AWN Blogs

HORTON HEARS A WHO! was animation legend Chuck Jones’ second collaboration with Ted Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, following 1966’s animated classic HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! HORTON isn’t as successful as the GRINCH, but this Seussian fable is still entertaining and as relevant as ever.

One day, Horton the elephant (Hans Conried aka Snidely Whiplash) hears a voice coming from a speck of dust. Discovering a whole society of Whos living on the white piece of fluff, Horton dedicates himself to protecting his new tiny friend Dr. Hoovey (Confried). However, the folks of Horton’s world, especially Jane Kangaroo (animation legend June Foray aka Rocky J. Squirrel), think he’s a little nuts, as do the Whos of Dr. Hoovey when he claims their world lies on the trunk of a peaceful pachyderm. Fearing that his radical way of thinking will destroy their way of life, Jane enlists three devious monkeys, the Wickersham Brothers, to steal Horton’s Who haven.

This film is featured as bonus material on the deluxe-edition of HORTON HEARS A WHO!

Ralph Bakshi is best known for his adult animation FRITZ THE CAT. But in 1989 for Turner TV, he mixed his sensibilities with those of pre-school icon Ted Geisel aka Dr. Seuss. The result is one of the best Seuss adaptations ever made, and sadly one of the most overlooked. Even Seuss himself felt this was the most faithful adaptation of his work. Considering he adapted the script, he of course had a big part in that.

A grandfather (Charles Durning, TOOTSIE) tells his grandson a tale of the Zooks, who live on the other side of the wall and butter their bread butter side down. Yikes! So as a patriotic Yook, the grandfather in his younger years patrolled the wall keeping an eye out for any upside down buttering behavior. During a patrol, a Zook uses a slingshot to break the grandfather’s tough-tufted prickly snick-berry switch. This begins a race for bigger and bigger weapons to threaten the other race with.

Oscar-winning Foreign Language Film LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL miraculously finds hope in the midst of unthinkable evil and death. Director, writer and star Roberto Benigni seems to channel Charlie Chaplin's slapstick and sentiment. The first half is made up of a sweet romance and the second half is an ironic tale of a father using make-believe to shelter his son from the horrors of the Holocaust. While making the concentration camp a game for his little boy, Benigni does not fail to understate the epic crimes that the Nazis committed.

Guido Orefice (Benigni, JOHNNY STECCHINO) moves to Rome where he falls for the pretty teacher Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, DOWN BY LAW)… or more accurately she falls from a barn to top of him to start. A series of Meet Cutes will follow leading to Guido sweeping his dream girl away from her fiancée. They get married and have a cute son named Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini, GLADIATOR); their lives seem perfect. But this is an illusion for they live in fascists Italy. On Giosue's birthday, Dora comes home to find her husband and son missing. After finding them on a train to the concentration camps, she joins them. Separated from his wife, Guido shelters his son from what is happening by telling the boy its all part of a game where the winner wins a real tank.

Mark Steven Johnson's last attempt at adapting a Marvel comic was DAREDEVIL, the first big failure of the modern Marvel string. Now, with a lesser hero in the Marvel roster, he doesn't do much better. Lacking the quality of character he had in his first outing, Johnson makes the less than original origin tale worth watching, but finds nothing else to fill out the rest of this feature film with.

When Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage, FACE/OFF) was a kid, he performed in a motorcycle stunt act with his dad Barton (Brett Cullen, TV's LOST), who is dying of lung cancer. Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda, EASY RIDER) comes to visit the boy, promising to save his dad if the young stunt rider will sell his soul to him. As deals with the devil go, they never quite work out as planned. Tortured by what he has done, Johnny leaves behind his true love Roxanne Simpson (Eva Mendes, HITCH). Years later, feeling safe from the curse, Johnny tries to win back Roxanne, who is now a reporter. Unlucky for him, Mephistopheles calls in his debt, transforming Blaze into Ghost Rider, a skeleton-like avenger with a flaming skull. With a gravity-defying motorcycle with real flaming not the painted on variety, Ghost Rider is enlisted send the devil's power hungry son Blackheart (Wes Bentley, AMERICAN BEAUTY) back to hell.

Director Julie Taymor's ode to the 1960s finds interesting and vibrant ways to use The Beatles music catalog to touch on many of the key events of the turbulent era in American history. Since moving from stage productions such as the original Broadway LION KING musical, Taymor has distinguished her film work, TITUS and FRIDA, with visual flare. That same flare is key to the magic that pops up throughout this unique musical.

Jude (Jim Sturgess, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL) is a blue-collar worker from England who travels to the U.S. to find the father he has never met. Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood, THIRTEEN) is an 18-year-old rich girl, who's curious about the changing world after her boyfriend is sent to Vietnam. Jude meets Lucy's brother Max (Joe Anderson, 2007's CONTROL) right before the rich kid decides to drop out of college and move to Greenwich Village where they move in with sultry singer Sadie (Dana Fuchs). Meanwhile lonely lesbian Prudence (T.V. Carpio, SHE HATE ME) leaves her Midwest cheerleader life and African-American guitarist JoJo (Martin Luther) exits his poor black neighborhood after a tragedy to head to NYC. These characters come together to let it be a revolution #9.

This charming little ode to friendship put writer/director Wes Anderson on the map. As part of the hip indie wave of the mid-to-late '90s, BOTTLE ROCKET was an expanded take on a short Anderson did with friends Luke, Owen and Andrew Wilson two years prior. The matter-of-fact approach to the wacky story is the key to the strange charm the film elicits. Events move to predetermined points on a map, making this comedy an unpredictable ride.

We are introduced to Anthony Adams (Luke Wilson, RUSHMORE) as he is pretending to escape from a mental hospital because he doesn't have the heart to tell his best friend Dignan (Owen Wilson, THE WEDDING CRASHERS) that he's come all this way to break him out of a voluntary program. Along with their friend Bob Mapplethorpe (Robert Musgrave, S1M0NE), who is continually ridiculed by his jocky brother John (Andrew Wilson, FEVER PITCH), Anthony goes along with Dignan's wild plan to rob a bookstore, so they can impress Mr. Henry, who poses as a gardening service company owner by day and a master thief by night. After the job goes less than smooth, the guys go on the lamb, staying at a motel where Anthony falls for the Spanish-speaking maid Inez (Lumi Cavazos, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE).

With Sean Penn's brilliant INTO THE WILD arriving on DVD this Tuesday, This Weekend's Film Festival will be dedicated to the connection between man and nature. We have an animated film that powerfully calls for a balance between nature and modernity. There's the best nature documentary I've ever seen. A documentary that chronicles a man's return to nature that reminds us that sometimes we need to leave nature alone sometimes. A Korean film will show us our spiritual connection to nature. And to close, we'll circle back around and discover that no man is an island.

When talking about nature and cinema it is hard to avoid the work of Hayao Miyazaki. PRINCESS MONONOKE is his powerful call to mankind to maintain a balance between the environment and our modern world. The gorgeous looking fantasy has Prince Ashitaka feverishly working as a peacemaker, trying to unite the nature gods with the industrial enterprise of Lady Eboshi. Along his journey, he falls in love with the young human girl, San aka Princess Mononoke, who has been adopted by the wolf god Moro. The lush painterly landscapes and ingenious visual imagination of PRINCESS MONONOKE is thrilling, thought-provoking and richly captivating. Miyazaki weaves together themes of peace and war and nature and modernity like they are inseparable elements. This vastly complex masterpiece is a sensational way to start this week's lineup. As I said in my original review, "[PRINCESS MONONOKE] is my favorite fantasy film of all time. I loved Frodo and his band of buddies, but I’d take Ashitaka and Yacul over them any day."

This romantic comedy is as sweet as the pies that its main character bakes. Writer/director Adrienne Shelly brings a female touch to the genre, which is so dominated by male directors, while female viewers are the main audience. There is a more realistic view of romance, keeping in mind that women have more things on their mind than finding a good man even when they are trying to find a good man. Or get away from the bad one as the case may be.

Jenna (Keri Russell, THE UPSIDE OF ANGER) is the top pie investor at a small pie diner. She is squirreling away part of her tips so that she can escape her smothering husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto, 2003's THIRTEEN). Then she learns that she is pregnant. She gets support from her co-workers Becky (Cheryl Hines, TV's CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly, TRUST), but she can't find any enthusiasm for her condition. The owner of the diner Old Joe (Andy Griffith) can read Jenna like an open book and the cantankerous man was no problem giving her unwanted advice. Moreover, she has to deal with her overwhelmed, new gynecologist Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion, SERENITY). But to quote the Rolling Stone, "you don't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you'll get what you need."

Well, after a two-week hiatus for the Oscar Showcase tour, This Weekend's Film Festival is back. It's a strong lineup filled with recent Oscar winners and nominated films, which all deal with the theme of crime. We have corporate evildoers. We have race-related murders. We have child kidnappers. And we have a double header of gangsters. Let take a look at why crime makes such great drama.

Kicking off the lineup is one of the most nominated films at this year's Oscars — MICHAEL CLAYTON. Tilda Swinton won a well-deserved Oscar. As I said in my original review, "Swinton, with her pale skin and intense acting style, fits perfectly into her power suit adorned, conniving character." She works a corporate lawyer who is under a great deal of pressure to cover-up her company's role in poisoning people with their weed killer. When chief litigator Arthur Edens, played wonderfully by Oscar-nominee Tom Wilkinson, tries to reveal the cover-up, Swinton's Karen Crowder is pushed into breaking the law to save her company, as well as her job. Oscar-nominee George Clooney as the title character works for the law firm where his job is to clean up messes too. With Edens determined to do what is right, will his newfound conscience rub off on Clayton or Crowder who have lived a long time in a morally ambiguous world? Corporate evil is easy for an audience to root against, and MICHAEL CLAYTON gives us a firsthand look into the bloody dealings of multimillion-dollar businesses that put profits over people's lives.