Gary Wolcott's "Mr. Movie" column has appeared in the Tri-City Herald since 1992. The Tri-City native now lives in Portland, Ore., and watches about 250 movies each year. This member of Portland's association of movie critics, Far From Hollywood, believes movies are made to be seen on theater screens and should be seen there and not on television screens. Have a question for Mr. Movie? Click on "Add Comment" below. Mr. Movie has joined Twitter. Follow him here.
Few pieces of literature deserve the adjectives timeless classic such as The Velveteen Rabbit.
Great grandparents read it to your grandparents, who read it to your parents, who read it to you. Some of you read it to your children and grandchildren.
Younger readers have read it themselves.
The story is simple. Toby has an emotionally distant widower father who is forced to dump the kid on his emotionally distant grandmother at Christmas time. The boy wanders into grandmothers attic where he discovers a velveteen rabbit, a present never given to him by his late mother.
Magically, the rabbit comes to life, and the attic becomes an animated world full of adventure where a swan that belonged to grandmother and a horse that belonged to dad live.
The Velveteen Rabbit is not rocket science. How the boy and the bunny longing to be real heal the rift between dad and mom and dad and boy is no surprise. Directed and co-written by Michael Landon, Jr. (son of the late Michael Landon), love is the question and the answer and the lesson in this one.
Landons film features Jane Seymour, Ellen Burstyn and Tom Skerritt doing the animated vocal chores and the wonderful character actress Una Kay as Nana. Her transformation from grump to granny and her connection to the kid anchor the story. It is terrific.
The movie has an interesting history. Its made for TV and will soon be out on DVD and is being released to Carmike Cinemas as a special treat. As regular readers know, I believe movies need to be seen on the big screen. The technology that makes them is designed for something bigger than the boob tube.
The Velveteen Rabbit is low budget and simplistic. This, however, is one of those times when less is more. The Velveteen Rabbit is exactly what it needs to be.
Not too simple. Not too deep.
A classic. Like the book.
Mr. Movie rating: 4 stars
Rated G. It opens Friday, Feb. 27 at the Carmike 12.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it's your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on video.
2 stars to 1 star: Don't bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself.
'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' comes up short
Thomas Schell and Oskar, his 9-year old son are very close. Best pals even.
Dad and the autistic boy — or that’s the best definition the boy himself could come up with — play with oxymorons, look for clues for a mysterious sixth borough in New York and do all kinds of intellectual stimulus.
Then Thomas — played by Tom Hanks — dies in one of the twin towers on 9/11.
Set in the 1930s, Hugo is a family-friendly movie about a French child desperate to hang on to all he has left of his father.
It begins with the boy — Hugo — living by himself in a clock tower at a train station in Paris. To keep his freedom, he keeps the clocks wound, oiled and maintained. The station inspector — ever attentive to the city’s many pilfering orphans — would love to catch him and ship him off to an orphanage.
35th Annual Portland International Film Festival begins
The 35th Annual Portland International Film Festival has begun. It runs through February 25. For film fans this one is loaded. There are 140 films from 36 different countries — 93 are features and 46 shorts.
Portland isn’t that far from Tri-Cities art film lovers. This entry reviews a few films from the first weekend and Monday. I’ll be posting reviews throughout the series until its conclusion February 25th.
That includes big dance numbers with soaring vocals. We learned that in Happy Feet in 2006. Mumble — the main character — couldn’t sing. As you remember, all he could do was dance and acceptance came from another tribe of the Antarctic birds.
Now Mumble is all grown up, married to the best singer of them all, Gloria. Now everyone sings and dances. Their cute kid Eric can’t find his rhythm. Eric not only doesn’t sing but he also doesn’t tap.
Kudos to Battelle Film Club for bringing 'The Hedgehog'
The Hedgehog is a subtitled French film from 2009 that finally got released in the U.S. last year, and thanks to the Battelle Film Club , it will be seen in the Tri-Cities.
The story centers around Paloma, an 11-year old girl whose interests are philosophy and art.
No one in her family can relate. Her parents barely speak to each other much less to Paloma. The disconnected mom talks to plants, and the psychiatrist but can’t talk to her daughter. Dad is nowhere to be found.
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