Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas

KJ Dell Antonia — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:34:57 -0400

You can’t make a Christmas special for an animated character without invoking either A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life. Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas manages to invoke a little of both. The Man in the Yellow Hat can’t understand George’s Christmas list, and he becomes convinced that a better monkey-parent would give George all the understanding he needs.

A Frog for the Whole Family

KJ Dell Antonia — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:00:06 -0400

Let’s forget, for a moment, that Disney was far too late to bestow its princess crown (sort of) on a black girl. Instead, let’s just focus on the fact that in doing it, they’ve also made a really good movie. Of course it is long past time, but I was far more caught up in the story of Tiana, who has to become a frog, not a princess, to make all of her dreams come true than I was in the varying races of her co-stars.

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The Howl of New Moon

Jessica Lambertson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:17:00 -0400

New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight franchise, is tween catnip, filled with drool-worthy long shots of young heartthrobs, struggles with popularity and romance, and, of course, a supernatural story line. New Moon attempts to address more complex and difficult issues than Twilight did, but its execution doesn’t match its ambition. The film opens with a dream sequence in which Bella (Kristen Stewart) struggles over her pending aging—something her vampire love Edward (Robert Pattinson) will never experience. Her solution to this problem?

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Dora’s Colorful Adventure

KJ Dell Antonia — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:00:20 -0400

In Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom, Dora reads Boots a story about a kingdom whose colors come from a magical crystal. When a selfish king steals the crystal, the world begins to fade to black and white. Storybook character Ali will search until she finds the crystal, but she can’t do it alone. Will Dora help her? Well, yes. The result is a double-length episode, which means two things.

Planet 51: A Little Too Far Out

Jessica Lambertson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:38:08 -0400

In an interesting plot flip, Planet 51 makes us the foreigners in an alien land. When Capt. Charles Baker (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) lands his spaceship on Planet 51, he quickly discovers that he’s not alone. He finds himself in the midst of a community straight out of Hollywood’s version of 1950s America—and the denizens’ biggest fear is an alien invasion. The little green men, in an uproar over the invader’s intentions, confiscate Chuck’s ship. That’s when Chuck joins forces with Planet 51 resident, Lem (Justin Long), and his friends to get the earthling back to his ship—and home.

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Roald Dahl, Meet Wes Anderson

Willa Paskin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:49:47 -0400

For those curious what an animated Wes Anderson movie is like, here’s your answer: a whole lot like an unanimated Wes Anderson movie. Tricked out with painstakingly crafted, obsessively detailed stop-motion animation, Fantastic Mr.

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Still from Fantastic Mr. Fox courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures.

A Disney Princess You Can Love

KJ Dell Antonia — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:46:49 -0400

In Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Tink—a creator, an inventor, a scientist, and one of Disney’s strongest female characters yet—is asked to design and create the scepter for the Autumn Revelry. Her best friend, Terrence, offers his help (boy sidekick alert), but his clumsiness irritates Tink, and they quarrel.

Haunting Christmas

KJ Dell Antonia — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:09:05 -0400

If you’re struggling to transition from Halloween to holidays, Disney’s A Christmas Carol can get you there in 90 minutes flat. It’s a remarkably faithful adaptation of the Dickens story, with most lines taken directly from the Dickens. As the movie opens, Jim Carrey’s magnificently malevolent Ebenezer Scrooge, a skinny amalgamation of himself and the boniest, pointiest old man CGI could create, frightens dogs and children as he walks the streets of Victorian England.

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Boy Wonder

KJ Dell Antonia — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:07:04 -0400

In a state of madness after the death of his only son, robotics genius Dr. Tenma creates Astro Boy. Astro looks, sounds, and acts like young Toby Tenma, but of course he isn’t, so his “father” casts him off. The near-boy winds up in the underworld of the environmentally destroyed planet and become a star gladiator in “robot wars.” But an egomaniac politician covets the precious space mineral that powers Astro, and the result is filled with betrayal, sacrifice and a gloriously destructive robot battle.

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Still from Astro Boy by Imagi Studios.

Amelia Flies Low

Liza Mundy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:58:04 -0400

Along with Harriet Tubman, Sacagawea, Eleanor Roosevelt, and perhaps Hillary Clinton, Amelia Earhart is at the top of every elementary school’s list of women whose life stories are meant to inspire girls. Among these, Earhart is a bit of a mixed role model. She was an aviation pioneer—aviatrix is such a glamorous, satisfying word—but also a self-promoter and possibly insufficiently competent to have attempted global circumnavigation. Oh, and, apparently, an adulteress. Unfortunately, it is that last aspect that Mira Nair’s Amelia chooses to linger over.

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Still from Amelia by Ken Woroner/Fox Searchlight.