In the year 1290, in the Medieval English village of Stonebridge, Lady Catherine (known as Birdy) is the youngest child of Lord Rollo and the Lady Aislinn. Her playground is Stonebridge Manor, a house that, like the family, has seen better days. Financially destitute and utterly greedy, Rollo sees his …
A no-holds-barred Upton Sinclair-ish expose of social injustices in the Netherlands of the 1880s, and none too soon. The titular character, a strong-boned but sensitive farm girl uprooted to urban Amsterdam, encounters her first rude shock midway through the credits when she discovers her older sister in the ship's hold, …
If they’d put as much love into the story as they did into the liquid, hand-colored look of things, this story of a sad little girl, a thief, and the cat who divides his time between the two would be a triumph. As it is, A Cat in Paris still …
The untested director Bo Welch, trained as a production designer, tries out the tested formula of How the Grinch Stole Christmas: a sententious Dr. Seuss book, a sampling of voice-over recitations from the actual text ("Then something went bump. How that bump made them jump!"), and a major comedy star …
First (and most profitable) in the line of horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO in the early Forties, as competition with Universal Studios, at that time dominating the horror field. This one set the pattern for those to follow: no more than seventy-five minutes in length (ideal for …
The return of Hiroyuki Morita's animated tale of a young girl who finds herself involuntarily engaged to a cat prince.
The return of Hiroyuki Morita's animated tale of a young girl who finds herself involuntarily engaged to a cat prince.
A duffer’s guide from a viewer whose familiarity with the play is limited to switching channels the minute “Memories” came on the radio. Tom Hooper’s (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables) feral recitation yields a uniquely unpleasant moviegoing experience. The design is hideous to behold, with character perspective that’s disorientating to …
Beastly spy spoof (intermixing live animals, puppets, and computer animation) focussed on a feline world-domination conspiracy and the vigilant watchdogs who oppose it. An overblown lead balloon, heavy on Bondian gadgetry and cartoon violence. With Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins, Alexander Pollock, and the voices of Tobey Maguire, Alec Baldwin, Susan …
A let's-put-on-a-show musical, set in Golden Age Hollywood and among a cartoon cast of primarily animals. Tolerably lively and clever, especially in view of the energy-conserving animation, but the nostalgia element (throwaway caricatures of Laurel and Hardy, Bette Davis, Mae West, etc., as in an old Looney Tune) will overshoot …
Peter Bogdanovich's "comeback" -- meaning that the director of The Last Picture Show, etc., has come back from the TV-movie wasteland, if not necessarily that he has come back very far. A cramped and scrimping stage adaptation (written for the screen by the original playwright, Steven Peros), it chews over …
Title tells all.