I became a fan of comedian Bill Hicks when I caught one of his old HBO specials on late at night. I wondered why I hadn’t heard of this angry hilarious and provocative performer before, so I went to the Internet and looked him up. Turns out he has a highly influential comedian of the early ‘90s who on the cusp of breaking into the big time in the U.S. died at the age of 32. Now British filmmakers Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas have brought his story to film in this innovative documentary that combines archive footage and animation to bring Hicks’ story to life.

Bill Hicks started his career as a comedian while in high school. He and his friend Dwight Slade snuck out of their houses to audition for the new comedy club in Houston, Texas. By the time he moved to L.A. after graduating, he was already a veteran. At 19, he was playing the famed Comedy Store and was getting meetings with agents to pitch comedy scripts. But for the eager artist success wasn’t coming fast enough and the City of Angels wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be, so he returned to Houston, where he made a name for himself not only as a comedian, but as a man living on the edge.

Many critics put this as one of the lowest, if not the lowest point, in Disney Feature Animation history. While it's not as big a failure as a film as so many say, its financial disaster has put an extra pall over its history. Getting crushed by THE CARE BEAR MOVIE at the box office will do that. The straightforward fantasy adventure is undercut by weak characters mainly.

Based on Lloyd Alexander's CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN book series, the LORD OF THE RINGS-like adventure with a coming of age twist seemed like a perfect story for the Disney animators to tackle. Taran (Grant Bardsley) is an assistant pig farmer who dreams of becoming a great warrior. His mentor Dallben (Freddie Jones, DUNE) is really an enchanter who is protecting the mystical pig Hen Wen from falling into the clutches of The Horned King (John Hurt, THE ELEPHANT MAN), who wants to use the swine to locate the Black Cauldron, which could allow him to raise an army of the undead and take over the world.

M. Night Shyamalan can be a good filmmaker. For me, his last three films, including this one, have been disasters. Others would push that number higher. I'll defend THE VILLAGE and SIGNS — they had interesting characters and grand themes that drove their narratives. The same qualities that drove his most successful work, THE SIXTH SENSE. The director seems to have lost those skills. Even with quality source material to work with, he was unable to deliver a coherent, let alone a compelling, story.

All the players from the anime-inspired Nickelodeon series are present. In a world where four tribes of people can control the elements of air, water, earth and fire, there is one Avatar who rises in each generation that can control them all and bring peace to the planet. Aang (Noah Ringer, upcoming COWBOYS & ALIENS) is the latest Avatar, but when he is told of his fate and that he will not be able to have a family as a result, he runs away and ends up trapped in ice. After a hundred years, he and his flying bison Appa are freed by Southern water tribe members Katara (Nicola Peltz, DECK THE HALLS) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone, TWILIGHT).

In this animated world, villainy is a corporate venture. Master criminals live among the average citizens, clearly out in the open. The gothic mansion of baddie Gru sticks out in the same row of suburban family homes. To fund criminal ventures, the villains apply for loans from the Bank of Evil (formerly known as Lehman Brothers).

Gru (Steve Carell, GET SMART) wants to be the top criminal mastermind, but he has competition in the newcomer Vector (Jason Segal, I LOVE YOU, MAN), who just stole the Great Pyramid, which he has stowed in his backyard, painting it blue so that it blends in with the skyline. Gru; along with his mad scientist cohort Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand, GET HIM TO THE GREEK) and hundreds of his minions, yellow pill-shaped sidekicks who get giddy over troublemaking; go to the Bank of Evil to get the funding for his biggest caper yet — steal the Moon. But before he can get to the Moon, he has to build a rocketship and steal a newly created Chinese shrink ray. The key to getting the ray — three orphans named Margo (Miranda Cosgrove, TV's ICARLY), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher).

Director Francis Lawrence (I AM LEGEND) and writer Richard LaGravenese (THE FISHER KING) do a rare cinematic achievement when having a book as the source material — they make the story better. They made all the right choices in what to cut, keep and change. The changes make the film more dramatic, but not in a maudlin way. Everything that happens is more immediate. The Depression-era setting only reminds us of the melodramas of that age, which this film fits in with surprisingly well.

Jacob (Robert Pattinson, TWILIGHT) was taking his last final in veterinary sciences at Cornell when he gets word that his parents have died in a car accident. They had mortgaged their house and business to pay for his education, so the bank takes everything. Now orphaned, he decides to jump a train. Luckily, he ends up on a circus train in the car of Camel (Jim Norton, STRAW DOGS), a friendly, drunk roustabout who helps him get work. When it’s found that he is an Ivy League vet, he is taken before the boss, August (Christoph Waltz, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), an intimidating man who isn’t unfamiliar with violence as a way of making people do what he wants.

TOY STORY's story is not over. Pixar has decided to extend the franchise in a series of shorts, this one being the first. Woody and the gang are preparing for some R&R as their new owner Bonnie is headed off on a Hawaiian family vacation over the winter break. Stowed away in the little girl's backpack are Ken and Barbie, who are extremely disappointed when they discover they're at Bonnie's house and not a luau on the beach. So in order to rescue the couple's first vacation together, the rest of the toys team up to bring paradise to a preschooler's bedroom.

Director Gary Rydstrom, who received an Oscar nod for his hilarious Pixar short LIFTED, brings his great timing to this film as well. While his other short relied on pitch perfect physical comedy, he brings the same sensibility to this talkier piece. Even though the script for this short has a lot more dialogue, the jokes are many sight gags. He knows exactly how to lay the joke out to maximize the laugh. Even when a joke is expected, he knows how to give it a twist in order to elicit a chuckle.

None of the Pixar shorts based on their features have been as good as their classics like GERI'S GAME or PRESTO, but this is the best of them. In addition to being funny, it also has a nicely contained story, instead just being a series of gags like MIKE'S NEW CAR or JACK-JACK ATTACK. But then the others were not based on TOY STORY nor did they have Pixar's sweet, innocent and retro take on Mattel's toy icons Barbie and Ken. What a sweet couple. Will they ever kiss?

John Lasseter's follow-up to his ode to car culture is the least like any other Pixar film. The spy spoof is an unabashed genre flick. WALL*E was sci-fi, but had a compelling love story at its core. Where the original CARS had an aww-shucks charm in its tale of finding pleasure in the simple side of life, this part two sets that aside for international intrigue, mistaken identities and fish out of water tomfoolery. It's of course done at the high performance quality level that Pixar has set since 1995.

The new adventure puts well meaning, but unsophisticated, Mater the tow truck (Larry the Cable Guy, WITLESS PROTECTION) at the center of the story. He is eagerly awaiting his best friend Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson, THE ROYAL TENEBAUMS) to return to Radiator Springs after the racing season is finished. Lightning has turned down an invitation to compete in the first World Grand Prix in order to spend some time with his friends. But when the arrogant Italian Formula One car Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro, THE BIG LEBOWSKI) insults Lightning on TV, Mater calls in and pretty much leaves Lightning with no other option than to compete.

This horror film is about scientists who take risks, much like its director Vincenzo Natali does with the story. The problem is these are bad scientists. I mean that in what they do and how they do it. They fool around with experiments they shouldn't… or should they. The film likes to put out these kinds of ideas, but isn't really interested in developing them. It's interested in getting to its Freudian nightmare of an ending.

Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody, THE PIANIST) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley, DAWN OF THE DEAD) are famed biogeneticists. The couple and partners have successfully combined the DNA of various creatures to create a new life form. The giant maggot-looking creatures are named Fred and Ginger. The pharmaceutical company they work for will make millions on the animal disease cures the creations will create. While the company wants them to synthesize proteins for the next five years, the duo want to take their experiments to the next level by including human DNA into the mix. Of course company crony William Barlow (David Hewlett, TV's STARGATE: ATLANTIS) won't allow it, not because the firm has moral objections, but because it would be a marketing disaster.

I have mixed feelings about this buddy cop comedy. I went in hoping for a satire of outlandish cop flicks. For the most part that's what I got. Then the film hints at something more, dealing with desk cops doing "boring" police work to catch the biggest thieves like Bernie Madoff. I really wish this area had been developed deeper instead of focusing on unconnected and very broad character moments. Then again some of those moments are really funny. But then again some of them aren't.

P.K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson, PULP FICTION) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne Johnson, GET SMART) are NYC's celebrity cops. They engage in all sorts of reckless chases and stunts, destroying more than they save and yet they are still touted as heroes. Detectives Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell, ANCHORMAN) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED) are the other guys. Gamble gleefully does the paperwork for cocky Highsmith and Danson. Hoitz is riding a desk not because he wants to, but because of an accidental shooting, which has made him the pariah of the city. Hoitz taunts Gamble into taking more dangerous cases, but Gamble is more interested in a scaffolding violation involving businessman David Ershon (Steve Coogan, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY).

What if upon your mother's death you learned that your father was still alive and that you had a brother you never knew about? Then you were asked to find them. Through the process you learn shocking details of your mother's past. What if the woman that always seemed a little weird was actually a legend in her native country?

Jeanne (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin, TAKING THE PLUNGE) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette, CHEECH) are faced with these questions when their mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal, PARADISE NOW) passes away suddenly. He doesn't want anything to do with his mother's surprising last request, but Jeanne knows that she will be haunted by it if she doesn't go looking for her father. As details, she will pull her brother into the search, simply because it is too emotional to do it on her own.