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Review: Bolt
Filed under: Animation, New Releases, Disney, Theatrical Reviews, Family Films
I'm trying to muster up some enthusiasm for Disney's latest animated film, Bolt. It's cute. It has funny pigeons. My eight-year-old niece is going to like it, especially since Miley Cyrus is involved. It's the first non-Pixar Disney feature produced by John Lasseter, who directed the Toy Story movies and Cars. It's got Hollywood jokes in it, including a director voiced by James Lipton, and a comically pushy agent. And yet I never thrilled to the story or the characters; I wasn't half as amused as I'd been by Kung Fu Panda, a film for kids I saw earlier this year.
The story should sound familiar to anyone who grew up with Lassie movies or other animal-road-trip films, but with a Hollywood twist. The title character, a cute dog called Bolt (John Travolta), is fiercely attached to "his person," teenage Penny (Miley Cyrus). Bolt saves Penny's life on a regular basis as she and her dad are pursued by the evil Dr. Calico and his nasty cats ... or so he thinks. The truth is that Bolt is the star of a TV series, but the cast and crew are very careful not to let him know that he's not in real-life situations. So he believes he's a genetically engineered dog with laser eyes and amazing strength and a supersonic bark. When Bolt is separated from Penny and ends up halfway across the country on his own, for the first time he's in a world that isn't a soundstage or his trailer. Now, how will he get back to Penny?
Discuss: Hollywood's Most Annoying Man
Filed under: Comedy, Deals, Disney, Scripts, Newsstand
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Before you start spewing out the names of Hollywood's most annoying men as if some sort of gag reflex has taken over your -- Rob Schneider! -- body, let me set this up for you: Variety tells us Disney has picked up a comedy script called The World's Most Annoying Man, written by Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert (those magicians behind Nick's Kenan and Kel), and so far no one has approached me to star ... which is good, I suppose. There's no director or cast attached yet, but Andy Fickman (director of upcoming Race to Witch Mountain) is producing. And what could a film called The World's Most Annoying Man possibly be about? Animated squirrel chess champions? Um, no. Actually, the film will tell of a man who must travel across the country with his really annoying brother en route to his own wedding. Kinda sounds like Tommy Boy (or any buddy road movie for that matter), except tack on a wedding to the end. Great. Got it. So here's where the discussion comes in: Who, may I ask, would you cast as the world's most annoying man? Do you cast a really annoying actor like Jack Black or Andy Dick or someone else who's really annoying. OR, do you cast a funny actor who's great at playing an annoying man? Once you decide all that, tell us: Who do you think is Hollywood's most annoying man?
The Rock Races to 'Witch Mountain' in New Trailer
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Disney, Family Films, Remakes and Sequels, Trailers and Clips
From the star, director and studio behind The Game Plan comes... another movie pairing up Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson with kids! Okay, this one -- Race to Witch Mountain, a remake of Disney's own Escape to Witch Mountain from 1975 -- seems a fair bit more tolerable than that one was, as cab driver Johnson is forced to team up with UFO expert Carla Gugino on an unexpected mission to get two unique children (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) to the above-mentioned location of their spaceship.A couple of things should be said for the trailer, which we've included after the jump.
- There is an unavoidable watermark on it, but other than that, it seems to be a fully digital trailer and not bootlegged from sneaks of Bolt this past Saturday. (Okay, I get it: Star Trek is Star Trek... and you know who else pulls a very similar 'letting a vehicle crumple around you' trick? Bolt does.)
- Said watermark and the YouTube premiere suggests that this hasn't been officially released by the studio yet, so I'd be willing to bet that this trailer gets taken down by the end of the day. Good luck!
- More power to Johnson for throwing himself wholly into work like this, even if we can already see his character growing out of skepticism and towards accountability over the course of these two minutes. (Besides, Brendan Fraser can't hold a monopoly on all the family adventure hero roles.)
Wildcats Are Go for 'High School Musical' Sing-Along This Friday
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Romance, Disney, Box Office, Fandom, Exhibition, Family Films, Remakes and Sequels
The day before opening, I made an educated guess that we'd see a sing-along incarnation of High School Musical 3: Senior Year soon enough. However, while I thought that Disney might go for the relatively open weekends of November 14th or December 5th, last week's 65% drop in business suggests that repeat viewing has already somewhat exhausted itself and that the studio better milk their cash cow dry a bit sooner, so on November 7th, the lyric-laden version of HSM3 will pop up in 125 digital theaters nationwide.There's something to be said for the digital aspect of this release. Though I have friends and colleagues who still cheer 35mm all the way, to dismiss the merits of digital projection -- whether in this or better cases -- seems downright foolish. Who knows: with any luck, we'll be treated to a digital release of Saw School Musical come next October...
Read This: The Onion's A.V. Club Likes 'The Rocketeer,' Loves America
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Disney, Comic/Superhero/Geek
If you're a regular reader of online film criticism, then chances are you're already aware of the super-sharp crew over at The Onion's A.V. Club, and if indeed you are, then you know that these guys can put together a mean movie retrospective, with titles ranging from today all the way back to the mid-'90s. (I kid, I kid; Scott Tobias' The New Cult Canon did get around to the likes of I Am Cuba.)An equally fascinating recurring feature is Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops, and the opening paragraphs to this week's entry on 1991's The Rocketeer are among the strongest testament to that column, that critic, and that team that I've read to date. Here's a taste:
"Anyone who tells you the appeal of moviegoing isn't at least partially voyeuristic is a goddamned liar and should be punched in the face repeatedly. We go to the movies in no small part to watch uncommonly beautiful people woo, romance, or reject other preternaturally fetching creatures in photogenic settings. As a young boy, I embraced movies as a socially acceptable way of looking at boobs. The fact that films were capable of art and truth was a neat bonus."
It only gets more graphic from there -- in all the best ways, natch -- before Rabin finally settles down to the film at hand (which just dashed up my Netflix Queue from the relative depths). Regardless, isn't that paragraph alone really just... something else?
[Thanks to Maxim for sending this my way.]
Kids Find Themselves Subjected to 'Sex' Instead of 'High School'
Filed under: Comedy, Horror, Music & Musicals, Disney, Exhibition, Family Films, Remakes and Sequels, Fox Atomic
In Utah -- the state so pure that some theaters owners refuse to show the relatively tame Zack and Miri Make a Porno but haven't given Saw V a second glance -- one theater moved their audience for the weekend's #1 movie, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, into a larger auditorium that had been showing the raunchy Sex Drive ... and promptly continued to do so once the lights went down.This isn't a terribly uncommon mistake to be made. Just last year, a Long Island multiplex exposed children to the gruesome opening of The Hills Have Eyes 2 instead of The Last Mimzy, and back in 2005, I found myself attending a Saturday night sneak of Zathura in a theater where The Fog proceeded to begin instead. (Childless and intrepid as I
(No, please, it was nothing.)
I just hope that some giddy HSM3 fan let loose with "Go, Wildcats!" regardless. They wouldn't have been too far off...
For All Those Who Still Believe in Fairies: 'Tinkerbell' on DVD
Filed under: Animation, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Releases, Disney, Family Films, Movie Marketing, Remakes and Sequels, Trailers and Clips
All children, except one, grow up -- but hopefully none of them become so cynical as to lose their belief in fairies. For those who still believe, or who might need a refresher course, Disney is releasing Tinkerbell to DVD and Blu-Ray on October 28th. It's Tinkerbell's first solo film, and the first time she will actually speak onscreen. Considering that she now boasts her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it's about time she gets to headline her own movie. At last, Tinkerbell fans (and there are a lot of them!) will find out her origin, her specialty as a tinker fairy, and learn about her hometown of Pixie Hollow, the home of Disney's Fairies. Tinkerbell is the big debut of Disney's Fairies, and they will undoubtedly become a sparkly obsession to rival the Disney Princesses. By next Halloween, you might be seing fewer ballgowns, and more wings and leaf-based dresses. Very ecological!
The movie looks pretty charming, and the animation is quite lovely -- I'm hypnotized by the leaves and the sparkles of Queen Clarion's dress. And it boasts a very talented cast: Angelica Huston, America Ferrera, Jane Horrocks, Kristen Chenoweth, Lucy Liu, and Kathy Najimy are among the actresses who lent their voices to the fairy cast. Angelica Huston, people. If she can admit she believes in fairies, then the rest of us can too.
You can visit the official site to check out the trailer and the first six minutes of the film. There's plenty of girly goodies to be found -- you can make your own fairy, explore Pixie Hollow, meet its pixie inhabitants, and much more. If you have a young daughter, niece, little sister, or are stuck babysitting, just call this site up. You'll be extremely popular for the day, especially if you're a good sport and find out which fairy you are. (I'm Fawn, and I'm not afraid to admit it.)
Knowing Tinkerbell's popularity with big and little girls alike (have you ever seen the amount of merchandise she has?), I'm sure this is only the first of many movies to come -- keeping us all children a little longer.
The movie looks pretty charming, and the animation is quite lovely -- I'm hypnotized by the leaves and the sparkles of Queen Clarion's dress. And it boasts a very talented cast: Angelica Huston, America Ferrera, Jane Horrocks, Kristen Chenoweth, Lucy Liu, and Kathy Najimy are among the actresses who lent their voices to the fairy cast. Angelica Huston, people. If she can admit she believes in fairies, then the rest of us can too.
You can visit the official site to check out the trailer and the first six minutes of the film. There's plenty of girly goodies to be found -- you can make your own fairy, explore Pixie Hollow, meet its pixie inhabitants, and much more. If you have a young daughter, niece, little sister, or are stuck babysitting, just call this site up. You'll be extremely popular for the day, especially if you're a good sport and find out which fairy you are. (I'm Fawn, and I'm not afraid to admit it.)
Knowing Tinkerbell's popularity with big and little girls alike (have you ever seen the amount of merchandise she has?), I'm sure this is only the first of many movies to come -- keeping us all children a little longer.
Review: High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Disney, Theatrical Reviews, Family Films
I'm not only the wrong demographic for High School Musical 3: Senior Year, but I'm old enough to be bringing a theoretical child of my own to the movie as the right demographic. In fact, I was the oldest person in the theater without an accompanying child. I would have felt skeevy commenting on whether Zac Efron is hot, and had to settle for pondering the cuteness of the guy playing Efron's dad (maybe). But since Cinematical wasn't interested in finding a pre-teen with astounding film-critic abilities (we could use that critic-kid from Hamlet 2 at times like this), you're stuck hearing what Ol' Lady Jette had to say about High School Musical 3. I better make this fast before my arthritis kicks in.
High School Musical 3 is what it is -- a standard musical with no agenda other than good clean fun. It's just like the old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musicals, right down to the "Let's put on a show!" theme, and will probably seem just as corny as Babes in Arms in 50 years. The previous two movies were made for TV, but the production values on this film are theatrical quality, and in fact some of the splashier dance numbers are going to lose some of their pizzazz on a smaller screen.
Discuss: If You Want to Sing Out...
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Romance, Disney, Fandom, Family Films, Remakes and Sequels
Last night, I found myself surrounded by a swarm of youngsters who were eating up High School Musical 3: Senior Year (I'd tell you what I thought, but studio snipers are watching my every word; we'll have our official review up soon enough). Particularly towards the end, each and every opportunity to stomp and clap was embraced, which led me to wonder: just how long before an inevitable sing-along version is released?
Now, nothing's certain, but given that Disney saw fit to release this one theatrically, I doubt they're above any last chance to wring this for all the money it can make. Acting under that presumption, I'd be willing to bet that, were we to see HSM3: Senior Year Sing-Along, it'd be on either:
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November 14: the tweens couldn't care less about James Bond, are just old enough to pass on Madagascar 2 and just young enough to think that three weeks since their first time has been an eternity, or...
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December 5: the week after Thanksgiving is often a dead zone (home last year to, um, Awake), and between no direct family-friendly competition from Punisher: Take Two and screens likely freed up by whatever holiday release underperforms (there's always at least one), these are exactly the kind of conditions that nature abhors and that Disney may yet take advantage of
Did any of you turn out for Hairspray or Mamma Mia! these past two summers? Would you go back for another go here if the kids begged you? Would you totally just act like that was your plan all along as you tap your feet and wail in your shower voice as your spawn and those seated near stare on in awe/terror?
Pirates Rumor Mill: Is Zac Efron Boarding the Black Pearl?
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Disney, RumorMonger, Remakes and Sequels
The latest rumor hitting the high seas -- MTV UK reports that Zac Efron has signed on to star in Pirates of the Caribbean 4, for the prime sum of 6 million pounds -- a deal that would also glue him to another HSM sequel. But rumor control is already in the works. MTV, stateside, reports that this all came from The National Enquirer, and that there's no truth to the story. They talked to Efron, who says the rumors aren't true, although he'd definitely be interested. Gee, ya think?Whoever cooked up this rumor at least thought it out -- Zac might not be interested in more HSM, but I bet he'd agree to more for the chance to star in a huge Disney feature that reaches beyond the teen girls and allows him to act alongside Depp. And from the studio's side, Sparrow's last male rival couldn't hold a torch to Johnny, so I wouldn't be surprised if Disney did it again.
Orlando Bloom might have been one heck of a Legolas, but I just hated him in Pirates. His charisma, or lack thereof, was no match for Depp, and to give Johnny another star that can't give him a run for his money ... that would be a shame. This franchise's best bet: focus on Sparrow with a few co-stars who can rival Depp's charisma and chemistry. Any suggestions?
