The Pirates is a fantastic laugh-out-loud action-adventure film for the whole family to enjoy! I loved the humor, there is plenty of physical comedy for younger children, and funny pop cultural references that adults enjoy, including the four “Pirate of the Year” nominees waiting in the wings, anxious for the winner announcement, just like at the Oscars. I thought that the claymation was done skillfully, all characters have such lively expressions and personality.

Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest, an animated short, is about Ms. Ingrid Pitt, a young Jewish girl and Holocaust survivor.  When she was 8 years old, Ms. Pitt miraculously escaped the Stutthof concentration camp with her mother, surviving in the forest until the end of the War.  I have the great honor to be invited by Beyond the Forest director and producer Mr. Kevin Sean Michaels and two-time Academy Award nominee Mr. Bill Plympton to be the sole animator for this film.  We must know our past to move on into the future, so I believe it is necessary and important to educate today’s children about the Holocaust so that similar tragedies will not happen in the future.

 

 

In this sequel to Cars, after winning the Piston Cup, Lightening McQueen, professional racecar champion, invites his best friend Mater (a rusty tow truck who tries to be funny but ends up looking dumb) to help him in winning the World Grand Prix.  Along the way, Mater gets himself into tons of trouble and makes Lightening McQueen lose his first race.  Lightening McQueen gets into a fight with Mater and tells Mater he is no longer needed.  Mater is on the slow side, and doesn’t realize that he is mistaken for a secret agent by the enemy and the British intelligence.

Have you ever lost something or someone that you care deeply about? Victor Frankenstein, a quiet, thin, and clever young inventor has only one true friend – his beloved dog, Sparky. Together, Victor and Sparky have many adventures, such as making a movie together, building inventions in Victor’s secret lab in the attic, and playing fetch in the yard. Victor’s parents are a bit concerned for him, since he has no friends besides Sparky. But, Victor has no interest in befriending the children in his neighborhood. The kids there are Edgar, a nosy hunchback who can never keep a secret, Nassor, a dark, skeptical, and competitive bully, and a weird, unnamed girl who never blinks and rambles on about omens of the future found in her cat’s excrement, among others.

 

 

Is love a bitch? Apparently so for British author J. R. Ackerley.  He was always looking for an elusive companion to come to his life, yet this companion never materialized … until Tulip, a mischievous female German Shepherd came to his life and became inseparable.  Together, they started many misadventures, including searching for the ideal vet and mate for Tulip, and other ordeals which turned out to be much harder than it seemed.

 

 

Tangled is a spectacular film filled with rich and colorful characters, each with different personality.  The movie is full of action, comedy, and romance.  Even though the film uses one punch line after another, it is the kind of “appropriate humor” that is character and situation based, not potty humor.  It is also easy to understand for younger kids and appreciated by adults as well.

 

In Happy Feet 2, Mumble the emperor penguin from Happy Feet has a chick of his own, whose name is Erik. But Erik just can’t get the right rhythm in dancing. At the same time global warming has caused a huge iceberg to seal off all the entrances to Emperor Land. Mumble must find a way to help get the emperor penguins out safely and at the same time dealing with his parental issues. Also, the film incorporates several new characters, such as elephant seals like Bryan the Beachmaster, new chicks, a puffin named Sven, and Will and Bill, the two krill.

 

I give this film 3.5 starfish. I enjoyed the story and I liked the messages about global warming and “thinking outside the swarm.”  I especially liked Will and Bill’s story because it shows how Will wants to understand and explore the world and take risks in the pursuit of adventure. Bill is very cautious and is more of a voice of reason to Will’s actions.

 

Toon Boom Animation Inc, a worldwide leader in digital content and animation creation software, sent a donation check to Perry S. Chen, a 13-year-old award-winning animator in 7th grade from San Diego, and his mother and producer Dr. Zhu Shen, becoming animation industry’s first corporate sponsor to Perry and Zhu’s new and most personal animation film “Changyou’s Journey,” about Dr. Changyou Chen, Perry’s father, a biotech CEO and cancer drug researcher, who lost his brave fight against metastatic skin cancer in 2012 at the age of 49.  Perry and Zhu received Toon Boom’s donation on the date of what would have been Changyou’s 50th birthday.

 

 

Continued from previous Narnia movies, Lucy and her brother Edmund, embark on an adventure in “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” the third film in the series opening on December 10, 2010. The journey takes them on beyond Narnia itself.  Lucy and Edmond seem like ordinary kids, but they are King and Queen in the imaginary land of Narnia.  Today, however, they are going to visit their cranky young cousin Eustace, who doesn’t believe fairly tales and imaginary things until he sees them come alive.

Have you ever wondered if orphans have dreams and aspirations of their own? In Hugo, a Martin Scorsese 3D film opening TODAY, based on the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), the 12-year-old son of a deceased clockmaker, lives in a bustling Parisian train station secretly winding the clocks, filching pastries from cafes, and stealing parts from a toy shop to repair a broken mysterious mechanical man called the automaton that his father found in the attic of a museum. But, one day he gets caught by the toy store’s bitter old owner, Georges (Ben Kingsley), who takes his most valuable possession, a notebook with the schematics and instructions to repair the automaton. Hugo’s secret life of hiding in the walls and clocks, stealing to survive, and his most cherished possession, the automaton, are in imminent danger of being revealed. As Hugo struggles to fix the mysterious machine, the secret of the automaton and its origins deepens as he makes a new friend, Isabelle, the bookish, clever goddaughter of Georges, evades an inspector intent on sending him to an orphanage, and eventually finds his own place in the world.