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Home (Re)Viewing: Happy Feet, unhappy ‘Children’
I love serendipity. This week’s home video releases cooperated with my animation/children’s movies theme this week and gave us Happy Feet as one of the big releases. (And there are several other good, or at least interesting titles as well.)
Happy Feet: The Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature about tap-dancing and musical penguins gets a little heavy handed when it lays on its environmental message rather thickly , but the overall good cheer and especially the gorgeous animation make it well worth watching. Believe it or not, this was directed by George Miller of Mad Max fame, and his camera is often just as wild here as it is in those films. GRADE: B+
Children of Men: Alfonso Cuaron’s engrossing look at a bleak near-future makes Blade Runner look like Sesame Street. Rarely will you find a bleaker landscape than the one in which women can no longer reproduce. So when a pregnant woman is discovered, a band of rebels, including Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, must lead her to safety. The film is thoroughly gripping from start to finish, thanks largely to the ingenious photography of Emmanuel Lubezki, who should have won the Oscar. GRADE: A+
Curse of the Golden Flower: If there was ever a quality movie that benefitted from a mute and fast-forward button, this would be it. This martial arts film looks absolutely gorgeous, with several eye-filling fight scenes, but the story is soapy, confusing, and worst of all, dull. This is a major step down from similar films by Zhang Yimou, Hero and House of Flying Daggers. GRADE: C+
The Pursuit of Happyness: Here’s another Oscar-nominated film, this time for Will Smith’s excellent performance as a man who goes to extraordinary lengths to support his son (well-played by Smith’s own son, Jaden) and pull himself up by his bootstraps when he ends up homeless. The film treads into maudlin territory occasionally, but the Smiths hold the emotional core together. GRADE: B+
Also out today:
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj: Or National Lampoon’s Distancing Ourselves from Any Semblance of Quality We Displayed with Animal House or Vacation.
Turistas: What in the world happened to director John Stockwell? He used to make GOOD teen-centered movies like crazy/beautiful and Blue Crush. Now, between this and into the blue, he’s more a past master at the “young babes in peril” genre.
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