Talking to Nick Digilo on WGN: ‘Jackass 3D,’ ‘The Tempest,’ ‘How to Train Your Dragon,’ and ‘Secretariat’
Posted on October 31, 2010 at 9:56 pm
A joy, as always, to talk to my pal Nick Digilio on WGN.
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Babies
Posted on September 27, 2010 at 8:00 am
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | All Ages |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for cultural and maternal nudity throughout |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | None |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | May 7, 2010 |
| Date Released to DVD: | September 28, 2010 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B002ZG974M |
Don’t forget to enter the contest for a Blu-Ray/DVD or Babies carseat!
Until they make a movie entirely consisting of raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, Hallmark cards, and puppies in the window, this will hold the record as the most awwwwwww-inspiring movie ever made.
Director Thomas Balmes and his crew take us into the lives of four brand-new people and their families, babies in Tokyo, Mongolia, Namibia, and San Francisco. And that’s it. Babies sleeping, babies getting dirty, babies getting clean, babies crying, babies being comforted, babies smiling, babies playing, babies learning, learning, learning — and babies teaching everyone around them, too, to the narration-free accompaniment of a wistful score from “Coraline’s” Bruno Coulais.
Each of the stories is touching. The deepest part of our nature as humans wonders at and cares for these magical creatures, who zoom from newborns to people who can walk and talk and have views in a matter of months. The connections between these babies and their families are a powerful reminder of all we share, but the contrasts are a powerful and sometimes disturbing reminder of the distance between us. American parents who carefully strap our babies in car seats and boil their pacifiers every time they fall on the floor will find it unsettling to see all four members of the Mongolian family climb on a motorcycle and the Namibian baby sucking on a bone she dug out of the dirt. And they may wince at the casual plenty of the American baby’s books and toys or the casual smugness of the music class where the parents and their babies sing a Native American song in some reach for the kind of authenticity the African baby comes by naturally — and pays for with limited opportunities for health care and education. The credit sequence gives us a glimpse of the babies today (age 4). Our greatest wish for these babies may be that before they are old enough to be rocking their own children to sleep we find a way to do more to protect the health and safety of all of the world’s children.
Return of ‘At the Movies!’
Posted on September 10, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Most welcome news! Roger and Chaz Ebert have announced a new edition of the legendary movie review show, “At the Movies,” featuring AP movie critic Christy Lemire, with help from luminaries like Elvis Mitchell and Omar Moore.
“This is the rebirth of a dream,” said Ebert, who partnered in recent years with Richard Roeper before cancer robbed him of the ability to speak. He said he will act as co-producer and employ a computer voice to appear on every episode with segments titled Roger’s Office devoted to classic, overlooked and new films.
Two thumbs, way, way up from me!
Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Movie Mom Website
Posted on July 29, 2010 at 8:00 am
Fifteen years ago this week, when there were only a few thousand websites and not one from a corporation or publication, I decided to publish movie reviews online from a parents’ point of view.
At that time, just about every site on the Web was put there by a college student or someone in the military or was part of a university’s in-house system for publishing notices of meetings and conferences and trading papers and data. I had been online since 1986, when it was just pre-Web bulletin boards and listservs. I was very interested in the technology, but I didn’t want to create a the typical “Here is a picture of me and here are my ten favorite links” website. And I wanted to write movie reviews. So I decided to combine the two.
It is hard to remember, now, how new and exotic and primitive the web was in those days. I did all my own code for the first four or five years, and was very proud of myself for figuring out how to post pictures of movie posters and embedded links. And I watched the Web grow up all around me. When I began, there was no Yahoo and no Google. AOL was Macs only. I had to use dial-up. There were no cable modems, either.
Five years later, Yahoo asked me to become its film critic, around the time that I began reviewing movies on radio station across the country (thank you, Froggy in Fargo for getting me started) and seven years after that, I got a call from Beliefnet, where I am living happily ever after.
As I typed away on that little computer in the study off our bedroom, the one that probably had less power than I currently have in my iPhone, I could never have imagined where it would take me. I am blessed by this journey and by all of you who are kind enough to visit me here. On to the next 15!
The Losers
Posted on July 20, 2010 at 8:55 am
The weather is getting warmer, which means it must be time for some movies about BLOWING STUFF UP!
And so we have “The Losers,” based on a comic book originally set in WWII but updated by Andy Diggle. The name originally signified that they were all officers who had lost men in the war, but now it means they’re the usual motley crew of lovable rag-tag tough guys as quick with a quip as they are with the various mechanisms they have for creating mayhem, and almost as quick as they are to come to each other’s aid or defy authority. These guys are the fists and fury equivalent of a boy band, each member with his own adorable quirks, awesome proficiency, and cool call sign name that makes them sound like extras from “Top Gun.” And there’s just enough variation among them that you can pick your own favorite. There’s the sharpshooter who’s silent, but deadly (Óscar Jaenada as Cougar). There’s the scary-looking guy with the scar who seems to have a rather short fuse (Idris Elba as Roque). There’s the cute computer whiz with a taste for whimsical t-shirts (Chris Evans as Jensen). There’s the sweetheart family man who can master any known vehicle on land, sea, or air (Columbus Short as Pooch). And big daddy, the mastermind (Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay).
It’s sort of “Mission Impossible” and “The Three Musketeers” crossed with “The A-Team.” There’s the sniper, the weapons expert, the techie, the transportation guy, and the leader. They got mad skillz so they are only brought in on the blackest of black ops, so secret it’s amazing even they know who they are.
We meet them in Bolivia, where they are on a mission to tag the hideout of a drug dealer so that it can be air-bombed, under the direction of a Charlie of Charlie’s Angels mysterioso they’ve never seen named Max. But when they see that the dealer is using children as mules to transport the drugs it turns out the big old tough guys are also big old softies. Can our hardy little team fight off a zillion Bolivian bad guys with AK-47s and rescue 25 cute little kids, one with a teddy bear (presumably not being used as a place to hide cocaine)? As a former Vice Presidential candidate might say, “You betcha!”
But it’s a set-up. Things go terribly wrong and The Losers are framed and believed killed. When a mysterious woman named Aisha (“Avatar’s” Zoe Saldana) offers to get them back to the US if they will help her go after Max, they agree.
The Losers have brash, raffish charm, the action scenes are well-staged, the explosions are really big, the bad guy (Jason Patric) is entertainingly twisted, and nobody takes themselves too seriously. Pass the popcorn!