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This animated adventure goes the furthest away from the DreamWorks brand as any of their films. Directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders bring a bit of the heart from their LILO & STITCH. This film isn’t interested in spoofing anything, only telling a compelling story about an awkward boy and his new pet.

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, MILLION DOLLAR BABY) is a scrawny Viking, who’s the son of the brawny Viking leader Stoick (Gerard Butler, 300). His prospects of becoming a dragon killer are slim. So, he devises a contraption to take down a dragon and it works. But when he finds the black salamander-like beast, he can’t kill it because it looks as scared as he is. Injured, the dragon can’t fly out of a hidden valley where Hiccup slowly builds trust with the dragon, which he names Toothless. Meanwhile, his father asks dragon trainer Gobber (Craig Ferguson, THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON) to take in his son.
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Check Out the Trailers & Clips

Walt Disney built his namesake company on animation, but by the early ’80s the company was contemplating abandoning it all together. But at the lowest point in the company’s history, a collection of factors came together to bring the studio back to great heights with films like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and THE LION KING. The producer of those films, Don Hahn, directs this documentary that takes us on a personal journey behind the scenes to meet the personalities that made it all happen and the tensions that undid it in the end.

The story is told primarily through archival footage, most notably home video filmed by Disney artists themselves. For fans of Disney animation, it’s a collection of snapshots into the lives of today’s prime artists when they were first starting out and working still with some of the old guard like Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. The talent was always there, but projects were not inspired and the studio didn’t have their backs. The animators were moved off the main lot where they worked in the same building Walt worked and moved off site to a run down facility. They believed they would be losing their jobs soon. One of the most devastating blows was when Don Bluth left the studio and took many of the artists with him to work on projects such as AN AMERICAN TAIL.
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Fantastic Mr. Fox is fantastic.

This is a very good week for new releases and some classic reissues. For Blu-ray owners, this is especially a good week for there are some great titles to show off your home theater systems with.
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Check Out the Trailer

If there are awards for cutting trailers than the editor of the SURVEILLANCE trailer should win Best Polishing of a Turd award. He or she shows more understanding of filmic storytelling in a few minutes of clips than director Jennifer Lynch shows in an hour and half. She hasn’t directed a film since the laughably terrible BOXING HELENA. She has actually made a less entertaining film than that disaster.

A grizzly murder starts off the film. FBI agents Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman, SPACEBALLS) and Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond, THE FIRST KNIGHT) arrive at the small town police station where the only survivors of the killing spree are being held. Capt. Billings (Michael Ironside, TOTAL RECALL) and his bumbling officers, Degrasso (Gill Gayle, TV’s DEADWOOD) and Wright (Charlie Newmark, 1990’s LORD OF THE FLIES), haven’t even questioned the witnesses yet. Officer Jack Bennett (Kent Harper) is blooded and beaten and very defensive. Bobbi Prescott (Pell James, ZODIAC) is a drug addict with a lot to hide. Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins, A SINGLE MAN) is a perceptive little girl who has just lost her whole family.
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Damn, Audrey Tautou is sexy. In this French romantic comedy, she changes the charge in the air when she enters a room. This is very good for the role she plays. She’s a con woman who seduces rich men and lives off their generosity until she finds a better money source. She gets jewels and clothes and fancy rooms in fancy hotels and they get her. The millionaires are getting a steal.

But who’s not getting a steal is the sleepy waiter Jean (Gad Elmaleh, THE VALET). One night, dressed in a tux, Jean hops behind the bar to mix himself a drink. Tautou’s Irene strolls in and thinks he’s the jackpot. After a hot night in one of the empty hotel rooms, Irene discovers she was slumming it when a shocked family shows up in the morning. But Jean is still smitten and offers to pay for her as well. She humors him by bleeding his savings dry in a few hours.
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This family film is based on the American Girl toy line. That doesn’t seem very promising does it, but you’d be jumping to wrong conclusions. The popular dolls are based around stories and this one is brought to the screen with an old-fashioned charm. Patricia Rozema’s adaptation never gets cloy with its Great Depression era tale, dealing with the time period innocently, but honestly.

Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) desperately wants to become of star reporter. Her father Jack (Chris O’Donnell, BATMAN & ROBIN) has just lost his car dealership and the bank is threatening to foreclose on their house. While he goes off to Chicago to find work, her mother Margaret (Julia Ormond, LEGENDS OF THE FALL) rents out their extra rooms to boarders. Mr. Berk (Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES) is a magician. Miss Dooley (Jane Krakowski, TV’s 30 ROCK) is a sexy dance instructor. Miss Bond (Joan Cusack, WORKING GIRL) is the flighty driver of a mobile library. Mrs. Howard (Glenne Headly, DICK TRACY), whose house was foreclosed on, moves in with her son Stirling Howard IV (Zach Mills, HOLLYWOODLAND), who defends Kit when boys at school pick on her for her family’s situation.
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Heartbreak and mix CDs, isn’t that what the teenage years are all about? They start off Peter Sollett’s romantic comedy in one of those one crazy night plots. As the title suggests there is a boy named Nick and a girl name Norah and there will be music involved. This hit or miss comedy does a good job with those parts, but it disconnects before the upload is finished with the rest.

Nick (Michael Cera, JUNO) is pinning over his ex-girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena, BROKEN FLOWERS). He keeps making her mix CDs to win her back, but she just tosses them in the trash. This is where they are recovered by Norah (Kat Dennings, THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN), who loves Nick’s taste in music. She’s also loves his Queercore band, The Jerk-Offs, which also includes the gay members Thom (Aaron Yoo, DISTURBIA) and Dev (Rafi Gavron, INKHEART). Rumors hit the school that the publicity shy band Where’s Fluffy? is playing a secret concert in NYC. Thom and Dev drag Nick to find them, while separately Norah and her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor, An AMERICAN CRIME) do the same. As one would expect the paths of Nick, Norah, Tris and Norah’s friend with benefits Tal (Jay Baruchel, KNOCKED UP) will cross during the night.
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Check Out the Trailer

When I was putting together my top 50 films of the 2000s list, Baz Luhrmann’s groundbreaking musical was among the top 20. Every musical of the 2000s that came after owes a bit of their success to it. The energetic flick breathed life into the dying genre both financially and artistically. Mixing tragedy with humor and song, the film tells an epic love story through a medley of modern popular music.

Christian (Ewan McGregor, STAR WARS prequels) moves to Paris to become a bohemian writer. He falls into an acting troupe led by little person Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo, SUMMER OF SAM), who believes that the naïve author will become the voice of the bohemian revolution. They go to the Moulin Rouge to pitch their new play to burlesque star Satine (Nicole Kidman, DEAD CALM). However, she mistakes Christian for The Duke (Richard Roxburgh, VAN HELSING), a wealthy man who the Moulin Rouge owner Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent, IRIS) hopes will turn the dance hall into a legit theater. Through his song of truth, beauty and love, Christian quickly wins the heart of Satine, who must string along The Duke for the benefit of the majority.
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Buy It Now!

Read my original review of UP IN THE AIR.

Paramount brings Jason Reitman’s Oscar-nominated feature to Blu-ray with a quality transfer and interesting features package. The 1080p visuals have a nice balance of tone and film texture. While this isn’t a visual spectacle, this presentation is about as good as it can get. Details really shine in the film’s wider shots, especially in the opening title sequence where we get a bird’s eye view of various American landscapes. The color palette also stands out in the darker lit lounge scenes like the one where George Clooney and Vera Farmiga’s characters first meet. Like the visuals, the soundtrack isn’t one to show off the surround sound with. However, for those who are aware of the subtleties Blu-ray, they will be happy with this disc. While you never feel like you’re lost in the sounds of locations like the airports, the back speaker presence is used nicely to create a sense of location. This is a dialogue-centered film and the lines are crisp and clear.

The special features are interesting. Writer/director Jason Reitman, Director of Photography Eric Steelberg, and First Assistant Director Jason Blumenfeld participate in the film’s commentary. In an enthusiastic fashion, they discuss the challenges and approaches they took to creating the various scenes. It’s interesting to learn how they approached interviews with real life individuals who had been recently laid off. Reitman also delves into his creative process, which will be quite engaging for fans of the director or fledgling filmmakers.
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Disney creates a new princess to be proud of.

Forget about THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON release this Saturday, you’re not going to see that mope fest on my list. Two weeks ago was a great week for family titles and so is this one. And there is a few titles I missed that I’d love you hear your thoughts on.
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