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.

When it comes to family movies, Dr. Seuss has to be the outright king.  Cat in the Hat, The Grinch…all of these are characters that have been both converted into movies and thoroughly merchandised and otherwise monetized by the great Hollywood Engine.  But who’s next for Seuss transfer?  Well, he speaks for the trees, and he knows what he sees…he’s the Lorax, my friends, and he’ll be in 3-D…s.

I am a trained professional writer, do NOT try these impromptu rhymes at home.

Anyway, Universal inked the deal with Seuss’ estate to turn it not only into a 3-D feature film, but also into a ride at Universal Studios.  How’s that for irony, huh?  They’re going to build a ride for The Lorax!  You think maybe he’ll be out front telling us about how he speaks for the trees while we board a ride that burned them to produce steel to make it?

Still though, this could be interesting–keep it here and we’ll bring you all the latest.

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.

I have to admit, there’s a certain sort of strange appeal to the recent release Hotel for Dogs, which makes me wonder why it got relegated to the depths of a January release.  But then, it IS sort of a niche appeal, that I have to admit.

See, this is a movie that’s about pretty much what it says on the box—a couple of foster kids who’ve been shuttled around from house to house, and the current couple they’re with is a part of jackass wannabe rockers (one of whom, for some reason, is Lisa Kudrow).  Anyway, about the only joy in their otherwise sad lives is their dog Friday, who they’ve been keeping hidden for three years.  Bruce, the little brother, is something of a mechanical genius whilst big sister Andi keeps a close eye on him.  They’re minor-league grifters on the side, in an effort to keep their forbidden dog fed from foster parents that actually keep their pantry locked against unauthorized feedings.

In something of desperation for a place to keep their dog hidden, they end up in an abandoned hotel that, through Bruce’s unusual mechanical skill, is converted into a doggie paradise, complete with toilet facilities specifically adapted to dogs.  Of course, the good times don’t last long, and soon enough, new problems arise.  Can they be beaten?  Can the dogs find permanent homes that don’t require trespassing?

I’ll admit to personal bias on this one—one of my favorite things in a movie is amateur mechanical engineering, the jury-rigging of disparate parts to make cohesive wholes that accomplish all manner of bizarre tasks.  This movie is literally STUFFED with amateur mechanical engineering—a doggy-functional elevator, a machine that throws sticks for fetching and can be reloaded, primed AND launched by the dogs themselves, the list just goes on and on.  One particularly fun scene involves the jackass rockers getting a filthy comeuppance via the doggy toilet’s exit chute.

Okay, granted, the plot is based on a children’s book and weaker than wet Kleenex.  But the visuals are pretty solid and there’s an undeniable sort of feel-good feeling to this movie.  PETA itself might well have commissioned this as a commentary on caring for strays of all type, be they dog or human child.  And of course, a nice commentary on the nature of the deeply flawed system that services both stray dogs AND stray human children.  It’s a movie packed to the gills with cute dog, and tons of messages.  Schmaltzy beyond all reason, and packed with plot holes (who owns this hotel property, anyway?  Why did they leave several thousand dollars’ worth of furniture and assorted whatnot buried within to be used as parts?  Dare I ask?  Dare I even CARE?  I think I’m supposed to just forget about these massive plot holes.), but it’s a cuddly little package nonetheless.

If you’re a dog lover, if you can’t get enough of jury-rigged mechanical doodads (guilty as charged—this is why I loved Saw II), and if you’re willing to ignore MASSIVE plot holes that will almost insult your intelligence, then you’re going to love Hotel for Dogs.  They’re not promising anything they didn’t deliver—it’s just up to you if that’s what you want delivered.

I admit that I didn’t have a whole lot of hope going in to The Tale of Despereaux, a strange little fairy tale involving mice that were entirely too brave for their own good, and royalty whose headgear featured spoons in mass quantities, and needles used as swords.

And yet, when I settled in to watch it, and watched this impressive little animated story that was almost nominated for an Oscar unfold, I was just amazed by it, especially by how it managed to keep so many disparate plot threads straight at once.

What do I mean, you wonder?  Simple—there’s a LOT going on in this plot, and it truly is a wonder how they managed to keep it all together.  For instance, a rat manages to inadvertently kill the queen of the land of Dor, a land whose specialty is soup.  Dorians love soup.  It’s their primary industry, conversation topic, commercial product AND art form.  Their royalty has soup spoons featured prominently in their crowns.  Anyway, as a result of this accidental death, the king of Dor declares both soup AND rats to be illegal, as he blames both for killing his wife.  The land goes gray and bleak, and enters a multiple-year drought.  Meanwhile, the mice, whose primary export, import, ideology and entire way of life appears to revolve around fear, are hiding out in the walls, as is normal for mice.  One mouse, Despereaux, isn’t satisfied with this life, and is thus thrown out of the mouse world to live with the rats.  And thus, a quest is born for both Despereaux and the rat that accidentally killed a queen.

There’s actually more to the plot than this—doing a complete synopsis would actually take a lot more room, because like I said, there’s a LOT going on in here.  And at first, it will actually seem like they’re jumping around from plot point to plot point with little or no regard for coherence.  It’ll seem like that because that’s exactly what they’re doing, but it won’t take long for the whole thing to coalesce into a greater whole.  It’s almost like watching a loom or something, where all these threads come together while you watch, and out the other side pops this greater whole.  How does this happen?  I’m not sure.  But I’m sure that I like it, and that’s strange enough.

There’s plenty of great voice acting in here—both Christopher Lloyd and William H. Macy show up in this, and on my own personal scale, that makes this a movie on par with Mongolian barbecue and Harry Turtledove novels.  It’s just that awesome.  And the graphics are plenty pretty in their own way; sure, it’s not like these are realistic portrayals of mice and rats and such, but if mice and rats and such ever built their own civilizations, they would probably look a lot like this.

For the kids out there, they are going to absolutely love this.  But this isn’t just a movie for kids, no sir—this one’s a movie that just about everybody can get a piece of.  Doesn’t really matter if you’re young or old, innocent or jaded, lover of fairy tales or raging horror-movie buff, you will find something to like about this movie.  The Tale of Despereaux will keep you riveted until its fairly predictable but still rather heartwarming end.

If you happen to swing by your local video store and find a copy of The Spiderwick Chronicles on the shelves, your first inclination is probably to just shake your head and walk on by, thinking, how could anyone enjoy such kiddie garbage?

This would be a mistake.  The Spiderwick Chronicles is actually a surprisingly well-designed work of fantasy, and should provide even the older folks in the audience with a good watch.

The plot is fairly simple but could be the launching point for any of dozens of books or movies—a man named Arthur Spiderwick learns a whole lot about fantasy creatures, probably more than any man should know.  He compiles this knowledge into a field manual, explaining things like sylphs and goblins and brownies and a big ogre named Mulgarath who’s about as evil as his guttural name implies.  Mulgarath wants the field manual as it contains all manner of secrets about the fantastic creatures around him, including those directly related to killing them.  Spiderwick’s descendants move into his abandoned house, find his field guide, and thus unleash a whole new cycle of good versus evil in the grandest of fantasy style as Mulgarath tries to capture the secret guide to killing stuff.

Like I said, clever stuff.  There’s all sorts of opportunity to go places with this movie, so much so that the movie itself is actually based on five whole books.  There’s some controversy over how MUCH of each of the five was actually used, but that’s somewhat beside the point.  The key point is that this is an incredibly dense and well-crafted piece that could carry on for several movies without wearing out its welcome.  Freddie Highmore manages to turn in TWO solid performances playing as a set of twins, and everyone else around him is more than able, even if they’re only voice acting.

But it’s not all sweetness and light.  It may be fantastic to a kid and good enough for a grownup, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with film is going to spot plot holes and shoddy writing all over this.  There’s an actual deus ex machina going on here—that’s the kind of thing they warn you against in collegiate introductory writing courses.  They’ll introduce new characters almost on an as-needed basis; right when something needs to be done or explained or even just worked around, along comes a whole new fantasy boggle that has exactly the capacity or knowledge necessary to fix the problem.  Don’t even get me started on Griffin Airlines that take the kids right where they need to be in the last reel.  And the ending is probably a lot more freakish than it needs to be—any kids watching this are going to be seriously creeped out.  In retrospect, even I was a little creeped out and I’m almost a twenty year veteran of horror film.  Let’s just say I haven’t seen a kid stab his own parents with a butcher knife lately, and I’ve NEVER seen such a creative use of tomato sauce.

But still, if you can play along, and not notice some of the more convoluted elements, you’ll probably get a pretty enjoyable little tale out of The Spiderwick Chronicles.  It’s an excellent rental, and if you’ve got kids, a regular and reliable choice.

There has yet to be a bad Pixar movie.  Genuinely, I have yet to see one.  Even the lower end ones like A Bug’s Life or Finding Nemo still had plenty to like about them, and this is the case with the most recent Pixar release Wall-E.

Wall-E assumes a corporate-dominated future in which the planet is falling apart. Choked with garbage and suffering from vast damage to the ecosystem, the inhabitants of Earth board a series of interstellar spaceships and head outward, leaving the Earth’s cleanup to a tiny little robot named Wall-E.  Wall-E is essentially a trash compactor on treads with a limited AI, and when he comes in contact with a sleeker, upgraded model robot–the EVE unit–after seven hundred years of trash grinding, he oddly enough falls in love with the new model, and follows her everywhere.  Including back into space, when she leaves to report on the resurgence of plant life on Earth.  The residents of the starships, meanwhile, have grown bloated beyond recognition on a lifestyle of all-you-can-eat fast food and hover-capable chairs that leave movement utterly unnecessary.  But will these loungers head back to earth?  Or will the ships’ AI prevent such a thing?

If you were left feeling bludgeoned over the head by at least THREE messages in the synopsis alone (help the earth! corporations are evil! exercise and eat right!), then you are not alone, and you see my objection to Wall-E.  I find myself unable to recall the last Pixar title that was THIS PREACHY.  The only way it could have been worse is if they’d actually put the messages into text fields and showed them throughout the movie.

But this is my ONLY real objection to Wall-E.  All the standard things you say about Pixar still apply; the characters are well-done and memorable, the animation is jaw-droppingly beautiful, the sound quality is beyond belief.  It looks great, it sounds great, it watches great, there’s plenty of laughs and a little action and there’s a lot to like.

And I wouldn’t have any complaints if they’d just dialed down the sanctimony a few dozen notches.