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It’s taken awhile for me to catch this film, which came out about a year ago. Disney’s traditional animation division has been turning out mainly average productions for nearly a decade now. Most of their big-budget failures were done in LA.. but this flick was greenlit with a small budget and done without the looming eye of execs in Orlando, Florida. What we get is a free-for-all from director, writer and voice of Stitch Chris Sanders’ imagination.

The story is simple: an alien scientist Dr. Jumba (David Ogden Stiers, THE MAJESTIC) creates the ultimate destruction machine, Stitch, who is exiled from his home planet and sentenced to live on an asteroid. He escapes and ends up on Earth where, to avoid capture by Dr. Jumba and agent Pleakley (Kevin McDonald, TV’s KIDS IN THE HALL), he poses as a dog and is adopted by Lilo (Daveigh Chase, SPIRITED AWAY) and her older sister Nani (Tia Carrere, WAYNE’S WORLD), who is trying to raise her little sister after their parents’ death. Both Lilo and Stitch are perfect cases for anger management therapy and create havoc in Nani’s life, spurring social worker Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames, PULP FICTION) to consider sending Lilo to a foster home.

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This film is the thriller that all thrillers since have tried to be. The serial killer sub-genre has never been better. Anthony Hopkins was an established actor before this film, but his performance as the demented Dr. Hannibal Lecter made him a mega-star. I’ve seen this film dozens of times and with each new viewing I’m still thrilled and on the edge of my seat.

The story follows FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster, THE ACCUSED) sent by special agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn, THE RIGHT STUFF) to interview the serial killer Hannibal the cannibal. Her assignment is to elicit the notorious killer’s insight into the newest at-large killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine, HEAT). This begins the film’s battle of wills. Lecter is a genius and Clarice gains his sympathy because she does not insult his intelligence. He is a crafty manipulator and pulls out past traumas from her mind like they’re cotton candy. Will he get into her head before she can get into his?

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With making his first big splash with SPLASH, Ron Howard followed up that hit with this quirky sci-fi flick about a group of retirement home inhabitants that find youthful rejuvenation in a swimming pool containing alien cocoons.

The film has two parallel stories that converge in the end. Firstly, Jack Bonner (Steve Guttenberg, THREE MEN & A BABY) skippers a boat and takes a group of human-looking aliens, lead by Walter (Brian Dennehy, STOLEN SUMMER) and beautiful Kitty (Tahnee Welch, I SHOT ANDY WARHOL), out to collect huge pods from the bottom of the ocean. Once Jack learns they’re aliens, he is at first scared, but soon helps them and falls for Kitty.
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Upon seeing the trailer for this film I thought “Oh goodness, Mel Gibson is doing a Vietnam version of BRAVEHEART like he did an American Revolution version with THE PATRIOT.” However, I was surprised by the solid reviews and comparisons to BLACK HAWK DOWN. And after seeing the movie, I can say that I enjoyed this film better than BLACK HAWK DOWN.

The story follows the events of the first land battle in Vietnam where 400 U.S. soldiers were helicoptered into the battlefield and found themselves surrounded by 2,000 Viet Cong. The film begins in the U.S., introducing us to the various characters. Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Gibson) is a Korea veteran and a Harvard graduate who studied international relations. He’s worried that he’s leading his Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry, which was Custer’s regiment, into an ambush. He’s a strong man and a wise leader with a strong religious faith.

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If you’ve read my reviews with any regularity than you know that I love the films of Hayao Miyazaki. This film was recently released in the U.S. for the first time after being released in Japan in 1986. As usual, Miyazaki presents a unique imagination that is unmatched in cinema. He creates worlds so original that there is no comparison.

This film follows a young miner named Pazu (voiced by James Van Der Beek, TV’s DAWSON’S CREEK), who dreams of flying. His simple life changes when a young girl named Sheeta (Anna Paquin, X-MEN) floats down from the sky after falling from an airship that was attacked by pirates led by the crone-ish Dola (Cloris Leachman, LAST PICTURE SHOW). Pazu and Sheeta go on the run trying to avoid the pirates, as well as the military, which is lead by secret agent Muska (Mark Hamill, STAR WARS). Along the way, Pazu and Sheeta learn about the legendary floating city of Laputa, an advanced society that once ruled the world.
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