Posted on January 2, 2015 at 8:00 am
It is one of the most famous paintings of the 20th Century, a masterwork by Gustav Klimt, a portrait of his friend Adele Bloch-Bauer. It was confiscated by the Nazis during WWII. And then, 60 years later, it became the subject of an international lawsuit as Bloch-Bauer’s niece sued the Austrian government for its return. That case was the subject of three documentaries, Adele’s Wish
Posted on July 16, 2013 at 6:00 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for some mild action and thematic elements |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Cartoon peril, characters injured, minor snall characters eaten by birds |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | July 19, 2013 |
| Date Released to DVD: | November 12, 2013 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B008JFUR92 |
Who declared this the summer of the animated snails? In Twentieth Century Fox’s “Epic,” a snail and slug duo stole the spotlight from the human characters, even the Beyoncé-voiced nature queen. The end credits of Pixar’s “Monsters University” features not the movie’s main characters but a cute snail coda. And now DreamWorks'”Turbo,” one of this year’s best family films, gives racing snails center stage in a story that puts the “go” in escargot.
Ryan Reynolds is Theo, a garden snail who knows to the bottom of his snail-y soul that there is only one thing that will make him happy: “terrifying, terrifying, blazing speed.” He longingly watches car races on an old VCR, imagining that he is racing alongside French-Canadian Indy 500 champion Guy Gagné (Bill Hader). When Guy proclaims from the winner’s circle that “no dream is too beeeg and no dreamer is too small,” Theo feels that the message is meant just for him.
But that dream seems far away. Theo and his very cautious older brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) work at the plant. Literally. It is a tomato plant, with an intricate series of conveyer belts to deliver the fresh tomatoes to the snails. Theo is in charge of rotten tomatoes (possibly a gentle swipe at the popular movie review website of that name) and there is an amusing series of shots with Theo getting repeatedly hit by squishy, overripe fleshy fruit.
Theo gets exposed to a chemical accelerant that hits him like the radioactive spider-bite hit Peter Parker. When Tito (Michael Peña), half-owner of the Dos Bros taco stand, enters him in a snail race, he zooms across the finish line and changes his name to Turbo to fit his new identity. Tito and his strip mall neighbors, proprietors of a hobby shop, a nail salon, and a garage, trick up Turbo with a snazzy shell cover and enter him into the Indy 500 race, where, it turns out, you don’t need to have a car, you just need to be fast. Turbo will be racing against his idol, Guy Gagné.
The movie, it must be said, gets a bit slow in the middle, with too much time spent on the human characters. The economic struggles of the human strip mall denizens are dreary and under-written compared to the big dreams of the little snail. The effort to create a parallel in the strain between the taco-selling brothers of Dos Bros and those of the snail brothers, one adventuresome, one risk-averse, is labored.
But it picks up every time the racing snails come back on screen, thanks to the adorable character design, with very expressive use of those googly eyes at the end of their antennae, and especially to the voice talent. Reynolds’ Turbo has a lot of heart and gives a nicely dry twist to lines like, “Let me get my calendar, so I can time you.” The stand-outs are Giamatti as the perpetually worried but caring Chet and the indispensable Samuel L. Jackson as Whiplash, a racing snail who leads Turbo’s hilarious pit crew. He’s the snail who has “the skills to pay the bills,” if snails had bills to pay, that is. “Your trash talk is needlessly complicated,” he crisply advises another racer. Just hearing Jackson say “I’m going to preTEND I didn’t hear you say that,” coming from the mouth of a snail with a toy race car chassis over his shell, gives the same boost to the movie that the jolt of nitrous gives to Turbo.
Parents should know that this film has some cartoon-style peril and violence, with minor characters getting eaten by birds and hit by a car.
Family discussion: What do you think separates the ordinary from the extraordinary? What is your one thing that makes you happy and how will you follow your dream?
If you like this, try: the forthcoming “Turbo” television series and the Pixar classic, “A Bug’s Life”
Posted on July 16, 2013 at 3:59 pm
It is unusual for an actor to star in two major studio feature films opening the same week. Studios understandably do not want to split the fans by making them choose between two options. Even though the audiences for the two films starring People Magazine’s 2010 Sexiest Man Alive Ryan Reynolds do not have much overlap — “Turbo” is an animated family movie about a racing snail and “RIPD” is a PG-13 “Men in Black”-style buddy cop story about the un-dead police force — it seems a strange choice to release them in the same week.
Even stranger, “”RIPD” is not screening for critics, always a sign that the studio has no confidence in a film. For Reynolds fans, the racing snail looks like the safest bet.
Posted on March 21, 2013 at 6:00 pm
I think we can all agree that at least in some respects all children are Neanderthals. It is the grand challenge of parenthood to civilize these sometimes savage little creatures by teaching them language, manners, and keeping safe. And some of the most difficult choices parents must make come when we try to encourage children to be strong, brave, independent, and adventuresome when it comes to accomplishing goals in school, sports, and chores while protecting them from mistakes that could be hurtful or even devastating.
That’s the idea behind sweet new animated film about a prehistoric cave family. Familiar family dynamics are amusingly exaggerated in the Paleolithic setting, where the most basic necessities require everyone’s full-time attention. The heavy-boned characters designed by the brilliantly witty Carter Goodrich (“Despicable Me,” “Hotel Transylvania”) may argue with each other, but they demonstrate the strength of their bond on the hunting/gathering expedition. When this family goes out to get breakfast, they really go out to get breakfast. In a joyously-choreographed race to get food, parents Grug (Nicolas Cage) and Ugga (Catherine Keener), Ugga’s mother Gran (Cloris Leachman), and their three children work seamlessly together somewhere between extreme dodgeball, an obstacle course, and a rugby game. Even the happily feral baby joins in for a crucial maneuver.
Other than that, they stay inside the cold, dark, cave. None of the other families of their community have survived, and Grug is terrified of anything that he cannot control. So he tells his family that “curiosity is bad and anything that is new is bad” and insists that they all stay inside together. Keeping everyone alive is his full-time job. “Never not be afraid,” he warns them. “Fear keeps us alive.” “I will never do anything new or different,” promises his son Thunk (Clark Duke). But rebellious teenagers go back as far as protective fathers, and Eep wants to explore the world outside the cave. What Grug sees as safe and under control, Eep sees as boring and old-fashioned.
That bigger world Eep wants to see includes a stranger, a guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds). He has a lot of new ideas like tools, shoes, a “belt” (a monkey with a theatrical flair for flourish), and “baby suns” — fire. Eep wants to learn more. And soon Grug has to make changes because the tectonic plates start to shift beneath him. Staying the same is no longer safe. The family must leave the cave to find a new place to live. Grug has to learn that sometimes new is not bad. And Eep has to learn the value of what she already has.
Kids will enjoy outsmarting the Neanderthals, whose experience of the world is so limited that they think fire can be extinguished by dry grass and they will marvel at the notion that there had to be a first-ever hug. They will get a kick out of Guy as a proto-MacGyver who shows his traveling companions how to use rocks, vines, leaves — and strategy — to trap food and protect themselves from predators. As Grug and his family leave their rocky home they find new environments that are increasingly dazzling, with spectacularly imagined vistas and gorgeous vegetation. Those images nicely parallel the opening minds and spirits of Grug and his family. Despite a few too many mother-in-law jokes, “The Croods” nicely makes it clear that even before they had fire, families understood how important it was to cherish and protect each other. And Eep reminds us that what may feel like teenage obstinacy and foolhardiness may just be the next step in our evolution.
Parents should know that this movie has some scary animals and children and adults in peril, with references to sad off-screen deaths. There is brief crude humor and there are repeated jokes about Grug wishing that his mother-in-law would die.
Family discussion: How can you tell when it is time to try new things and time to stick with what you know? What did Guy and Grug learn from each other?
If you like this, try: Visit a museum or do some research in books to look at prehistoric fossils and bones and watch “The Land Before Time,” the “Ice Age” series, and “The Flintstones”
