Screenhead

Well Ho Ho Ho!  Guess who’s playing Santa this holiday season?

The new CGI animated title Gotta Catch Santa Claus  – featuring none other than William Shatner himself as the voice of Santa and the captain of the most important sleigh in the world! 

I don’t know if this will become a modern-day holiday classic because both my husband and daughter found the movie too modern and kind of weird because the kids in the movie were not wearing winter clothes in the snow. The characters didn’t set a good example of how children should behave. Yet, the movie is being promoted as funny, contemporary and enjoyable for the entire family and features six jolly jammin’ new holiday songs. My daughter commented that the songs are not all that great either. She also told me about a department store Santa Claus who picked up kids and was mean to the kids as the parents took a pictures. By the time they get off his lap, they started crying. 

Any-Ho! The story centers on a friend who starts to doubt the idea of Santa Claus, 12 year old Trevor sets out on a mission to catch old St. Nick in order to prove his existence and put the skeptics to rest.  Gotta Catch Santa Claus, which will be broadcast nationally on ABC Family during their annual “25 Days of Christmas” programming block, features bonus materials on the DVD that include deleted scenes, behind the scenes Santa footage, sing-along songs and more! 

Screenhead has a copy of Gotta Catch Santa Clausto give away.  Post your name to have a chance at winning the DVD. Screenhead will pick the winner Sunday, December 10, 2009.

America’s first National Park, Yellowstone, is one of the most spectacular wildernesses on Earth and home to some of the richest wildlife beyond the plains of Africa.  Yellowstone: Battle for Life reveals the beauty and struggles of this amazing natural treasure. Every family and teacher must own the documentary. It’s for nature enthusiasts everywhere. The release contains three hour-long episodes that encompass nearly an entire year at Yellowstone National Park, as well as 30 minutes of behind-the-scenes special features. 

I was amazed at the detail and coverage of winter in Yellowstone. The documentary was such an educational and entertaining experience for me and my family. We watched how animals survive in the below freezing weather. Breathtaking fly-overs while narrator Peter Firth explains the paradox of being the home of world’s largest geothermal formation while also being one of the coldest places in North America. 

My daughter was captivated during the coverage of summer in Yellowstone. She learned about the humming bird that migrates every year to Yellowstone from Mexico. If a snow storm kills off the brilliant flowers, the humming bird get it’s nectar from, no problem the bird sucks the tree sap.  The humming birds lay and raise their young, and then head back to Mexico for 6 months before returning the Yellowstone.

My daughter enjoyed the latest Veggie Tales featuring all-stars Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, this new seasonal DVD tells the story of Saint Nicholas, the world’s greatest giver, and introduces Nicky the Pepper, the first new Veggie Tales character in five years. Bonus features include an original new song by singer-songwriter Matthew West, “Give This Christmas Away,” performed by West and Grammy Award-winning artist Amy Grant.

My daughter is nine and still enjoys these vegetables. She really gets a kick of each Veggie personality.  She said the best part was when the tomato and the cucumber were telling the story of Saint Nicholas. The cucumber kept on wanting things in the story to be different. Like when the two vegetables were telling the story, there was no twinkling lights, with cucumber’s imagination, he suggested twinkling lights, and then there was twinkling lights – my daughter thought that was funny.

Screenhead has Saint Nicholas available for a giveaway.  Please post your name and we will pick the winner Saturday, November 28, 2009, just in time for Christmas.

Join two-time Academy Award-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas (who narrates) and the world’s most pre-eminent paleontologists in this eye-popping IMAX adventure as they take an extra-ordinarily unique look at the age of dinosaurs and uncover some of history’s most astonishing finds. 

Personally, I found Dinosaurs Alive! worth the watch because the visuals add so much to the understanding of the prehistoric creatures.  The DVD is a great tool for any parent or school teacher who wants to teach their child about dinosaurs or for anyone who is an avid researcher of dinosaurs.  The special features are supplied with educational tools that are very helpful with a Dinosaur Quiz and Meet the Creatures.

Dinosaurs Alive! brings dinosaurs, their behaviors and ancient environments to life on screen as never before seen—juxtaposing stunningly realistic and scientifically accurate CGI animation with intriguing 1920s documentary footage, dramatic new scenes of real fossils and current dinosaur hunting expeditions. Using state-of-the-art techniques, the filmmakers have created an array of amazingly life-like creatures based on the latest fossil evidence, allowing the entire family to see these remarkable creatures come alive … in a very BIG way! 

So how big were these mysterious creatures that dominated the earth for 150 million years?  How fast did they move?  What did they eat?  How did they interact with other dinosaurs and creatures?  Which were the predators and which were the hunted?  How did they raise their young?  What was their world like and how did they deal with the forces of nature?  And just how did they die? 

Uncover the mysteries below your feet as you travel across the exotic dunes of the Gobi Desert and along the sandstone buttes of New Mexico with scientists who make brand-new discoveries and find what could be the oldest dinosaur ever unearthed in North America.

Screenhead has 4 copies of Dinosaur Alive! to give away. Post your name and we will pick the winners Thursday, November 12, 2009.

What a lovable movie!  It’s so refreshing to watch Toy Story 3 movie trailer after viewing all those horror movie trailers.  I remember when I left for college and still had my toys to contend with — it was tough letting them go, too.

Meatballs stormed the box office this weekend. The forecast came from a strong gust of jello on Friday to a hail of meatballs through Saturday, ending Sunday with a slight breeze of pancakes. Meaning, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs charted at #1 at the weekend box office.  Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! came in second, which looks like an excellent film for the more mature audiences.

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
$30,100,000

2. The Informant!
$10,500,000

3. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself
$10,100,000

4. Love Happens
$8,500,000

5. Jennifer’s Body
$6,800,000

6. 9
$5,500,000

7. Inglourious Basterds
$3,600,000

8. All About Steve
$3,400,000

9. Sorority Row
$2,500,000

10. The Final Destination
$2,400,000

It’s been a bad, bad day for me so far, folks–the kind of day that’s got me about one more catastrophe away from throwing up my hands and retreating to Olive Garden for the rest of the afternoon.

My newest problem is the release of a poster over at PVC Blue, a promotional one-sheet for the upcoming Smurfs movie.  Yeah, you read that right–UPCOMING. SMURFS. MOVIE.  And by the looks of it, this strange little wonder will be in theatres just in time for Christmas of 2010.

I don’t know what to say, really I don’t.  Granted, one of my earliest movie memories is going to see The Smurfs and the Magic Flute with my folks when I was like four or something, but come on…do we REALLY need the Smurfs back in action?  That’s so very…not smurfy.  If it were any less smurfy they’d have to invent a whole new classification of nonsmurfiness to adequately classify it.

It would require the existence of Nega-Smurfs.  They’re all bright red.

Of course, it could pick up, assuming that maybe Gargamel gets some actual powers for a change and maybe for once poses a genuine THREAT to the little blue folk…but chances are that won’t happen anyway.

Ah well…a former Smurf watcher can dream about them maturing too, can’t he?

You know that old philosophical argument? The one that supposes that we’re all just tiny specks comprising the atoms and molecules of some other, much larger universe?  Possibly even a much simpler one?  I once saw one version of this that postulated that we were all actually part of Ziggy’s big toe.  Yeah, the comic strip Ziggy.  Anyway, it might surprise you to know that Dr. Seuss, in his own inimitable style, actually took that ball and ran with it.  And since we were talking The Lorax yesterday, we may as well switch gears and talk Horton today, or, fairly recent release Horton Hears A Who.

In this animated movie, an elephant with more charm than good sense (and some unkind folks would substitute “good sense” for “sanity” here) one day discovers a tiny civilization living on a speck.  A speck of DUST, I believe–and he discovers it by way of his superior elephant hearing.  This civilization, known to all and sundry as Whoville   Previously they’d survived by living in a cave in which conditions were relatively static, but now their emergence into the larger world has left them at risk.  Thus it’s left to Horton to find them a new, similar cave-like environment.

Sure, this story only makes sense to small children and the clinically insane (where does Whoville get all the minerals it so clearly needs to build all that crap they’ve got in town?  The Whoville Iron Mines? Located on the speck of dust?) but once you work around the utter impossibility of it all, you’re left with a charming, raucously comic tale.  Even better, you’ve got great voice acting in the form of Jim Carrey and Seth Rogen, among others, plus some commentaries on the nature of faith in existence.  Just because you can’t see it doesn’t necessarily follow that it isn’t there.

The Screenhead Ten Scale rewards the stalwart pachyderm with a seven out of ten.  This plot couldn’t be much more far-fetched, but it will be entertaining.

A funny thing happened on the way to the theatre this morning–and before you stop me, no, this will NOT turn into a Zero Mostel reference.  I guarantee it.  Anyway, I was on my way to catch the very first showing of a movie so I could bring it back here to you.

I wanted The Collector.

I got Aliens in the Attic.

I know, I know–it’s all about managed disappointment, folks, and ironically, that’s also what Aliens in the Attic is about: managed disappointment.

Anyway, the plot.  It’s your class-X standard family movie fare–youngest daughter is here for no other reason than to be cute, supersmart middle boy child feels alone and neglected and starts tanking his grades so he can fit in better because “no one likes a mathlete”, Dad’s trying his bumbling best to keep up, oldest daughter’s dating a guy roughly four years older than she is but no one actually knows until he actually starts telling people.  Anyway, this Seventh Heaven episode gone ever so slightly off the rails packs up for a family vacation to Middle of Nowhere, Michigan.  It’s actually something involving the word “creek” but I just didn’t care enough to pay that close attention and you won’t need to either.  When they get to the rental home where the obnoxious other half of the family is also heading, they find a little surprise waiting for them.

Zirconian commandos.

Yep, seems the Zirconian Empire wants to annex Earth, and has thus sent a self-important halfwit, a psychotic weapons expert, a female martial artist who’s clearly overcompensating and a sensitive engineer who, in earth years, acts like he’s TWELVE to pave the way for the incoming invasion force by activating a device that’s been buried underground for decades.  Oh, and did I mention that the Zirconians are only about one tenth the size of an average human?

Let me just say, up front, that unless you have kids this movie will be an utter waste of your time.  Some children’s fare–especially the good stuff–is made accessible to adults by virtue of so-called “dual layer” writing, in which jokes that work for kids also work on adults on a totally different level, using things like clever double entendres and careful wordplay.

Aliens in the Attic, meanwhile, has all the wordplay of a brick.

This is a kiddie movie, plain and simple.  Anyone under, oh, fourteen or so is going to absolutely fall in love with it.  They’re going to love the thought of using mind control on Nana and having her execute Street Fighter moves (even I was impressed by watching Doris Roberts pulling off a Shoryuken), and the thought of hijacking their sister’s jerk of a boyfriend and making him slam into his own car and confess to his girlriend’s parents that he desperately needs a new set of adult diapers.  But most grownups, meanwhile, are going to find the jokes lame and tedious, with not a whole lot of laughs available for them.  The comedy here is weak if you’ve graduated high school any time recently.

Like I said, folks, it’s all about “managed disappointment”, which is just what Aliens in the Attic is.  There’s some fun here, and some interesting moments, but there’s also a whole lot of kids-only stuff in between the interesting moments, a whole lot more than you’d want to personally hazard unless you’re taking the kids out to the movies.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale issues it a five out of ten for doing its job and doing it well, but not doing much more than the minimum.  Some great moments for grownups here can’t distract from the fact that this is, first, foremost, and mostly, a kid’s movie.

You know, after looking back over the last five years and seeing nearly half a dozen Harry Potter movies come out (this one will make half a dozen), I’m amazed that there haven’t been more knockoffs.  Seriously, it seems like no one in Hollywood is even taking a crack at the boy wizard subgenre…until now.

It’s called The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens, and you’ll be able to find this lump on your video store shelves in just under two weeks, July 21st.

See, Billy Owens lives in one of the oldest towns in the East Coast, Spirit River.  And seeing that he’s about to turn eleven–on November eleventh, no less, in easily the biggest example of overforeshadowing I’ve seen in some time.  More on that later, but first, the rest of the plot. Harry–I mean,  Billy, on his eleventh birthday, is about to discover an unusual item up for sale in a local second-hand shop, one that’s likely going to save both himself and the entire town of Spirit River.  Harry–I mean, Billy, in case you hadn’t already figured it out from the opening paragraph, is going to discover that he’s a boy wizard.

No, seriously.

And this isn’t where the similarities end either–merely where they begin!  Billy has two friends, an underachiever named Devon and a clearly pedantic know-it-all named Mandy.  There’s even a school bully who relentlessly pursues Billy, with his two toadies.  Imagine how loud and long I laughed when I realized that the school bully had his own Krabbe and Goyle.

The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens is, let’s be honest, a bad movie.  The effects are weak even for low-budget, relying on computer graphics, and fairly low-quality CG at that.  This by itself would mean little, really, if it weren’t for the sheer aggressive awfulness of the script.  Mandy’s know-it-all persona is strenuously overexaggerated–she will bust out lines starting with “did you know…” with alarming frequency.  Worse, they’ve put the voice-over narration in Mandy’s hands, and she reads like, well, like a ten year old in class, blasting through lines with little regard for dramatic tension.  I understand she’s just a kid, but folks, she’s no Morgan Freeman.

You may think I’m being too harsh on a bunch of kids, but rest assure, the hackneyed acting isn’t just limited to them.  The adults can’t swing a whole lot of weight either, and that really doesn’t help matters.  The script too, as I said, is a morass of poor writing and terrifyingly bad plot elements.  Immortal dragons, mysterious vines, the “death of the river”…frankly, this is just downright horrible stuff on a narrative level.  The first time I saw a person sufficiently horrified that the town was being “invaded by vines”, all I could think was: “Does no one in Spirit River own a pair of hedge clippers?”

It’s bad enough that The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens is a Harry Potter knockoff, it’s even worse that it’s an aggressively BAD Harry Potter knockoff.  It’d be one thing if this were just a lousy movie, or a boy-wizard movie, but to be a lousy boy-wizard movie is a kick in the junk on literally several levels.  A movie that’s both wildly unoriginal AND poorly done can only be called a bad movie, and sadly, no amount of magic is going to change that.