A 1978 kids’ book by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett is the source of this animated 3-D PG fare about inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) whose gizmo– launched skyward by an extra jolt of 17,000 gigajoules– transforms upper atmospheric moisture into all manner of foodstuffs that rain down upon Swallow Falls. This single-industry island town was in dire need of a turnaround after the sardine market tanked. Mayor Shelbourne (Bruce Campbell) sees an opening for tourism and weather channel intern Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) sees her career break. Chris Miller and Phil Lord co-write and co-direct this loopy adventure with sarcasm and satire. Zingers fly from the fringes, often voiced by offscreen extras. The opening credit reads “a film by a lot of people” but an unoriginal agenda of uplift for the misfit kicks in with the opening voiceover by Flint as a schoolboy: “Have you ever felt you were a little bit different?” Mom bestows an oversized white lab coat on the little tinkerer. His fishbait shopkeeper pop (James Caan) utters unintelligible fishing metaphors that will only make sense after one of his son’s inventions–a Monkey Thought Translator–decodes the loving father’s intent. One nice surprise is the last-minute reveal of the extraordinary unsuspected skill set of Sam’s cameraman Manny (voiced with very few words by Benjamin Bratt). This Guatemalan immigrant can do more than turn the pages of the latest issue of Broadcast Engineer. As the heavens disgorge an apocalyptic deluge of “sentient” killer food, the action goes sugar-high ballistic. Science fixes the mess science inflicted. The National Science Teachers Association will eat this up. With Mr. T, Andy Samberg, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Neil Patrick Harris and Al Roker. 90m. 2.40 Anamorphic widescreen. 3-D. (Bill Stamets)
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Relatively young Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-Eda remains the best successor to Ozu regularly showcased in the U.S. : a patient observer of Japanese family patterns, in his own manner, the 47-year-old auteur still captures the fleeting, rare detail, the moment of behavior, the instant of communion or miscommunication in a family setting, that is both wry and affecting. In “Still Walking,” (Aruitemo aruitemo, 2008), Kore-Eda’s seventh feature from a roster than includes the kid-centric “Nobody Knows” and “After Life,” he elaborates on family dynamics with sculpted naturalism like few other directors as the Yokoyama family gathers to mourn on the anniversary of a beloved son’s death on a single day fifteen years after. Comparison’s to Ozu’s 1953 “Tokyo Story” are apt: magic happens out of minutiae. Gestures indicate resentments that no longer simmer, but steep in a language of attention-inattention. It’s simple, heart-stopping, life-affirming stuff. With You, Hiroshi Abe, Yoshio Harada, Ryôga Hayashi, Haruko Kato, Kirin Kiki, Yui Natsukawa, Hotaru Nomoto, Kazuya Takahashi, Shohei Tanaka. 115m. (Ray Pride)
Kid-friendly father of five Robert Rodriguez puts his brood to work on another fantasy adventure set in suburban Texas. “Dream” won the word count in his script for “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D” (2005), centered on a 10-year-old boy. “Wish” wins in “Shorts,” which centers on 11-year-old Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett, “Orphan”) and a rainbow-hued stone that tells him to make wishes. He does and gets new friends: a fun alien squadron of tiny sentient flying saucers. Adventures arise as the magic stone passes to other kids, adults, a crocodile, and a booger from the nose of Toe’s pal Nose Noseworthy (Jake Short). The boys live in Black Falls, a subdivision owned by Black Box Industries for housing its white-collar labor. Its star product is a black Blackberry-like device with Transformers-type options to mutate into “just about everything you would ever wish for,” as Mr. Carbon Black (James Spader) touts his Back Box, “the ultimate communication device.” Toe narrates out-of-sequence episodes numbered zero through five, using pause and fast-forward icons on the screen. “It’s very different,” overstates ambidextrous auteur Robert Rodriguez, who writes, directs, shoots, edits, supervises the visual effects, and scores this inoffensive family fare. “I wish I were in a Hollywood movie,” wishes one kid at the end, who settles for one made in Austin with zero to say about movies as wish-fulfillers. Most original detail: naming Mr. Black’s mean daughter “Helvetica” (Jolie Vanier). “Hel,” as her dad calls her, presents a science project on “Aggressive Behavior of Female Wasps.” With Jon Cryer, Leslie Mann, William H. Macy, Kat Dennings and Rebel Rodriguez. 108m. (Bill Stamets)
The Warner Brothers logo looms into view as a gray iron gate. Not quite like the “No Trespassing” sign outside Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu, but still, any unsuspecting soul who wanders into the sixth episode of this fantasy franchise without first reading the source novel by J.K. Rowling may need a wand to unveil throughlines of the ongoing mythology. Sooty aerial wraiths called Death Eaters—whose name suggests they ought to shit everlasting life—conspire to upset a school of kids learning how to wave their wands. There’s a new Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts on the faculty, and his horny charges are brewing the equivalent of date-rape potions. The title lad (Daniel Radcliffe) wins a vial of Liquid Luck by cheating in class. Teen make-out drama offers respite from a rote plot of good wizards versus bad wizards over ancient grudges and eternal dominion. Screenwriter Steve Kloves and director David Yates shortchange fans of the inventive grandeur that charmed early Potter product. All I look forward to in the seventh film is more screen time for the lovely weirdo Luna, played by Evanna Lynch. With Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall, David Thewlis, Julie Walters, and the expertise of weather consultant Dr. Richard Wild. 153m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Bill Stamets)
The fun cohort of prehistoric critters return for a third installment of family-oriented animation. Manny the woolly mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) and Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) teamed up for a trek to take a human baby back to its father in “Ice Age” (2002). “Ice Age: The Meltdown” (2006) added Ellie (Queen Latifah) as a mammoth mate for Manny. “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” sees the birth of their first offspring. The message: moms love babies, and males love adventure. As their pal lumbers into fatherhood, single Sid adopts some dinosaur hatchlings and Diego ponders a solo odyssey. The exodus motif of the last film—outrunning a deluge of melting ice water—is now multiplied into a multitude of chases and rescues. The new terrain is a tropical underground where dinosaurs roam. This hollow-earth is home to a new character, Buck (Simon Pegg), a loner pursuing an albino dinosaur. This eyepatch-accessoried, Cockney-accented weasel is modeled on Captain Ahab. Another single male with an obsession returns in recurring bits of classic cartoon action. The kinetic squirrel-rat Scrat continues to chase a nut. A female squirrel-rat named Scratte adds tail to his quest. However, the heartbeat of this franchise is the notion of a blended family, here called a “herd,” where pan-species pals do not eat each other. Step-sibs, are you getting this? Screenwriters Peter Ackerman, Michael Berg, Yoni Brenner and Mike Reiss keep the tone kind and clever, with only three yuks about testicles. Director Carlos Saldanha and co-director Michael Thurmeier lend inventive detail to the physical comedy in this 3-D treat. 87m. (Bill Stamets)
Based on the 2003 book by the prolific Jodi Picoult-she’s published fifteen novels since 1992-this well-made chemo weepie poses a tough issue of medical ethics without shameless tearjerking. An L.A. family deals with chronic illness in a script by Jeremy Leven (“The Notebook,” “Alex & Emma”) that’s directed by Nick Cassavetes (“The Notebook,” “Alpha Dog,” “She’s So Lovely”) with over a dozen medical consultants, including pediatric oncologists, in the credits. When Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian (Jason Patric) learn their little daughter Kate has leukemia, they genetically engineer a sister, a supply of compatible tissues and organs for treating Kate’s disease. (A similar decision figured in last year’s “A Christmas Tale” by French director Arnaud Desplechin.) This designer donor is Anna (Abigail Breslin “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Signs.”) After a lifetime enduring painful procedures for keeping Kate (Sofia Vassilieva, NBC-TV’s “Medium”) alive, 11-year-old Anna decides she does not want to donate a kidney. She hires a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to file a “petition for medical emancipation.” His own medical issue-alerted by his service dog named “Judge”-will come to light in a hallway of the justice building. The judge in the case (Joan Cusack) is just back from a six-month leave after an emotional breakdown triggered by her 12-year-old daughter’s death. In court her own mom, an attorney who sacrificed her career to take care of Kate, questions Anna. Cassavetes handles the turmoil with measured performances, and downplays a trite plot turn around a courtroom outburst and leaked secret. I’d prefer more on Anna’s tragic conflict to sacrificing for her sister, and could do without all the narration and flashbacks. Kate’s terminal nobility is prescribed: “I don’t mind my disease killing me, but it’s killing my family too.” If only Cassavetes and Leven gave equal time to her physical pain, instead of their hurt by proxy. With Evan Ellingson, Thomas Dekker, Heather Wahlquist, David Thornton. 106m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Bill Stamets)
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Jeremiah Zagar’s family portrait, “In a Dream” is a decades-long quest following his father Isaiah, a Philadelphia muralist who believes in “giganticness,” and is said to have painted more than 50,000 square feet of the South Street corridor of the City of Brotherly Love. Over the course of a decade, family secrets and indiscretions are sure to emerge, and their eruptions are painful, but hypnotic. Animation and a dazzling visual style suggest that Jeremiah has Isaiah’s gifts, with perhaps a tad less self-absorption. 80m. (Ray Pride)
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Pixar’s one stumble, “Cars” is reportedly the one that’s made the most money in product tie-ins, but one of their great virtues is letting directors run with passion projects and having their colleagues pitch in with their own inspired notions. While I’m keener on Brad Bird’s work like “The Incredibles” and his masterpiece, “Ratatouille,” “Up,” an improbable variation on Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo,” plays effortlessly, a grab-bag of comic tone and narrative ambition that works from epic to intimate, from tragedy to doggie goop on a tennis ball. There’s death, blood and a gaudy outsized bird (that caws with jungle obscenity), ranks of easily amused talking dogs and blue skies filled with anthropomorphic clouds and eventually, a world of marzipan-bright helium balloons. “Up” is filled with tidy renditions of Gilliamesque fancies. Read the rest of this entry »
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In a sequel to “Night at the Museum,” Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) returns as a steward of museum specimens and a seeker of his true self. Writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, the duo who earlier wrote “Herbie Fully Loaded,” adapted Milan Trenc’s 1993 children’s book “The Night at the Museum” for the 2006 film. Larry was then a failed inventor of gizmos. Perennially evicted, this divorced dad also failed to show up for Parent Career Day at his son’s school. He got an $11.50-an-hour job as the night guard at a New York City museum where historic wax figures, toy soldiers, taxidermized animals and a dino skeleton came to life every night, thanks to an ancient Egyptian gizmo. Now Larry is a wildly successful purveyor of gizmos who risks blowing a big deal with Wal-Mart, so he can repatriate his old museum pals after they’re crated and trucked to the archives in D.C. Read the rest of this entry »
Rated G, “Earth” gets a grade of D for underachieving in the genre of nature movies. Whether indoctrinated with creationist cant or by green propaganda, kids will learn little about the title planet, its seasons or its creatures from Leslie Megahey’s script narrated by James Earl Jones. This premiere production from the Disney nature label tracks three moms and their offsping, so moms in the audience can identify with their elephant, polar bear and humpback whale counterparts on the screen. There’s nothing to upset treehuggers or treehaters, not even the non-denominational invocations of our Paradise. George Fenton, who scored “Planet Earth” episodes in 2006, composes colorless music. The rest of the soundtrack lacks acoustic detail about the habitats and their inhabitants. I liked seeing demoiselle cranes from Mongolia soar over Himalayan peaks; Birds of Paradise from Papua, New Guinea strut their stuff; and mincing Chacma baboons forge the Okavango Delta in the Kalahari. Non-meat-eaters take note: there’s no assurance from the American Humane Association that “no animals were harmed” in “Earth” since none of that Denver-based group’s Certified Animal Safety Representatives accompanied camera crews shooting forty two animal species over five years. When a wolf and a cheetah make their kills, on their respective continents, directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield cut before a bite draws any blood. 89m. (Bill Stamets)