The Great Mouse Detective is available on Blu Ray + DVD on Oct. 9, 2012. Courtesy of Disney Films
Between 1958-1982, Eve Titus parodied the greatest fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, into a mouse named Basil Rathbone for a series of children novels. His success in making the adult detective series accessible to youngsters led to Disney’s adaptation The Great Mouse Detective.
In this rodent based adaptation, Basil and Dr. Dawson (a parody of Dr. Watson) track down the notorious Professor Ratigan in order to prevent him from committing a heinous crime against the Royalty of Victorian England.
What’s really astonishing about this film is how they’ve retained the original character traits of the base characters, while adding whimsical nuances to entertain younger generations. Disney did a fantastic job of allowing the sophisticated detective genius from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work to shine through, all the while interweaving a daring adventure for younger audiences.
Twenty-six years after its theatrical release, Disney has completely restored both the original film and its audio track for the Blu Ray + DVD release. On top of that, they’ve included some special features worth checking out. “So You Think You Can Sleuth” is entertaining and educational to both children and adults. This featurette looks at the history of crime solvers and provides a lighthearted wrongdoing for the audience to take a stab at solving. There’s also The Making Of The Great Mouse Detective and “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” Sing-A-Long Song.
Bottom Line: This mousy mystery is timeless and definitely worth owning on Blu Ray.
Disney’s Cinderella is available to own on Blu Ray for the first time ever on Oct. 2nd, 2012. Courtesy of Disney Pictures
When Disney’s timeless tale Cinderella was released in 1950, the film had the financial future of Disney studios resting on its shoulders. As we all know, the movie was a smashing success and propelled Disney into the world of gargantuan movie mogul.
Disney’s telling of the humble, beautiful orphaned girl, shunned into slavery by her wicked stepmother and wretched step sisters has never been told better. What sends this fairy tale to the stratosphere of a true classic is the inclusion of a secondary set of animal characters and their complimentary storyline. The humour, suspense and grandeur of the entire production means this film will continue to entertain movie goers for generations to come.
With a complete digital restoration for its Blu Ray + DVD release, this classic looks and sounds as if it were recently animated. They’ve polished the fuzzy animation cells and scratchy soundtrack without adding anything that doesn’t belong. If only George Lucas thought this way.
If you’re a fan of special features, you’ve hit the jackpot! There is a plethora of goodies to dive into, even if the best ones are tucked into the recesses of the menu. You’ll find everything from behind the scenes making-of featurettes that take you into the conception of the film, casting, and musical inspiration. You’ll even hear from the people who animated the characters! There’s also a storyboarded alternate opening sequence, as well as animated shorts, and even a preview of Walt Disney World’s new addition to their theme park: Disney Princess Fantasyland.
Bottom Line: This incredibly remastered, bonus feature laden fairy tale is a must own on Blu Ray for kids and past kids alike.
Find the dramatic comedy People Like Us in stores on Oct. 2nd, 2012. Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures
How many perfect families are there? The honesty presented in a film like People Like Us gives us a glimpse into the dysfunctions that plague a modern family, all the while, keeping us readily entertained.
In People Like Us, we follow a struggling salesman, Sam (Chris Pine), as he deals with reconciling with his family after his neglectful father’s passing. When settling his estate, Sam discovers a half-sister and his dad’s secret life.
Witty, truthful, and heartfelt all describe this drama. From the guys who wrote Transformers and Star Trek (2009), both Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci find a completely different angle in which to tell a story. Both writers, with the aid of Jody Lambert, piece together a multitude of character studies in this tightly knit film.
Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Michelle Pfeiffer, Olivia Wilde and Michael Hall D’Addario deliver true to life dramatic and comedic performances. It’s one of the truest example of genuine acting I’ve seen in a long while.
The Blu Ray + DVD release features a decent set of special features to accompany the fantastic film. They include a behind the scenes look at how the story came to be and the production footage in Number One With A Bullet: The Story Behind People Like Us. There’s also Taco Talk, which gives you Chris Pine’s and Elizabeth Banks’ complete improvisational and hilarious scene at the taco stand. Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel and Audio Commentary are also included.
Bottom Line: Come for the comedy, stay for the heart. Well worth owning.
(L to R) Denise (WANETAH WALMSLEY), Ashley (SHELLY REGNER), Cynthia Rose (ESTER DEAN), Fat Amy (REBEL WILSON), Stacie (ALEXIS KNAPP), Beca (ANNA KENDRICK), Chloe (BRITTANY SNOW), Lilly (HANA MAE LEE) and Jessica (KELLEY ALICE JAKLE) in ‘Pitch Perfect’. Courtesy of Universal Pictures
Let’s face it, “teeny bopper” films usually suck! Pitch Perfect looks like your run-of-the-mill, musically driven movie that only young teenage girls and hormone driven boys would enjoy. That is like soooo totally wrong.
Pitch Perfect tells the hilarious story of a rebellious freshman, Beca (Anna Kendrick), who reluctantly joins an all-girl a cappella group trying to win the college a cappella championships.
There is not a five minute gap to be found without a solid laugh in this mix musical/sports comedy. It all stems from the fantastic writing, direction and whimsical comedic performances by the cast.
Kay Cannon’s script is harmoniously transferred to the big screen by first time feature film director Jason Moore. Both managed to provide substance and originality to a thoroughly trodden story.
What really makes the movie shine are the side-splittingly funny performances from the cast. Nobody gets higher praise for this than Rebel Wilson (Fat Amy); the husky girl, with a powerful voice, who freely voices her opinions.
There is also much to be said about the selection and use of the music chosen for the movie. With hits ranging from the 80’s to present day, there’s something in here for everyone to jive with. Also to be appreciated is the lack of unnecessary spectacle common in most musicals.
Bottom Line: Female or male, young or old, singer or window breaker, this movie has an abundance of fun for everyone.
Hysteria is available on Blu Ray September 18, 2012. Courtesy of eOne
Injustice comes in all shapes and sizes. Hysteria examines the social injustice women had to bare in Victorian England where doctors treated women diagnosed with Hysteria (By today’s standards they just weren’t “getting any”). What resulted from all of this medical insanity was the invention of the glorious and renowned vibrator.
Director Tanya Wexler does a great job of including different facets of historical fact delivering both drama and humour. Where things fall short is in the chemistry (or lack thereof) between Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal, which faulted the credibility of the secondary story.
Outside of this folly, every member of the large cast delivered solid performances.
The most incredible part of the production were the brilliant sets and art direction that throw you head first into middle class Victorian England.
In the Blu Ray + DVD combo pack, you’ll find some excellent special features to accompany this beautifully shot film. They include Commentary with Tanya Wexler, “An Evening with Tanya Wexler, Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce” Featurette, Hysteria: Behind The Scenes, and a set of useless Deleted Scenes. The best feature is a short documentary “Passion & Power: The Technology Of Orgasm”. This fascinating look at the history of female sexual oppression and the history of vibrators from their creation is a must watch!
Bottom Line: With an engaging film and interesting special features, this home release is definitely worth checking out.
Pocahontas and Pocahontas II Blu Ray + DVD combo available August 21, 2012. Courtesy of Disney Pictures
It’s hard to watch a childhood favourite when you’re all grown up, only to realize it is not nearly as good as you once thought it was. This is exactly what I had to come to terms with when watching Pocahontas for its Blu Ray release 17 years after its theatrical release.
Disney has included a duo of Pocahontas and Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World, both remastered in high definition for the Blu Ray release.
For the few of you who haven’t seen the first film, Pocahontas tells the story of the British traveling to North America in search of gold, only to fall into quarrels with the Native Indians they meet upon their arrival. A love affair begins when John Smith befriends Pocahontas and it is up to them to bring peace to the warring sides.
What I failed to notice when I was a child is how basically flawed the entire story is. Character motivations are highly contrived, while the endless campaign of poorly sung musical numbers becomes tired very quickly. The saving grace is the Academy Award winning Best Original Song “Colours of the Wind” brilliantly sung by Judy Kuhn.
In part 2, Pocahontas travels as a peace ambassador to England, only to discover an old foe attempting to sabotage her visit.
Oddly enough, the sequel delivered a more satisfying film than its predecessor. The humour is about the same, whereas the story and characters seem less contrived. Not a brilliant film by any stretch of the imagination, but descent enough for this adult to sit through.
For this Blu Ray + DVD combo pack, both films look better than they ever did before. The special features are not the most impressive set, but there are a few interesting ones to check out. The Audio Commentary and The Music Of Pocahontas really gives us insight into the making of the movie. The other features, while interesting, only serve as distant relatives to the feature film. They include Drawing Inspiration: The Lost Story Of Hiawatha, “Little Hiawatha” Cartoon Short, Deleted Song: “If I Never Knew You”, and Deleted Scenes.
Bottom Line: Unless you’re a huge fan of the film or need it to complete your collection, you would be better off renting this Blu Ray release.
Movie Grades: Pocahontas: C-/Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World: C
Blu Ray Grade B+
Runtimes: Pocahontas: 81 minutes/Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World: 73 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Chimpanzee is available in stores on August 21, 2012. Courtesy of DisneyNature
As our genetic ancestors, chimpanzees give humans a glimpse into our extremely distant past. In DisneyNature’s documentary, Chimpanzee, we follow a group of chimps living in the forests of Africa as they try to keep their home safe from an invading clan of rival chimpanzees (Remind you of anyone you know?). Possibly the most intriguing aspect of this film is the story of baby Oscar and the unlikely relationship he forms with the alpha male of his group, Freddy.
This beautifully shot documentary delivers a powerful story of both spirit and family. The cinematography is absolutely stunning, as is the in-depth camera work the crew managed to achieve in order to bring us intimately close to this group of playful primates.
Directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield managed to show the darker side of the animal’s lives, but successfully cut everything graphic and potentially disturbing out for those younger and ever so sensitive viewers. With the assistance of Tim Allen’s (Toy Story, The Santa Clause) playful narration, younger audience members will be thoroughly engaged in this astonishing world of survival.
DisneyNature has included a fantastic array of special features for the Blu Ray + DVD release. Every minute of the On Location: Making Of Chimpanzee featurette is a must watch. It chronicles the pain-staking efforts the crew went through to deliver this astonishing footage. Also included is “Rise” Music Video By McClain Sisters, Behind The Scenes Of “Rise”, See Chimpanzee, Save Chimpanzee, Disney’s Friends For Change, and Disney’s Conservation Legacy.
Bottom Line: Whether you live alone or have a large family, everyone will be captivated by this heartfelt documentary and its phenomenal cinematography.
Movie Grade A
Blu Ray Grade A
Runtime: 78 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Here are some fun activities for you to download and print for your little ones to enjoy:
Kodi Smit-McPhee stars as the “parNormanly” gifted in ParaNorman. Courtesy of Alliance Media
Like Cole from The Sixth Sense, Norman has the paranormal ability to speak to the deceased. Norman’s story differs as he tries to help the friendly ghosts break an ancient curse that threatens to destroy his town and its inhabitants.
ParaNorman pioneers new and innovative techniques in stop motion animation taking on massive sets and action packed sequences never seen before in this medium. It also tells a heart-felt story combining laughter, horror and poignant social commentary regarding the way people are treated when they don’t fit the “norm” (hard not to pun).
Chris Butler and Sam Fell successfully bring Butler’s massive dream to the screen. The movie powers forward with wonderful pace, only slowing down at stirring moments to deliver their impactful message.
The talented Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road, Let Me In) delivers a solid voice-over performance alongside his cast members. There are only a few moments when the dialogue suffered from feeling read and not acted.
Speaking of the visuals, you’re in for a real treat with easily one of the best stop-motion animation experiences you’ll ever have alongside Coraline. On top of that, you’ll definitely want to immerse yourself in the palpable 3D option that really helps draw you further into the already first-rate film.
Bottom Line: Without a doubt, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth from ParaNorman.
Courtney, Alvin, Mitch, Norman, and Neil in PARANORMAN, directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, the new stop-motion comedy thriller from LAIKA and Focus Features.
ParaNorman tells the story of a young man gifted (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the ability to talk to ghosts. The movie strikes an excellent cord between, comedy and horror, while instilling a sense of heart and morality.
I’m very lucky to have sat down with one of the directors, Sam Fell (The Tale of Despereaux, Flushed Away), to find out how this great story came to be.
Do you believe in the paranormal?
I believe there is more to us than flesh and bone. There’s obviously something in our consciousness that’s beyond what we see. I haven’t seen a ghost, but I’m happy to just know that there’s more. I’ll come back and haunt you to let you know that they do exist.
How would you react to having Norman’s ability to see and speak to ghosts?
I think it would be cool to see those ghosts that he sees because they’re friendly ghosts. I’d probably go look a few people up. I never got to meet one of my grandfathers, so I’d like to talk to him.
Can you briefly describe what differentiates the way you shot ParaNorman versus other stop-motion animated movies?
At its heart, it’s the same process. Build a miniature world, light it, build miniature puppets out of clay, and then it’s one frame at a time. You start in frame one and days or weeks later you’re finished that shot. One of our shots was about 1000 frames long and that took about ten weeks to shoot!
That’s insane!
Tell me about it! It’s a living performance, captured very slowly. What made our process different is we used a 3D colour printer to create thousands of faces to switch for each frame. Amazingly innovative stuff!
I’ll let the pros show you how they did it:
Is this the future of animation?
I think there are multiple futures for animating a film. I’ll never forget that moment when I saw Toy Story on the big screen for the first time, when CG animation was new, exciting and novel. It blew me away! I don’t get that feeling very much anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I really like a lot of animated films. It just feels like the genre has been dormant for a long time. It wasn’t until Coraline where we got to see this tactile world in stereoscopic 3D for the first time that I got a similar sensation again. Felt uncanny. I actually hope hand-drawn animation makes a comeback.
Me too!
So far in your career, you’ve only directed animated films. Do you have any interest in taking on some living actors?
I would consider it. Actually, before this movie came along, I had been dabbling in writing and had some live action stuff in development. So I’ve touched on that world. In many ways, shooting ParaNorman has been sort of a live action film on a smaller scale. I think you should want to tell a story more than just entering a medium for the sake of it.
Are you very selective when it comes to the projects you take on?
I’m as selective as I can be, you know. It’s tricky, because on one side it’s a business and I’m a working director who wants to work. I want to make films. So I hold off as long as I can and read a ton of scripts. I actually develop my own work too. But somewhere along that road, you’re just itching to make another film and you grab the best one you’ve been presented with and you go with it. Directors aren’t built to sit around, you see.
For the voice work, did you do the traditional method of every actor doing solo recordings or did you manage to get them together to record?
We were lucky to get some of them together, actually. We got Leslie Mann and Jeff Garlin, the Babcock parents together. They were great at ad libbing. We also got Casey Affleck and Anna Kendrick together, which was great since neither had done animation before, so they got to find their way together. And we got Kodi Smit-McPhee (Norman) and Tucker Albrizzi (Neil) together. They were so good together, that we didn’t even edit out their mistakes. It just made it more beautiful.
Were there any whacky mishaps that happened during production?
It’s weird, but there weren’t any big mishaps that happened on this movie. The only difficult aspect of this movie was the ambition of it. Crazy ambition! In the first year when we were planning and storyboarding it, we got carried away. We were so excited about doing car chases with multiple cameras and the big storm in the sky to connect to the zombies. On top of that, we wanted a mob! Halfway through, it all started to hit us just how much we wanted to push everything. That was the only moment when we gulped at the vastness and scale of the project.
Did the final product deviate from the original script in anyway?
No, actually. We just turned a great script into a great movie.
That you did, Sam! Check out ParaNorman in 3D in theatres everywhere on August 17, 2012.
Here’s another look at how they brought this movie to life:
THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN stars Cindy (Jennifer Garner), Timothy (CJ Adams) and Jim (Joel Edgerton). Courtesy of Disney Pictures
When we’re presented with a premise that shows promise it’s only logical to think that the final product should be mildly entertaining, at the very least. When it comes to The Odd Life of Timothy Green, that logic is thrown into a bottomless pit and we’re left with one of the most lackluster films of 2012.
In Disney’s latest film, a married couple who are unable to conceive, write down the ideal child on paper and plant it in their garden. Their dreams are realized as a fully grown boy named Timothy.
Without much effort, you’ll be able to effortlessly predict the remainder of this lazily written story.
Well known writer turned director, Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), displays absolutely zero talent on either front. Every facet of this film lacks drive. Instead, events just casually take place without any drama or suspense.
There weren’t even performances worth mentioning in a positive light. Jennifer Garner gives us her usual exaggerated attempts at acting and amplifies the annoying tendencies of an already overly irritating character.
The one positive to take away from this film is that it was shot beautifully, featuring a stunning palette of vibrant colours in most every scene.
Bottom Line: Unless you want to fall into a well of disappointment, stay away from this movie.
What’s really astonishing about this film is how they’ve retained the original character traits of the base characters, while adding whimsical nuances to entertain younger generations. Disney did a fantastic job of allowing the sophisticated detective genius from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work to shine through, all the while interweaving a daring adventure for younger audiences.
Twenty-six years after its theatrical release, Disney has completely restored both the original film and its audio track for the Blu Ray + DVD release. On top of that, they’ve included some special features worth checking out. “So You Think You Can Sleuth” is entertaining and educational to both children and adults. This featurette looks at the history of crime solvers and provides a lighthearted wrongdoing for the audience to take a stab at solving. There’s also The Making Of The Great Mouse Detective and “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” Sing-A-Long Song. 
Bottom Line: This mousy mystery is timeless and definitely worth owning on Blu Ray.
