Turbo

Review by Pete Roche

How fast can escargot?

The swiftest garden snail can cover 27 inches an hour, under optimal conditions.  The supercharged slug in Dreamworks’ new TURBO clocks in at over 220 miles per hour—fast enough to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

The cartoon sports comedy from the makers of MADAGASCAR, KUNG FU PANDA, and SHREK chronicles the adventures of Theo / Turbo (Ryan Reynolds), a misfit mollusk who toils with his brood in a suburban tomato patch but dreams of life in the fast lane—literally.  He watches NASCAR footage on TV in a nearby human garage and idolizes smarmy Guy Gagne (Bill Hader), a French-Canadian driver who insists “no dream is too big” on the old videotape interviews. 

Rise of the Guardians

Review by Pete Roche

If you thought Jack Frost nips your nose in Northeast Ohio because he’s a sadist, well…you don’t know Jack.

DreamWorks’s latest CG fantasy RISE OF THE GUARDIANS reimagines Jack (Chris Pine) as a mischievous teen who’s devoted his life to leisure.  Our story begins with The Man in the Moon transforming the boy into a “Guardian” following an icy accident that blows him right out of his boots.  Jack's hair goes from brown to white, and the walking stick he finds on a frozen pond becomes a magic scepter that turns everything it touches to snow. 

And he can fly. 

But the spirited youth isn’t quite sure what to do with his new abilities, or why he of all people received them.  So Jack spends the next three centuries running gaily about the globe barefoot, bringing winter to the world whether people want it or not.  At his best, Jack’s icy touch results in toboggan chutes and Snow Days for school kids—but he never considers his spreading cold weather a noble profession.  Nor does he question why children can’t actually see or hear him; they pass right through his ephemeral body during snowball fights like he’s a ghost.  Which he may well be. 

Mitsy's Magnificent Makeover (now on video)

[MITSY'S MAGNIFICENT MAKEOVER is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Why does the Cleveland Movie Blog, our tastes leaning a bit Ghoulardiward at all times, take note of a minor-key kiddie direct-to-video babysitter like MITSY'S MAGNIFICENT MAKEOVER? Does it represent the final, unreleased masterwork of Lucio Fulci? Does it include the famously censored decapitation scenes, finally discovered on Hong Kong laserdisc? Does it get away from the campy, silly Mitsy of the 1960s and back to the original, dark, brooding psychotic Mitsy of the 1930s and 40s?

No, the deal is that this all-CGI semi-musical children's short feature (or long short subject) is that it represents yet another step forward for true "desktop filmmaking." Francis Ford Coppola, if my memory serves me right, prophesied that, with the advent of digital film and computer-editing suites affordable to the masses, someday the next CITIZEN KANE would not hail from a mighty Hollywood soundstage but rather from the bedroom of some adolescent Jewish girl in Cleveland.