Culture Surfing

HUMBUG DEEZ: Ghost of Christmas Present (from left, performed by Jim Carrey) chides his charge Ebenezer Scrooge (also performed by Carrey) in A Christmas Carol.

GENRE: CGI holiday drama

THE PITCH: Disney gives Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale an animated makeover. Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is visited by ghosts who show him glimpses of his past, present and future in efforts to save his soul before Christmas.

MONEY SHOTS: It’s hard to pull away from the visual effects each of the ghosts utilize to show Scrooge various moments in time. Ghost of Christmas Past (Carrey) uses slingshot-ish flight sequences to take Scrooge to parts of his past. Ghost of Christmas Present (Carrey, again) hurls luminescent golden beads that turn the floor and walls translucent for he and Scrooge to spy on the present. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (yup, you guessed it … Carrey) uses ebon shadows to transport and frighten Scrooge back on to a righteous path.

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(Photo Courtesy Walt Disney Pictures)

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ASTRO BOY: Tobio (Freddie Highmore) tests his newly discovered flying abilities in David Bowers' Astro Boy.

GENRE: CGI sci-fi adventure

THE PITCH: When Dr. Tenma’s (Nicolas Cage) son Tobio (Freddie Highmore) meets an unfortunate end, the grief-stricken scientist creates a robotic boy in his son’s image powered by an experimental power source — blue-core energy. Tobio soon learns he’ll never replace his flesh-and-blood predecessor and flees when facing deactivation from his father and war-mongering General Stone (Donald Sutherland). His escape takes the young robot on an action-packed journey where his destiny is ultimately revealed.

MONEY SHOTS: Newly created Tobio accidentally learns he has the ability to fly when he falls out of a window. After he quickly masters his jet-propelled legs, Tobio embarks on an acrobatic flight around and above Metro City in a scene reminiscent of the space ballet between Wall-E and Eva in Pixar’s Wall-E.

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(Photo Courtesy Summit Entertainment)

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SPACE SAVERS: Giddy (David Cross, from left), Mala (Evan Rachel Wood), and Capt. Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson)

GENRE: CGI sci-fi adventure

THE PITCH: Evan Rachel Wood voices Mala, a spunky, tech-savvy teenager on Terra, a planet of legless, floating tadpole-people. When the remnants of humanity come to colonize her world — with extreme prejudice — can she and shipwrecked soldier Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson) convince their respective races to give peace a chance?

MONEY SHOTS: The 3-D enhances some neat-o shots of gravity-defying alien flora and fauna, as well as the Da Vinci-esque flying machines Mala and her pal Senn (Justin Long) use to go joyriding. After the ecological destruction of Earth, humanity lives on an intricate, gyroscopic space ark falling into catastrophic disrepair. Some creepy, “X-Files”-style images when the humans experiment on the harmless aliens.

BEST LINE: “It’s a miracle! They are gods! Take me!” the aliens exclaim when human scoutships invade, as if they’re watching the Rapture. The script broaches the notion that the alien government keeps them in a superstitious, pre-industrial state of naiveté, but doesn’t run with the idea.

Continue reading “Hollywood Product: Battle for Terra“

(Photo courtesy Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)

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