Dreams In Hi-Def

This new spin on an old fable is from first-time director Cory Edwards, who also co-wrote the story and screenplay. Virtually everyone …    Full Descriptionknows the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the young girl who brings a basketful of goodies to her Granny’s house only to discover the Big Bad Wolf impersonating her beloved grandmother. In this digitally animated version of the classic tale, a bolder Red (Anne Hathaway) is a delivery girl for her Granny’s sweets shop. The Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is there as well, but this time he’s not exactly a threat. As for Granny (Glenn Close), she’s hardly frail and sickly; she has a big secret that she’s keeping from everyone–including Red. Finally, there’s the Woodsman (Jim Belushi), a struggling actor who drives a schnitzel-on-a-stick truck by day. When this foursome collides, they become suspects in an investigation by Detective Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), Chief Grizzly (Xzibit) and Detective Bill Stork (Anthony Anderson). The police are also trying to track down the Goody Bandit, who is stealing all of the best recipes from the forest’s sweet shops. By examining each character’s story, Flippers is sure he can figure out not only what happened at Granny’s that day, but also the identity of the Goody Bandit. Through flashbacks punctuated by original songs, Red, Wolf, Woodsman, and Granny each relay to Flippers their outrageous adventures from that day, from extreme skiing to hang gliding to falling out of a cable car to log rolling. Soon they all have an idea who the thief is. But can they stop the Goody Bandit from wreaking more havoc and monopolizing the sweets industry?

This computer animated film picks up where the Playstation FINAL FANTASY VII video game left off. Cloud, the hero …    Full Descriptionof the game, has retired into seclusion, but when a mysterious and lethal disease known as Geostigma begins to spread across the planet, and three powerful, villainous children appear, he reluctantly emerges to face the new and mysterious threats. Featuring some of the most spectacularly lavish computer graphics ever created, ADVENT CHILDREN continues the complex and compelling tradition that has made the Final Fantasy series one of the most popular games of all time.

Directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (who also created the best-selling series of video games that inspired the film), the groundbreaking …    Full DescriptionFINAL FANTASY, which stars a startlingly lifelike cast of animated characters, is the first photo-realistic computer-generated feature film ever made. In the year 2065, Earth has been taken over by a race of alien phantoms and transformed into a barren wasteland sprinkled with dome-enclosed barrier cities–the last remaining bastions of human civilization. Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by actress Ming-Na) has teamed up with Captain Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) to search for the “eighth spirit,” a powerful entity dwelling in an unknown life form somewhere on the planet. It holds the key to perfecting a system of energy waves that will neutralize the phantoms. Ross’s opponent is the reckless General Hein (James Woods), who is determined to put a stop to the alien invasion by firing a satellite cannon directly into a nest of phantoms located deep within the Earth, even though this could mean obliterating the planet itself and all life upon it.

Though Tinker Bell might have played second fiddle to Peter Pan and Captain Hook in Disney’s 1953 classic, the beloved fairy gets top billing–and a speaking role–with this animated adventure. In TINKER BELL, young audiences can journey to Pixie Hollow, the home of the fairies in Never Land. The spirited sprite is joined by a number of her magical friends: Iridessa the light fairy, Rosetta the garden fairy, Fawn the animal fairy, Silvermist the water fairy, and Clank and Bobbie the tinker fairies. Fans of the Disney Princess series will find much to like in this offering that introduces characters that children can identify with.

Based on the award-winning book of the same name, the film features some all-star voice work from the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick. The story begins in the European city of Dor, a picturesque town know for its amazing soup. When the soup-obsessed rat Roscuro (Hoffman) accidentally brings about a tragedy in the royal kingdom, the Dor King falls into mourning, both soup and rats are banned, and the skies turn to gray. Roscuro soon finds himself living in the dank darkness of a place called Rat World. Nearby, in Mouse World, we finally meet our hero, Despereaux (Broderick). Despereaux is an unusually small mouse with some rather over-sized dreams. Despite his small stature, he longs to live a bold and exciting life, and he chafes at the dictums of Mouse World–where mice are taught to live quietly in fear. When Despereaux goes so far as to befriend the human Princess Pea (Emma Watson), he is booted from Mouse World down into the miseries of Rat World. There he meets Roscuro, and together the two decide to carry out their own individual quests and right what has been wronged. While Roscuro soon finds himself going astray, Despereaux sticks to his guns–or rather, his sewing-needle sword–and he fights to bring joy and freedom back to the city of Dor.

Seven years have passed since the …    Full Descriptionincident in Racoon City. Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, the stars of the RESIDENT EVIL 2 videogame, are about to find themselves on the verge of another viral disaster. The Umbrella Corporation has inadvertently unleashed the G-Virus on the Hardardville Airport, bringing about an onslaught of zombie hordes, terrifying creatures, and a biological abomination the likes of which have never before been seen. The creepy and action-packed RESIDENT EVIL: DEGENERATION is the first full-length animated RE film. Its slick computer-generated presentation evokes the ghoulishly oppressive atmosphere of the popular videogame franchise in a way that hasn’t been achieved in any of the live-action incarnations.

With 2008′s KUNG FU PANDA, the talking-animal CGI film enters a new era, one that makes room for both painterly artwork and fierce martial-arts action. Po (voiced by Jack Black), a clumsy …    Full Descriptionand ever-hungry panda, is a huge kung fu fan, but seems destined to sell noodles like his father, Mr. Ping (James Hong), who inexplicably happens to be a goose. When Po literally crashes a ceremony involving martial-arts masters Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) and Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) and their pupils, the Furious Five–which includes Tigress (Angelina Jolie, in a surprisingly small part) and Crane (David Cross)–he ends up being selected by the latter elder as the revered Dragon Warrior. As the skeptical Shifu reluctantly trains the hapless Po, his former star pupil, Tai Lung (Ian McShane), escapes from a high-security prison, setting up a collision course between the bumbling bear and the powerful villain.

In …    Full Descriptionthe 2008 computer-animated comedy IGOR, John Cusack provides the voice for the title character, one of many “Igors,” whose sole purpose in life is to assist mad scientists in their diabolical experiments with a dutiful and mindless “Yes, master.” When Cusack’s bright, determined Igor strikes out on his own and creates the Frankenstein’s-monster-like Eva (Molly Shannon), aided by a resurrected rabbit named Scamper (Steve Buscemi) and a mislabeled talking brain named Brian (Sean Hayes), his efforts incur the wrath of the winkingly monikered Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard), who is set on putting Igor back in his henchman slot of the horror hierarchy.