‘Free Birds’: Taste of this Thanksgiving item is a bit off, even if you like it dark
November 1, 2013
Poultry and tradition, that’s what’s on the menu in this animated butterball about America’s family holiday and the secret lives of turkeys. You can’t argue with the film’s angle about the big birds wanting to live – after all, how would you feel if all you did was gorge out on death row and pray that your number doesn’t get called as the calendar flips from October to November each year? But rescripting history and featuring death and violence prominently in nearly every frame, that’s a fairly big miscalculation for a kiddie flick.
Not that “Free Birds” is all stuffing and no trimmings. The 3-D animation is crisp and vivid and there are some quirky touches wittily infused into the script by writer/director Jimmy Haywood (”Horton Hears a Who” and “Jonah Hex”), the most cheeky and rewarding of which is the inclusion of Facebook humor sensation and former Enterprise crew member George (Sulu) Takei as the voice of S.T.E.V.E., the Space Time Exploration Vehicle Envoy, a top-secret military time machine. Adding to the fun is the presidential first daughter as a willful and rambunctious tyke who suffers bouts of narcolepsy. Continue reading
Development of “Gravity” began shortly after “Children of Men” (in 2006) and took nearly six years to complete because of the need to invent technology to make the film possible and the degree of complexity and time required for some of the special effects, which are far beyond typical green-screen chicanery. For what’s onscreen and the $80 million budget spent, it looks like every minute and every penny was poured into every scene. The film is nothing short of a miracle in filmmaking and should be held as such. 
But like the hero of his 2005 boxing drama “Cinderella Man,” Howard has come off the ropes with “Rush.” To sit through the real-life Formula One speedway drama, one might think they were viewing the work of an emerging auteur just hitting his stride, that first big studio budget behind him. 
The film’s intrepid protagonist is so tagged Don Jon (a play on his first name, Jon, coupled with that of the notorious lover, Don Juan) by his boyz because he always scores, though in private his ideal sex partner is 10 minutes of Internet porn and a tissue. Even after landing a nine (on a 10 scale), it’s not atypical for Jon to slip out of bed as the conquest du jour snoozes and fire up the laptop for a quick porno-boosted topping off. 
For What it's Worth 