Despicable Me 2
98 minutes. 2013. Rated PG. “Just because everybody hates it doesn’t mean it’s not good.” In this sequel to the successful and very funny Despicable Me, our hero Gru (voiced again by Steve Carell) used to be a supervillain. Along with Dr. Nefario (voiced by Russell Brand) and his minions, he pulled off such stunts as stealing the moon. Well, until three orphan girls came into his life. Now, a responsible doting father, Gru is...
Brave
100 minutes. Rated PG. “I am Merida, and I’ll be shooting for my own hand.” This was my first advance screening of a film, and I had to endure giving up my cell phone, having my bag checked, and then being swept for recording devices. Even worse, I had to deal with a theater that was 70% filled with children between the ages of 3 and 8. Was it worth it? Definitely. Set in Scotland in the middle ages, wild-haired Merida (Kelly...
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
96 Minutes. Rated PG. “My son is not a freak!” Sometimes when you’re a kid, a movie you’ve seen really sticks with you. Whenever you think about it, a smile comes across your face. That’s my reaction when I think about The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, a film that was released back in 1976. It came to mind again recently and I was thrilled to find it at one of the local libraries in its collection. A simple inter-library loan request...
Big Miracle
PG. 107 minutes. Even though they’re big and powerful, they’re so much like us. We’re vulnerable and we get scared. We need help sometimes, too. I don’t know where you were in 1988 when this story happens, but I was doing a year abroad in England and apparently not reading any newspapers or watching the news, so the plight of a family of gray whales in Alaska completely escaped my notice. While the movie dramatizes much of the...
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Pinky: “Me and the boys talked it over. We think you are a really straight fellow. M. Gustave H.: “Well, I’ve never been accused of that before, but I appreciate the sentiment.” Once again, Wes Anderson has given us the kind of madcap story that only he can invent. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, we are immersed inside of not one, but two flashbacks. An author (unnamed, but played by Tom Wilkinson) explains in an interview that all of...
