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Turning Red

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  • Title: Turning Red
  • IMDb: link

Disney’s Turning Red is basically an animated remake of 1985’s Teen Wolf recasting the main character as a 13 year-old girl who begins turning into a giant Red Panda whenever she gets too excited. Like Michael J. Fox‘s Scott Howard, the cause for the transformation is a mix of puberty and a family curse which Mei (Rosalie Chiang) only learns about after being freaked out by the horror of the unexplained change. And, as in Teen Wolf, Mei is told by her family to control and hide the Panda within but instead uses it to increase her popularity at school.

Turning Red is slow to get started, relying on cookie-cutter Asian stereotypes of the dutiful daughter breaking out of the mold. Thankfully, once the Red Panda shows up, things get a bit more interesting. However, if we are going to ding movies aimed at kids for dick and fart jokes, it’s hard not to do the same here for the numerous cheap jokes the film gets away with around mensuration. 

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Man on the Moon

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  • Title: Man on the Moon
  • IMDb: link

Director Milos Foreman‘s 1999 biopic of Andy Kaufman (played by Jim Carrey) is most notable for Carrey’s performance of the unusual celebrity that took himself too seriously but nothing else all that seriously at all. The film highlights the big moments of Kaufman’s career including his inter-gender wrestling, his reluctance to accept a role on Taxi, his chaotic appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and Fridays and the creation of his grating alter-ego Tony Clifton.

While Carrey is the backbone of the film, the script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski never really explores the reasoning behind Kaufman’s various antics or hold him responsible for those that fell flat in what is very much a celebration of the unique performer’s career.

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C.H.O.M.P.S.

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  • Title: C.H.O.M.P.S.
  • IMDb: link

Recently re-released on home video, 1979’s C.H.O.M.P.S. was live-action kiddie fare about a robot dog and ridiculous criminals (Chuck McCann and Red Buttons). A struggling young inventor (Wesley Eure) creates a robotic version of his own dog as the next line in home security. While he’s still working out the bugs, the Canine HOMe Protection System even impresses his hard-to-please boss (Conrad Bain) whose security company is under attack from a rival (Jim Backus), and a member of his own team (Larry Bishop) sabotaging their product.

Valerie Bertinelli also stars as our inventor’s girlfriend, and the daughter of his hot-headed boss. While I remember the film keeping my interest as a kid, it’s target audience is limited to that demographic.

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Fireheart

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  • Title: Fireheart
  • IMDb: link

Set in New York during the 1920s, L’Atelier Animation’s Fireheart stars Olivia Cooke as Georgia Nolan who has grown up dreaming of becoming a firefighter. When her father (Kenneth Branagh), retired firefighter turned tailor, is brought back by the department after the rest of the city’s firefighters go missing, Georgia sees her chance to live her dream in the gender-bending farce / coming of age story. Passing herself off as a male volunteer, Georgia discovers what being a firefighter is all about.

Relying on a host of goofy secondary characters including a narcoleptic cab driver, William Shatner as the city’s sleazy mayor, cute dog, and a villain with bizarre motives but seemingly endless supply of money and technology, along with a generic chasing your dreams kind of story, Fireheart is mostly forgettable fare with a nice message for young girls about breaking through the glass ceiling.

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The King’s Man

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  • Title: The King’s Man
  • IMDb: link

Removing all the humor, and most of the over-the-top action, from the franchise, writer/director Matthew Vaughn delivers the dreary prequel The King’s Man. Set during World War I, the film isn’t about the creation of the Kingsman but instead the story of the man (Ralph Fiennes) who would eventually put the group together and his turbulent relationship to his son (Harris Dickinson). As in the other films, there is, of course, a secret organization led by a Scottish madman behind the events of WWI whose reveal turns out to be as lame as the rest of the film. …

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