Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Animation
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, Timothy Dalton, Kristen Schaal, Bonnie Hunt, Whoopi Goldberg, R. Lee Ermey
Director:  Lee Unkrich
Run time:  103 minutes

     Pixar never, ever misses.  Oh, they’re bound to at some point have a dud.  Maybe.  But after Ratatouille and Wall-E and Finding Nemo and Up and The Incredibles and a bunch of other children’s classics too long for me to bother typing, it is starting to look like it will never happen.  Now, with Toy Story 3, Pixar has returned to their first and greatest success, the Toy Story franchise.  All three Toy Story movies have been truly great, although now that we’ve reached the third film in the series they have lost the ability to be truly transformative.

     That being said, there are few movies I anticipate more than Toy Story films.  The main reason, I maintain, that Pixar has been consistently great is that they refuse to pander to kids, or to dumb down their films. 

     Think about the scene at the end of Ratatouille where the food critic gives his incredible, high-brow dissertation on criticism in general that had to give movie critics pause, let alone children.  Or the scene in Up where the old man remembers his life and his wife crying when she can’t have children and then her death – not only is Pixar not going to dumb their movies down for kids, they aren’t going to sugarcoat life’s events either, and they’re not afraid to make kids cry.  Good.

     And so it is with Toy Story 3, where enough personality and emotion is invested in childrens’ toys that their feelings are palpable when they get left behind.  Andy is now much older, and heading off to college, which means he will be leaving all his childhood toys behind.  That is, except for Woody, who Andy will take with him for nostalgia.  This leaves the rest of the toys to an indeterminate fate.  They might be boxed up and stuck in the attic, or tossed out at the curb.

     In the end, the toys (Woody included) get donated to a children’s daycare centre.  What at first appears to be an idyllic place, with dozens of kids wanting to play with the toys, turns out to be a nightmare compound run by a fat, mean fuzzy purple bear named Lotso (voiced by Ned Beatty).  The new toys are relegated to the toddler room, where the little kids abuse them and break them and tear them to pieces, while Losto and his cronies hang out in the nice room with the older kids where they are loved and cared for.

     There are some terrific scenes – one in particular between Ken and Barbie, where he is modeling his clothes in his dream house, is hilarious.  Another, where Buzz gets set to “Spanish mode” is side-splitting.  Lotso is vicious and cruel, his henchmen are loyal and brutal, and his backstory is sad and actually humanizes him somewhat.  Or…stuffed bearanizes him?  I guess? 

     At the heart of the film is a quandry – if toys aren’t being played with, are they still toys?  And if they’re being played with badly, is that actually worse than being ignored?  And furthermore, should toddlers ever be allowed to touch things?  All good questions.  In the end though, as always, it comes down to sticking together and being good friends and overcoming obstacles as a team and all that good-for-kids stuff.  What sets Toy Story 3 (and all Pixar fare) apart is that it’s good for adults too.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Animation
Country:  UK
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Ashley Jensen, Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Stephen Merchant, Patrick Stewart, Maggie Smith, Dolly Parton, Hulk Hogan, Kelly Asbury
Director:  Kelly Asbury
Run time:  84 minutes

     I get it.  Gnomeo & Juliet is based on Romeo & Juliet.  They rhyme, see?  And I also get that Romeo & Juliet is a play by Shakespeare.  I don’t (and nor do my kids) need to be hammered over the head with it.  By all means, make reference to the play you’re doing.  You know, Romeo and Juliet.  But throwing in references to Hamlet (2b or not 2b), Macbeth (out out damn spot) and dozens of other non-sequitors is not funny.  It’s obnoxious and pompous.

     And I know Elton John’s a big reason this film got made.  But maybe he could have recruited a few more of his friends to fill out the soundtrack some.  It isn’t a question of who will come up next, but what is the next Elton John song to be used?  (Although I will say I did enjoy the use of ”Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” in one scene.)

     For a while, garden gnomes coming to life and talking is cute.  The red ones live at one house and the blue ones at another and they are the Montagues and Capulets and have hated each other for generations for no apparent reason.  But this is exactly like all other “normally inanimate things come alive when the humans are gone” movies.  And there are a LOT of those movies.

     So once you get over the cuteness of the gnomes, and that happens surprisingly quickly, all that’s left is to go through the motions of re-enacting Romeo And Juliet with some vaguely quirky extra characters (a flamingo locked in a shed for years, a water-spitting frog who stands in for Juliet’s nurse).  But that’s all there is.  And with the exception of a few scenes featuring some maniac stone bunny rabbits, there is little left that I enjoyed.

     There just isn’t any magic in a story being acted out by yet another group of toys-come-to-life, especially when it’s one of the most familiar stories ever.  The biggest twist imaginable would have been if they had kept the original ending to the real Romeo and Juliet – they don’t – not like I’m giving anything away there though, it’s a kids movie.  What are you gonna do?

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Animation
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz,  Eddie Murphy, Walt Dohrn, Regis Philbin, Larry King, Ryan Seacrest, Meredith Vieira, Kathy Griffin, Lake Bell, John Cleese, Jane Lynch, Julie Andrews, Antonio Banderas, Jon Hamm
Director:  Mike Mitchell
Run time:  93 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Shrek Forever After was a relief, a breath of fresh air for me.  I approached this movie with a large amount of trepidation.  I hated – hated – the last two Shrek movies.  That third one was one of the worst animated movies of all time.  Of course, that didn’t stop my kids from wanting to watch it over and over, while I left the room and busied myself unclogging sinks and replacing lightbulbs and building cabinets.  A lot of work got done around my house in 2008 thanks to my refusal to watch Shrek the Third ever again.

     Of course, this meant that when the new Shrek arrived, the kids desperately wanted to see this one as well.  And here’s where I tell other parents to take heart – forget everything you remember about Shrek The Third.  That is, assuming you can still remember it and have not repressed large portions of the film as have I.  Shrek Forever After is actually good.  Good enough to watch, good enough to wash the taste of the last two out of your mouths for a time.

     That being said, there are still vastly superior kids movies out right now – Despicable Me, Toy Story 3, and so forth.  But you can’t go wrong with this one either, as the film has gone back to its roots in a big way.  And that first Shrek was great.  In this one, the lovable big green ogre is dealing with some mid-life male menopausal angst, and longing for his old, simple life in the swamp.  He’s overwhelmed with the wife and the kids and the adoring townspeople, and he misses the angry mobs and the fear he used to strike into the hearts of those same townspeople.

     This is easy for most of us to understand.  Most of us adults, anyway.  We all have moments like this, where the mundane everyday details of life feel like an enormous burden and we long for the days where we were single, free and devoid of responsibility altogether.  The moments are fleeting, but when they happen we are at our most vulnerable.  And so it is with Shrek, who signs a contract with the devious Rumplestiltskin at his lowest moment, exchanging his life for one day the way it used to be.

     Of course, the contract he signs is not what it seems, and it creates an alternate universe in which Rumplestiltskin owns the whole kingdom and Shrek has never existed.  He must re-introduce himself to Donkey, Puss In Boots, and finally his wife Fiona.  He also has to fight witches, escape from the palace and figure out how to break the contract.

     What happens is that once again, Shrek is the odd one out, the hero uncomfortable with the role, and a sort of bumbling awkward behemoth trying to find his way through a world with which he’s not familiar.  This is what made the first film terrific, and it really works here as well.  Fiona is now a warrior ogre, fighting the evil Rumplestiltskin and his army of witches with her team of resistance ogres.  Puss is now a fat, pampered slob.  And Donkey works for the witches.

     Of course, because this is a fairy tale movie for kids, it all boils down to True Love’s Kiss and Shrek trying to get Fiona to fall in love with him again.  That’s fine, but it’s the most boring part of what otherwise is a very action-packed, adventurous movie.

     If the love story is the worst part of Shrek Forever After, the best thing about it is that it isn’t trying to be funny.  The last two movies tried way too hard, throwing in stupid fairy tale references in lame attempts to get cheap laughs.  In this film, the laughter is genuine, and comes mostly from some really great musical set pieces, like the one where Shrek becomes just a regular ogre once again.  The soundtrack is surprising, and I love the fact that all of a sudden a Beastie Boys song comes out of nowhere, or Puss suddenly starts playing Bob Marley.

     Shrek Forever After is not a perfect movie.  But it’s way better than the last couple, and you won’t regret watching it with your kids.  You may even enjoy it yourself, as I did.  Can’t ask for much more in a kids’ flick.

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Animation, Fantasy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, TJ Miller
Directors:  Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
Run time:  98 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The best thing about How To Train Your Dragon is the way it looks.  Most kids’ movies are blindingly bright, full of colourful distractions and unnecessarily cute characters.  Sometimes this really works – as with Despicable Me earlier this year, or Wall-E recently.  And sometimes it just means that the movie is flashy and bright and devoid of substance.

     How To Train Your Dragon is the first kids’ movie I can remember in a long time, and maybe the only animated one, that features large portions lit only with torches.  There are many dark scenes where the torch light is the only way to make out what’s going on, and it’s actually very surprising.  Surprisingly good, that is.  Especially if, like me, you have kids and must watch every single childrens movie ever made.

     Aside from the look of the film, it’s pretty generic.  Young Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) lives in a Viking village besieged by dragons.  His father Stoick (Gerard Butler) is a heroic, powerful dragon killer, as are most of the men in the village.  But Hiccup is not very strong, and not very big, and he isn’t allowed to go hunt the dragons with the others.  So he’s sad, and he’ll never be heroic or tough or brave enough to impress the lovely young Astrid (America Ferrara).

     So it’s one of those kids movies where a young boy sets out to prove his manhood, then manages to do so (in this case by using his wits to capture a member of the most elusive of the dragon species).  Then he finds he doesn’t have the same taste for blood and vengeance that seems to fuel the rest of his tribe (he can’t kill the helpless trapped dragon).  Then he secretly explores this other side of his life (he helps the dragon learn to fly again) and discovers that this, in fact, is his path to manhood.

     It’s a pretty tried-and-true kids’ movie formula.  It hits all the right notes, covers all the bases, and manages to be reasonably charming and well-written.  The voice actors are all wonderful (with the unfortunate exception of Baruchel, who just seems utterly out of place throughout the film), and the movie is paced so well that it actually seems quite a bit shorter than its 98 minute run time. 

     But again, it’s the look of the film that separates it from other, extremely similar kids’ movies.  So when it comes to DVD and Blu-Ray October 15th from Paramount Home Entertainment, it may well be worth the upgrade to Blu-Ray.  In fact, it may be one of the only kids’ movies actually worth that upgrade.

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Animation, Cartoon, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Steve Carrell, Miranda Cosgrove, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Dana Gaier, Elsie Fisher, Pierre Coffin, Danny McBride, Jack McBrayer, Ken Jeong, Rob Huebel, Jemaine Clement, Chris Renaud, Mindy Kaling, Ken Daurio
Directors:  Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin
Run time:  95 minutes

     Normally, in a cartoon movie for kids, there is one character who is Impossibly Cute.  That little wide-eyed dude in Madagascar who almost gets eaten by a shark.  Dopey in Snow White.  The rabbits in Wallace And Gromit.  The piggy bank in Toy Story.  The baby penguin in Happy Feet.  Flower and Thumper in Bambi.  Jeff Goldblum in Independance Day.  The list goes on and on and on.  Normally, these characters exist to pop up occasionally, make the audience go “ooh” and “aah”, provide a little bit of comic relief, and then disappear for a while.  Rarely are they around for the entire movie.  That would just be an overdose of Impossibly Cute.

     In this regard, Despicable Me is an unusual movie.  Beginning to end, it’s Impossibly Cute.  Gru is a super-villain, trying to regain his title as the #1 super-villain in the world.  To do so, he requires minions.  Hundreds of them.  Each one cuter than the last.  They look like little corn pops with eyes, and they are hilarious.  They do more than just run around and be cute – they actually have a bigger role to play in the movie, and the minions are, collectively, a main character.  An Impossibly Cute one at that.  The central theme of the film is that Gru (Steve Carrell) needs help from three orphan girls to steal an invention from Vector (Jason Segel).  So he adopts those three girls.  Who are also Impossibly Cute.

     The rest of the film goes pretty much as I expected.  Of course, the girls will melt Gru’s heart and do some crazily cute things and eventually he will choose fatherhood over super-villainy.  But the journey is what makes it worthwhile.  Not only are the girls and the minions Impossibly Cute, they are genuinely funny as well.  Vector is a great character too, but it’s Gru that really makes this movie good.  It’s very funny that he’s a super-villain, but he does the same things everyone else does.  He’s just meaner about it.  He goes to coffee shops, and has to get a loan at the bank just like regular people.  And it all works.  And it’s all Impossibly Cute.  Which somehow, remarkably, works too.

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Animation
Country:  United States, Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  Jake Goldberg, Jordan Coleman, Jonah Bobo, LaShawn Tinah Jefferies, Gianna Bruzesse
Creator:  Janice Burgess
Run time:  95 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment 

     The Backyardigans is one of the LEAST obnoxious cartoon shows for really little kids. It has moments where it’s actually funny, and it’s fairly imaginative. In Operation Elephant Drop, out July 13^th on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, the weird little moose and penguin and hippo try to avoid elephant thieves while bringing one of the animals to a wildlife sanctuary.

     Aside from the hippo and penguin and moose, there are two animals that I can’t decipher. I think they may be a mongoose and a wombat, but I could be wrong. And they are part of the other three episodes on the disc. One of them involves a skateboarding competition, one sees a meteor hurtling toward the earth and a toxic chemical spill. As with all other toxic chemical spills on children’s TV, Pablo doesn’t get leukemia or radiation poisoning, and he doesn’t die. Instead he grows a giant flipper and becomes a superhero. Oh, and then there’s an episode about a lava geyser set to the strains of country rock. Or at least that’s what they say. It sounds like all other Backyardigans songs to me.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Kids, Animation
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Seth Rogen, Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett
Run time:  13 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

Year:  2006
Genre:  Kids, Animation
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow, Eddie Murphy
Director:  Simon J. Smith
Run time:  16 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     B.O.B.’s Big Break is pretty funny and pretty good.  All 13 minutes of it.  Shrek 3-D is pretty irritating for 16 minutes.  And now both come packaged together in a DVD release from Paramount Home Entertainment on March 23rd, for some reason.  This DVD set is a vertiable orgy of excess packaging.  The two films combine for a total of 29 minutes of average entertainment, and each one gets its own individual DVD case.  So it will take up a big chunk of your shelf space.

     Both DVDs come with four sets of those cardboard 3-D glasses that look so silly on your face.  Which means that in this package, you get two DVDs and eight sets of annoying glasses.  Which I guess would be great if you were throwing a birthday party for your six-year-old and had seven friends over.  That, and the kids would be entertained for almost a half hour.  Then I guess you could play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey for the next four hours.  Or something.  That is, unless you already have Monsters Vs. Aliens, which comes with B.O.B.’s Big Break, or Shrek 3-D as a special feature somewhere else.

Years:  1974, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Genre:  Cartoon, Political
Country:  East Germany
Language:  No dialogue, German credits not translated
Directors:  Otto Sacher, Klaus Georgi, Sieglinde Hamacher, Marion Rasche, Hans Moser, Thomas Rosie, Lutz Stutzner, Peter Mibach
Run time:  57 minutes
Special Features:  Behind The Scenes at the DEFA Animation Studio, film essays, biographies and filmographies
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     The description of Red Cartoons indicates that it’s a collection of 16 short animated films from the former East Germany, produced by the country’s DEFA Sutiod For Animation Films between 1974 and 1990.  These films are apparently full of social and political satire that would never have been allowed in live action films by the oppressive regime at the time.  That being said, I can find that satire in only a few of the shorts.

     This had me feeling like an idiot for a long time – how come I can’t see the subversive nature of these cartoons?  Am I so poorly versed in the customs and conventions of the former East Germany and, indeed, the world that I’m the only one who can’t see this stuff?  I GOT the cartoons, but not the satire.  What’s wrong with me?

     The first cartoon is called Drum Beat.  And, admittedly, I didn’t understand that one at all, even as just a cartoon.  This guy has a drum, see.  His wife drops it on his head, but that’s cool he has more.  Then he walks around with it and ends up in a drum band.  That’s about it.  I don’t get it.

     The second film, from the same director (Otto Sacher) is called Stars And Flowers.  At least I got that one.  A guy who lives in the stars longs to touch the flower on the ground, and a guy who lives on the ground longs to touch the stars in the sky.  Loneliness sees a shocking abuse of emergency services as an old man sets fire to his Christmas tree so he will have the companionship of the fire department and the ambulance attendants.

     Variants sees two neighbours in a dispute over what appear to be raked leaves, and although a trip to court works out their differences, it doesn’t fix their animosity toward each other.  The Rescue is a tale of greed and selfishness which involves a remarkable number of people who manage to fall down a series of crevasses.  Seven Rights of a Viewer explores seven different ways an audience can respond to a performer, from the great (showering him with flowers) to the terrible (getting up and leaving).

     Hello sees an unfortunate man, plagued by noises everywhere he goes and trying to escape.  Deserted islands offer him no solitude, nor do forests or mountains or anything else.  Eventually he meets Satan in the desert.  I think I get that one.  Consequence is a satire I get.  After applauding vigorously for a film that details how driving in cars pollutes and destroys nthe environment, the audience gets into their cars and drives home.

     The Solution involves a bunch of birds sitting on a wire.  One little bird at the end is a non-conformist, which of course means he sits the opposite direction as the rest of the flock.  And of course his little friends rat him out.  And he gets roundly punished.  Until eventually everyone else comes around, so to speak.  Belly And Soul is about people feigning interest in the performance of a pianist while secretly trying to get to the massive spread of food that has been laid out following the concert.

     The Breakdown sees a man desperately asking for help at the side of the road, as his car has apparently fallen in a hole.  Finally, th smallest car stops to help and pull him out, with surprising results.  I get the satire in this one too.  That makes two.  The Full Circle is the story of a plant that produces gas masks, polluting so much in the process that the people in the town are forced to wear…gas masks, of course.  And Mr. Daff Is Shooting A Film makes a joke out of a poor sap of a bus driver.

     The Monument sees the unveiling of a massive statue to great applause, then people forget about it pretty much right away.  Then the statue gets a phone call.  And ends up alone in what appears to be a desert, in an Ozymandias sort of finale.  I don’t really get it.  Sunday seems to depict a church, where everyone is going to look at a plant, and tickets are being ripped at the door and everyone, including the priest, is getting patted down.  I guess to make sure they are not bringing in their own water bottles or snacks.

     The final short on the set is Island Joke, wherein three shipwrecked and frozen men have a chance to warm themselves up with a blanket tossed to them by a helpful mermaid.  Not understanding the gesture, they do what they figure is most obvious with the blanket – they build themselves a flag and salute it.  Here, again, is a satire I can understand.

     About four of the sixteen shorts are obvious satires, at least to me.  Maybe six.  I would have really liked to see a special feature that explained a little more.  There are several special features on the disc, but one is a wordless slide show that just shows people working at DEFA, and the others are essays about the East German film industry and animation.  Which is all great stuff – very informative and interesting, but I would have liked to see something that dealt more specifically with the sixteen films that were chosen to be featured on this disc.

     Even though I didn’t understand a few of the films, I liked them.  I thought they were all charming, and this is a disc I can see myself watching over and over.  But the fact that I liked them all so much was the reason I wanted to know more about them.  Thanks to the special features I know a little more about the directors and a lot more about the East German industry, but no more about the films themselves.  Red Cartoons comes out January 19th from First Run Features.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Animation
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau, Fred Tatasciore
Director:  Shane Acker
Producers:  Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, Jim Lemley
Run time:  80 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     When you check out the special features on the DVD of 9, out December 29th from Alliance Films, there is one that sticks out.  The original short animated film that was nominated for an Oscar comes with the film.  That’s great, because 9 feels like nothing more than an expanded short film.  Which is exactly what it is.  Shane Acker’s incredibly animated short has been expanded into an incredibly animated full-length movie.  The short itself contains just about all the important plot points, so the movie would be irrelevant if it weren’t so damn nice to look at.

     The story isn’t earth-shattering.  It’s a post-apocalyptic world, where the only survivors with any trace of humanity in them are tiny little dolls with funny little goggles.  They are numbered – #1 through #9.  When #9 awakens, many years after the apocalypse, in the lab of the scientist who created him, he struggles to understand his surroundings.  Soon, he meets others like him – #1 (Christopher Plummer) is the leader of the group, apparently by default.

     Soon, the little sock-puppet folk are fighting against some giant machines bent on their destruction, and although we don’t really understand why until the movie ends, I could pretty much guess what was going on early on.  The thing is, the predictability of the story didn’t matter at all, because the unpredictability of the animation more than made up for it.  The post-apocalyptic world is beautifully realized, and the little creatures are so cute and expressive that I had a hard time taking my eyes off them to look around at the rest of the scene.

     9 truly is visually stunning, and totally engrossing.  It’s easy to predict what the little guys are going to do, and how it will all end, but it’s almost impossible to guess how they’re going to get there, and the journey is breathtaking. 

“And here’s the star of the show…Alvin…Alvin…ALVIN!”

Year:  1961
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Run time:  74 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Was this really the very first show?  The one that started it all?  The first Chipmunks show from 1961 that spawned year after year of series and movies and songs and albums and so on and so forth?  I guess so.  The DVD says so.  And I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the back of this DVD.  What I do doubt, however, is the taste of audiences in 1961, who apparently liked this enough to make it a cultural institution.  At least I can understand the voices of the chipmunks a little better than I could in later years.  But wow, is this show ever tiresome!

     In this first show, the chipmunks, who are never really introduced, except in the intro, try to teach a bird how to fly.  And the bird keeps crashing.  And eventually learns how to fly and becomes a far happier bird.  The end.  Oh – the bird is an eagle.  But it doesn’t eat the chipmunks.  That’s implausible.  But it’s far from the worst thing about this show.  Dave is the worst thing about this show.  Early Dave is easily angered, which is upsetting.  He doesn’t pay attention to the chipmunks, and when he does, he doesn’t believe their stories.  What shoddy parenting.  What a shoddy show.  However, if you’re a big-time Chipmunks fan (and I’m sure there are at least four out there), then you’ll want the show that started it all.  And it’s on DVD September 22nd from Paramount Home Entertainment.

“Captain’s log. … Star date 2816.9.  … We are…responding…to a call…for help…from the planet…Alderon.”

Year:  1990
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Run time:  66 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Despite the involvement of such classic tunes as “Bad Moon Rising”, Alvin And The Chipmunks Go To The Movies: Star Wreck is almost a total waste of time.  It’s staggeringly half-assed.  It appears that almost no effort has gone into writing or making the central episode on the disc, the one where the Chipmunks do a parody of Star Trek.  With accidental references to Star Wars things.  Like the planet Alderon.  Because no one really cared.  So the three chipmunks appear as Kirk, Spock and McCoy.  And Alvin does a William Shatner impression, where he says one…word…at a…time.  Which is vaguely funny for the first six seconds.  And impossibly irritating by the end.

     Because the chipmunks are almost unintelligible at the best of times, I can’t tell whether they are really named Kirk and Spock, or whether they are coming up with a parody by calling themselves Burk and Schlock.  But then, I don’t care.  Three minutes into this awful, awful episode I had lost my will to watch the final 63 minutes.  It just plain smacks of lack of effort.  And considering I have already put in more effort, myself, simply by watching this, I am going to stop putting any effort into typing this review.  It’s over.

“Minnesota kook?”

Year:  2009
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Mike Nawrocki, Phil Vischer, Cydney Trent
Director:  Mike Nawrocki
Run time:  50 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     There are good moments in Minnesota Cuke and the Search For Noah’s Umbrella.  The end, where the characters suggest that believing everything you see in a cartoon is kinda bonkers, is nice.  Some good lines, and a decent “silly song” about a Sippy Cup are solid as well.  I like the idea of a Sippy Cup song.  I have always hated sippy cups, even when I was allowed to stop using them.  In 2005.  The basic premise of the DVD, out September 15th from Alliance Films, is that Larry The Cucumber is Minnesota Cuke, and he must stop the evil Wicker before he get’s to Noah’s Umbrella first.  Wicker believes that the umbrella is able to control the weather.  Somehow.

     What follows is basically an Indiana Jones type story where Minnesota Cuke fights his fear of being embarassed and conquers his demons just in time to save the damsel in distress, save the day, and save the world from Wicker and his umbrella.  It’s all cute and stuff, and it’s alright for what it is, but it’s quite preachy.  More so than most VeggieTales episodes and DVDs.  Lots of God stuff, lots of proverbs and so forth.  That’s OK, but I have one big problem with this DVD.  And it’s likely not a problem most kids will have.  But here it is.

     Minnesota Cuke is clearly based on some kind of crazy Western hero, he has his gunslinger-type quirks, and yet he’s in an Indiana Jones movie, where he uses a rope and does all kinds of Harrison Ford type stuff.  I know – it’s a kids show.  And I get that it doesn’t have to fall into my own, silly, pre-conceived notions of movie tributes.  But in the end, it’s just not that good.  It’s presented as a movie, but it’s really just a really long double episode of the show.  It’s 50 minutes, and it’s OK, but there is nothing exceptional, as I have seen before in Silly Songs and The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.

“You probably think this world is a dream come true.  But you’re wrong.”

Year:  2009
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Keith David, John Hodgman, Ian McShane
Director:  Henry Selick
Run time:  101 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     I really don’t like 3-D movies.  It’s not the embarassment of wearing those stupid glasses – when you’re at the theatres, you are among hundreds of other silly-looking dweebs wearing the same thing.  So who cares.  But at home, I like to do certain things while watching a film, like take notes.  Because I’m going to write a review.  Or occasionally glance up at the clock, or the DVD display on my Blu-Ray player, to find out how much time is left in the movie. 

     And with the glasses, all of those things are impossible.  I must sit, utterly focused on the film, without moving my nose this way and that, without turning my head or breathing too hard, lest the silly little cardboard things slide off my face.  So I much prefer the 2-D version of any 3-D movie.  The extra dimension is usually unnecessary, and the picture quality in 2D is always consistent, whereas the 3D picture is almost always blurry, at least in spots.

     Coraline is no different.  There are some pretty neat things to see in 3-D.  A magical garden is impressive, as is a circus of jumping mice.  But the visual panache exists almost as well in 2-D, and I would rather watch this remarkable film without being constantly aware of the cardboard on my face.  Thankfully, the movie comes in both versions.  Flip the disc over for the version you want.  And a second disc crammed with special features details the making of the movie and the voicework.

     The voice work is one of the most impressive things in Coraline, the story of a young girl who travels through a tunnel in her house into a parallel universe where everything that is wrong with her current life is made right.  Her “other mother” is not consumed with her work, and cooks amazing dinners instead of ketchup-and-salsa sandwiches.  Her “other father” tends a beautiful garden, invents crazy contraptions and plays piano, instead of sitting at a computer and telling Coraline to get lost.

     Coraline herself is voiced by Dakota Fanning, who manages to convey both wonder and fear in equal parts, and she is fabulous.  Ian McShane provides the voice of eccentric neighbour Mr. Bobinsky, who is a lot of fun even if he is dismissed by Coraline’s mother as “a drunk”.  Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders play the two bizarre theatrical ladies who live downstairs from Coraline’s family, and John Hodgman is terrific as Coraline’s father.  (And her “other father”.)

     But it’s Teri Hatcher who is the best voice in the cast.  As Coraline’s mother she is distracted, fed up, and irritable.  As Coraline’s Other Mother, she is sweet and charming and full of love yet somehow still sinister.  Hatcher is remarkable at all of it, and it’s through her that the sinister tone of the movie is maintained through the splendours Coraline encounters in the Other World.

     Well, Hatcher and the buttons.  You see, Coraline’s Other Mother, her Other Father, and all the Other characters we see in the fantasy world all have buttons where their eyes should be.  And if Coraline wants to join the “better” world permanently, all she has to do is allow her Other Mother to sew buttons onto her eyes as well.  Coraline, understandably, balks at the idea.

     Coraline is not flawless.  The DVD box claims that the movie is from the director of A Nightmare Before Christmas, and this is true.  Henry Selick directed both movies.  But clearly the name that most people will associate with Nightmare is that of Tim Burton.  Burton did not direct Nightmare, but produced it and designed it and wrote it.  Burton is not involved with Coraline, which could have used a little more of Burton’s eye, finding the sinister in the beautiful.  And the ending is a little too easy.

     But there is more than enough outstanding voice work, some truly memorable characters including a neighbourhood boy and a mysterious cat.  The stop-motion animation is top-notch.  Visually, Coraline is a marvel in both 3-D and 2-D, and both the “real” world and the “other” world are beautifully rendered.  and although it could use a little more darkness, there is an abundance of charm throughout the movie.  Coraline was released July 21st by Alliance Films.  You can decide whether you want to wear the silly glasses.

“Every minute I spend in your company becomes the new greatest minute of my life!”

   Bolt is the story of a superhero dog who doesn’t realize that he is in fact the star of a television show.  He believes he does, indeed, have a super-bark.  he believes that he can melt metal with his eyes and that he has super-strength and so on and so forth.  As in many kids movies, he can only bark when people are listening, but with other animals he can converse with an extensive vocabulary, and he can reason as well as a human being.  Which really makes it implausible that he might actually believe that he is a super-dog, but then, it’s a kids movie.  So who cares, right?  When he is with his owner, Penny, he is a regular dog who attacks a squeaky carrot and licks her face.  When she is not around, Bolt is as smart as a human being.  Just not as perceptive, I suppose.

   The makers of the TV show, also named Bolt, of course, see to it that the dog always believes that he is, in fact, a superhero.  They contrive scenarios and crazy situations such that the dog never clues in to the fact that he is an actor.  The director spews some mumbo-jumbo about how the show is greater because Bolt believes.  And that’s good enough.  But when an episode ends and Penny (voice of, appropriately, Miley Cyrus) is gone, Bolt (voice of, bizarrely, John Travolta) takes off from the set and sets out to find her.  Through a strange series of events, he ends up being shipped to New York.  So the whole movie is essentially a road movie as he tries to get back to Hollywood.

   The thing that makes this movie charming and fun are the supporting characters.  Mittens, a cat, is apprehended by Bolt and taken along against her will.  You see, in the TV show, cats are all in league with the villainous green-eyed man.  So in order to find this man and rescue Penny, Bolt kidnaps a cat.  Which is kind of funny.  And the cat is a sour, street-wise angry cat, which makes it funnier.  There are some amusing recurring themes, like Bolt’s crazy fear of styrofoam.  Because he was packaged up with styrofoam packing peanuts when he was shipped to New York, he believes that styrofoam is some kind of nefarious substance that saps him of his superpowers.  It’s a cute twist that keeps coming back, and it’s funny.

   Also funny is the addition of a bonkers hamster in a ball.  Rhino is Bolt’s biggest fan, and continually feeds Bolt’s illusion that he is, in fact, a superhero.  The hamster is so crazy that we never really know whether he is aware that Bolt is an actor, or whether he actually believes in his abilities, or what.  Rhino gets some of the best lines in the movie – when they are approaching an impenetrable Animal Control center, he suggests that he will sneak up behind one of the guards and “snap his neck”.  The fact that although he never actually hurts anyone, he still believes he can, is pretty funny too.

   Then the movie plays out like every standard kids’ movie.  Bolt searches for Penny, Penny pines over the missing Bolt, the unpleasant and callous agents try to spin Bolt’s disappearance to their advantage, Bolt returns just in time to misunderstand something he sees, he has a falling out with Mittens, but then Mittens follows him, helps him, he saves Penny for real, everything is OK, and the hamster, the cat, the dog and the Miley Cyrus retire to a giant house with a big lawn.  There’s nothing really ambitious about Bolt, and it doesn’t have anything new to offer.  We’ve all seen the kids movies with the deluded character, the crazy character and the cynical tag-along.

   It’s a formula perfected in Toy Story 2, and one that is followed to the letter by Bolt.  But there are some very funny moments, the TV show itself is pretty hilariously over-the-top (although the scenes that set up the TV show go on way too long), and the characters are solid.  Disney may no longer make ground-breaking films for the kids, but Bolt at least proves that they still know how to make entertaining ones.

Download Spongebob vs. The Big One 

Still bonkers, still great, Spongebob Squarepants is coming to yet another DVD on March 3rd, from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Spongebob vs. The Big One features seven episodes of the classic kids show.  It follows on the heels of Spongicus, out earlier this year also from Paramount Home Entertainment, and contains a few more episodes from Season Six.  Spongebob and his asexual starfish buddy Patrick try to live their lives to the extreme, all in one day.  Then they try to get tanned for a big party, but Spongebob ends up sun-bleaching himself.  They turn Squidward into a giant, and build him a massive clarinet out of kelp.  And Patrick freaks out when he gets a nose installed on his face and learns to smell garbage.

The title episode features Spongebob and Patrick stranded on an island, and learning to surf from a Matthew McConnaughey type stoner surfer guru so they can catch the Big One, a wave that will take them home.  Reminiscent of the surfer episode of Gilligan’s Island, and featuring a bizarre (actually, an insane) cameo by Davy Jones of the Monkees, it’s a fun way to kick off the DVD.  The other episodes are as good as ever – Spongebob loses the secret ingredient for Krabby Patties and has to find it, Plankton manages to get a regular customer for the first time ever, and Spongebob and Patrick remain as fun, as enthusiastic, and as asexually bonkers as ever.  I love this DVD.