the role she has been assigned.
The tone of the movie is cheerily macabre, so parents should be cautious about allowing young or especially sensitive children to see it. But for those who are able to be in on the joke, the film has a number of delights, from the Louis Prima songs on the soundtrack to the tweaks and jibes at horror films, “Annie,” and James Lipton’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”
NatureTech is a terrific new DVD series from the Smithsonian Network that shows us some of the best ideas about energy, flight, and building materials technology come from observing nature. Biomimetics is the new science of looking to nature for answers to modern challenges. Flies improve search and rescue and cockroaches inspire space engineers. Fish become cars and airplane design mimics birds. Gorgeously photographed, each episode is like a cross between CSI and McGuyver.
Bertram Pincus, D.D.S. sees dead people. And he’s very crabby about it.
Bertram (Ricky Gervais, creator and star of the original British version of “The Office”) doesn’t much like any kind of people, living or dead. He likes being a dentist because the people he deals with mostly have their mouths full of cotton. After a bad reaction to the anesthetic during a colonoscopy has him “dead” for seven minutes, he can suddenly see ghosts everywhere and they start following him around like the Verizon wireless network. They all want him to do something so that they can rest in peace but he has no more interest in helping them than he does with the living humans in his life, including his partner, his patients, or the very pretty woman who lives in his building.
The story is creaky and predicatable — a little humiliation humor here, a little learning that it’s relationships that matter there, not to mention the colonoscopy humor. Director David Koepp is better known as a screenwriter (“Spider-Man” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”). The script is over-long and clunky and his visual sense is a little claustrophobic and sit-com-ish. But Gervais and Leoni are so completely charming that they make it work. It isn’t often that you see a couple really connect in a movie. Usually that moment is glossed over with a syrupy montage or having them discover that they both collect bottle caps or something. But here the easy and genuine (and sometimes politically incorrect) laughter Bertram and Gwen share keeps us smiling with them.