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Pixar goes very cute with this short. It tells the story of how babies are made. Clouds create them don’t you know? And storks deliver the precious packages. But who makes the dangerous babies like crocodiles and porcupines? The dark cloud in the sky, whose demeanor doesn’t match his reputation. Unfortunately, the job is difficult on the stork assigned to fly his babies down to Earth.

Directed by Peter Sohn, an animator on RATATOUILLE and the model for Russell in UP, this short definitely runs on the sentimental side, but provides some dark humor to balance the palate out. The gags don’t fly like they did in PRESTO nor does it have the rich characterization of GERI’S GAME or FOR THE BIRDS, but many of the laughs are witty, using the scenario to its full extent. As one would expect from Pixar, there is great acting going on, especially from the dark cloud’s stork. In some ways, the results of the dangerous babies on the poor stork reminded me of the famed fowls in LOONEY TUNES shorts like Daffy Duck and Foghorn Leghorn. And of course, the imagery is gorgeous. The color palette has a watercolor feel, fitting the nursery rhyme tone very well.

It seems quite fitting that this short will play in front of UP. This fantasy celebrates the beginning of life, while UP the close.

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The film of summer 2009 I was most excited in seeing did not disappoint. The tenth Pixar film might be their funniest and it doesn’t skimp on the sincere tear-jerking moments as well. It was a risk making a 78-year-old man the protagonist of your animated fantasy adventure, but this film is from Pixar and director Pete Docter, who helmed MONSTER INC. and was a storyman on TOY STORY, TOY STORY 2 and WALL•E. People keep asking if kids will be able to relate to a septuagenarian hero. Carl Fredricksen is relatable to anyone who has ever loved someone.

Carl (Ed Asner, TV’s THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW) was a kid when he met his wife Ellie (Elie Docter). They shared a love for adventurer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer, THE INSIDER), who set out to find a mysterious bird that scientists claimed was a hoax. He never came back. Carl and Ellie had always planned to go to the same spot in South America, but as things go, life disrupts our plans. After her passing, Carl confines himself in their house, but an incident forces him to be put in a nursing home. Instead of going, the former balloon salesman attaches thousands of balloons to his house, lifting it off its foundation, and heads for Paradise Falls. The only problem is that eight-year-old wilderness explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai) was on his porch at the time he took flight.
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SPIDER-MAN’s Sam Raimi returns to the genre where he started and reminds people how you make a scary movie. Mixing chills and humor like he did in EVIL DEAD II (not ARMY OF DARKNESS), Raimi and brother Ivan craft a perfectly plotted story that frightens us mainly because we like its central characters and care about what they want. It’s got great horror set pieces for sure, but at its core, the film is about how the pressure of success can curse us and make us do things we never thought we’d ever be capable of doing.

Christine (Alison Lohman, MATCHSTICK MEN) moved to the city from the farm to try and improve her life. She’s lost weight, has a smart boyfriend named Clay (Justin Long, HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU), and she’s up for a promotion at her job at the bank. Her boss Mr. Jacks (David Paymer, OCEAN’S 13) tells her it’s between her and the new guy Stu (Reggie Lee, TROPIC THUNDER), a conniving butt-kisser, who can “make the hard decisions.” With so much riding on her promotion, Christine decides to make the hard decision and decline the gypsy woman Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver, FREEWAY) another extension on her home loan. It’s also the worst decision she’ll ever make too. Mrs. Ganush puts a curse on her where a demon torments her for three days and will final come to drag her to hell.
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With Pixar’s latest fabulous film, UP, arriving in theaters this weekend, This Weekend’s Film Festival celebrates the young at heart. These films have characters that do not let their age determine the pace of their living life to the fullest possible. We have a chorus of elderly rockers. We have a man and his cat out on a road trip. We have a man and his motorcycle out to prove people wrong. We have a group of old men and women getting a fantastic chance to have youth again. And we have a touching May-December romance to close. This is a crowd pleaser of a lineup. Enjoy.
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Hal Ashby’s May-December romantic comedy is one of my favorite films. It combines dark comedy and a passion for life that is intoxicating. The tagline for the film was “They will defy everything you’ve seen or heard about screen lovers!” There is truth in advertising. Old men fall for young women in movies all the time, but society views it disgusting when a young man falls for an old woman. Harold might be 18 and Maude might be 79, but they were meant for each other.

Harold Chasen (Bud Cort, M*A*S*H) is a morose young man. He stages elaborate fake suicides to get his snooty rich mother (Vivian Pickles, SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY) to at least pay attention to him. She tries to set him up on dates, but he sabotages them. His hobby is to attend funerals. At one funeral he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon, ROSEMARY’S BABY). She doesn’t dwell on death, which she sees as just a part of life. Carpe diem would be her motto. As their friendship grows, Harold begins to come out of the mental cave he lives in and embrace the light. Everyday is a new adventure for Maude and she drags Harold along on the journey. But when Mrs. Chasen has had enough of Harold acting out, she has his uncle Victor, a military man, enlist him in the army.
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At times this documentary is crushingly sad and the equally the same with joy. It bursts with emotion. One might think that a film about a chorus of senior citizens singing punk tunes would be cute, but that’s not this film. Under the direction of Bob Cilman, this is a serious group. Stephen Walker’s film is a concert film, behind-the-scenes doc, and a character study all rolled into one.

Subtly we see that Cilman doesn’t view what he is doing as community service. The chorus isn’t a retirement center activity slotted in before bingo and arts & crafts. His ironic choice of songs and interesting arrangements is genius. I will never look at The Ramone’s “I Want to be Sedated” in the same way again. The chorus members view him as a taskmaster, but not once during the doc do you hear any of them complain. They don’t always agree with him, but they know that he is challenging them and treats them like any other performer. In this he gives them such respect.
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The most successful thing about this film is the marketing. Warner Bros. actually made me believe this film was going to be good. I saw director McG’s CHARLIE’S ANGELS, I should have known better. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but he nuked the franchise. There are survivors and there is some hope for the future, but I suggest the producers hire the writers from STAR TREK and have this movie be the alternative timeline that we can all forget ever existed.

The story begins in 2003 with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington, upcoming AVATAR), a death row inmate that signs his body over to Dr. Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter, SWEENEY TODD) of Cyberdyne, who promises to give him a second chance at life. Skip forward to 2018. John Connor (Christian Bale, THE DARK KNIGHT) is a member of a resistance against Skynet, the artificial intelligence that has taken over the world with its killer robots. Marcus surfaces from a Skynet facility, knowing nothing of what has happened to the world. He ends up in a destroyed L.A. where he meets a teenaged Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, STAR TREK), the time-traveling hero of the first film and the father of John Connor. After a few action sequences, Kyle ends up captured by Skynet and Marcus ends up the prisoner of Connor, who hates Marcus’s “big secret.”
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Most people remember Jimmy Stewart as the political boy scout Mr. Smith or the “great guy” Guy Johnson of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE or his dignified heroes in Hitchcock films. But Stewart also acted in a great deal of Westerns. They were always a chance for him to play against his clean-cut image and delve into the darker side of humanity. In this collection of his Western work, he plays a good-hearted trapper. He plays a man determined to find the person who sold repeating rifles to the Indians that killed his brother. He plays a sharp shooter with a grudge against a notorious gunman. He plays a sly, commanding lawman. He plays a lawyer who wants to bring law and order to a savage land. Saddle up for this exciting ride.
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After Frank Capra made him a star in the Oscar-winning YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, Jimmy Stewart got a chance to play something a little different in this Western for director George Marshall. While the film does everything it can to give him equal billing with co-star Marlene Dietrich, he owns this film. No wonder Dietrich’s bad girl falls for Stewart’s sly lawman.

The town of Bottleneck is run by gamblers and thieves. Saloon owner Kent (Brian Donlevy, KISS OF DEATH) uses his dance hall girl Frenchy (Dietrich, THE SCARLET EMPRESS) to cheat men out of their ranches. And she does a good job of cheat men out of their pants. When the sheriff goes missing, the crooked mayor appoints the town drunk Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger, 1936’s SHOW BOAT) to be the new sheriff. However, the new appointment gives Dimsdale a purpose, so he calls for the son of a famed lawman to help him clean up the town. That man is Tom Destry Jr. (Stewart). But when he shows up without any guns, he becomes the laughing stock of the community. Kent believes he has a new lawman in his pocket, but Destry is craftier than he appears.
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John Ford, one of the all time greats, was nearing the end of his career when he made this Western, the genre he so defined. In many ways, it’s a refined take on some of the same themes he dealt with in THE SEARCHERS. It also deals with the Western as a dying genre. A black & white film in 1962 was rare. It was clearly a stylistic choice to remind us of where the genre had come from. An apology for racist stereotypes and a sad farewell to a type of man that had lost his relevance in the age of hippies and free love.

Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE) is a famed senator who returns to his hometown of Shinbone for a funeral. An old black man named Pompey (Woody Strode, SPARTACUS) is the only other mourner for Tom Doniphon (John Wayne, THE SEACHERS). Ransom’s wife Hallie (Vera Miles, PSYCHO) is very distraught over the death. How well did she know the deceased? The editor of the newspaper wants the story, so Stoddard tells his tale. As a young lawyer, he was brutally attacked by cowboy Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin, THE DIRTY DOZEN), a man who ruled over the town with violence. Doniphon and his man Pompey saved him when he was lying on the road bleeding to death. Stoddard is against violence and sets out to bring law and order and education to the territories. This inspires others to speak out against Valance like newspaperman (and town drunk) Dutton Peabody (Edmond O’Brien, THE LONGEST DAY). But Doniphon laughs at the idea of law and order in the West. Just look at the bumbling marshal Link Appleyard (Andy Devine, IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD).
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