Tagged: review

Review: ‘Toy Story’ & ‘Toy Story 2’ on Blu-ray

I think it’s fairly safe to begin talking about Toy Story and Toy Story 2 by stipulating that they’re amazing. Most, if not all, of  you have no doubt seen these Pixar films in the movie theaters if not on cable or DVD.

Pixar burst into the public consciousness with [[[Toy Story]]], which was fresh, charming and original. It was the first family friendly film to entertain all generations with character-based humor and sly winks to the Baby Boomers who were in attendance with their children or grandchildren. It spoke to everyone and coupled with fabulous CGI animation and a memorable Randy Newman soundtrack, the film put Disney and its competitors to shame.

Wisely, they proved they were not a one-trick pony by rushing out a sequel but instead offered up other originals first. But Buzz Lightyear and Woody were too good to let go and they returned for the sequel. At one point, when it looked like Pixar and Disney were headed for a messy divorce, the House of the Mouse put a third film into development without John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton’s involvement.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the two entities became one. Out of that notion, though, a third visit to Andy and his toys seemed inevitable. In June, the 3-D third and final film in the series (we presume) will arrive. To celebrate and promote that fact, Walt Disney Home Entertainment is releasing this week Blu-ray special editions of the first two films.

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Review: ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls’ by Steve Hockensmith

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

by Steve Hockensmith
Illustrated by Patrick Arrasmith
Quirk Books; March 2010; $12.95

 

A year ago, Seth Grahame-Smith and Quirk Books initiated the
Quirk Classics series with the bestselling Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which
blended the text of Jane Austen’s classic [[[Pride and Prejudice]]]with new scenes.
The result was part romantic comedy of manners, part over-the-top action
thriller in which the bloodthirsty Bennet sisters used their highly trained
martial skills to confront zombies and ninjas, in between searching for
husbands. Other authors in the series moved on with[[[Sense and Sensibility]]] and [[[Sea Monsters]]] and the soon-to-be published [[[Android Karenina]]]. Mr. Grahame-Smith has since moved on to other undead pursuits, but here is author Steve Hockensmith to take up the slack with this prequel to P & P & Z, set four years before those fateful events.

After a lull of many years, zombies (or, as they’re known by
the more genteel, the “dreadfuls,” “unmentionables,” or the “sorry stricken”) have
once again infested England. When Mr. Ford, Meryton’s apothecary, sits up at
his own funeral and begins a frantic search for brains, Mr. Oscar Bennet renews
his once forsworn vow to be a zombie-slaying warrior, and attempts to fulfill
his broken promise to raise his daughters in that tradition.

The five Bennet daughters, previously brought up to be
ladies, not warriors, show some initial resistance to their father’s decision.
Almost immediately, they confront social ostracism; however, they also gain
self-confidence under the harsh tutelage of the handsome, mysterious Master Geoffrey
Hawksworth, who rapidly (somewhat too rapidly, if truth be told), turns these
untried girls into katana-wielding fighters. Putting aside her previous distaste for violence, Elizabeth begins to discover the true spirit of the
warrior within herself and her sisters. She must also sort out her feelings for
Hawksworth as well as the extremely odd Dr. Keckilpenny, who believes that
zombies can be “cured” through behavioral modification. (The reader, of course,
knows from the outset that both of these men must be wanting in at least some
respect; how else will Elizabeth have a free heart for Mr. Darcy?) Meanwhile, Jane
finds herself in the unwelcome role of bodyguard to the lecherous, lazy, and
cowardly Lord Lumpley, the owner of Netherfeld (the future residence of Mr.
Bingley). Lumpley has decidedly unsavory plans for Jane, and is concealing an
unpleasant secret of his own.

The original P & P & Z was an amusing satire, and
for the most part, the violence was played for laughs. In contrast, Hockensmith
chooses to explore in greater depth and with a certain amount of seriousness an
issue I brought up in my review of the original book: how does one maintain an
appropriate balance between the strictures of social propriety and the development
of killer instincts, required if the zombie invasion is to be defeated? Although
there are substantial touches of farce, the book is surprisingly poignant in
many places, and truly seems to mourn Elizabeth’s and Jane’s loss of innocence as
these two girls leave their sheltered life and face danger and heartbreak for
the first time, becoming strong women in the process. He even manages to make
Lydia somewhat more sympathetic by the end, which I didn’t think was possible.

Hockensmith has clearly read both the source material and P
& P & Z carefully, and it shows; actually, his attempt to provide a
background for a throwaway joke in P & P & Z (the Bennet daughters’
pastime of catching a deer and kissing it) drags on for far too long. He does introduce a glaring (but intriguing) inconsistency: he makes it
possible to prevent someone from becoming a zombie by chopping off the bitten
extremity, which leads to some freshly absurd scenarios. However, if that were true in P
& P & Z , than why doesn’t Charlotte Lucas consider amputation when a zombie
bites her on the leg, rather than succumbing to the twin scourges of becoming
undead and wife to the tedious Mr. Collins?

He also suggests that zombies are only a problem in England.
That being so, why is it that the best methods of combating them are sourced in
Japan and China? And given the zombie plague is so pervasive that it outweighs
any danger posed by Napoleon, how is it that the Bennet daughters can be spared
to travel to China for training, as they clearly do between the two books?

But such quibbles are only for the most avid of nitpickers,
who might also question the need for this volume at all, given that it has
strayed substantially away from the initial conceit of mashing up a classic
text with new scenes. Why not put aside such foolish qualms, sit back, and
enjoy the gory ride?

P.S. Visit the Quirk Classics message board, mention that
you read a review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls at
ComicMix and link back here; you’ll be entered to win one of 50 Quirk Classics
Prize Packs, which include an advance copy of the book, a poster, audiobooks of
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and
more.

Amy Goldschlager is an editor and reviewer.

Publishers who
would like to submit books for review should contact ComicMix through the usual
channels or email Amy Goldschlager directly at amy.goldschlager (at) gmail
(dot) com

Review: ‘Clash of the Titans’ on Blu-ray

clash-of-the-titans-3249994

Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas grew up fascinated by the amazing stop-motion magic from model maker Ray Harryhausen. His films were cutting edge forays into the realms of monsters, science fiction, and fantasy for decades. His Jason and the Argonauts remains one of the best Greek myths brought to film and his work only got better through his Sinbad films.

By 1981, though, Lucas rewrote the special effects rulebook with [[[Star Wars]]] followed soon after by Spielberg’s [[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]]. The effects were aided by computers, the model makers improved the technology and the scripts grew stronger and more sophisticated.

As a result, when Harryhausen unleashed Clash Of The Titans in the summer of 1981, it was not well received by an audience who considered his work a thing of the past. Despite its all-star cast, the movie featured a then unknown Harry Hamlin in the lead and the sum of the parts proved disappointing despite it finishing the year 11th at the box office. It would prove to be Harryhausen’s final feature film and a disappointment way to say farewell to his fans.

The movie has served as fodder for the 3-D remake coming this spring so Warner Home Video has dusted off the movie and is releasing it in Blu-ray on Tuesday.

Harryhausen eschewed the computer technologies available to him and did it the old fashioned way so while his creatures were interesting to look at, their stilted movements looked terrible and worse, dated. Similarly, at a time when Industrial Light & Magic showed what can be done on film, Harryhausen and director Desmond Davis chose to use substandard blue screen, double-exposure and poor matte paintings to achieve the effects. The entire film looked cheap and frankly, something that would have been more engaging a decade previous.

These are the Greek gods playing games with mortals. The politics of the gods is fascinating subject matter and in strong hands, can be compelling. Instead, screenwriter Beverly Cross served up a rehashed story that never delved into the character or their motivations. They were like Zeus’ clay pawns, moved on a chess board to advance the story.

Davis was clearly not a good director as he got wooden performances from a cast that included such heavyweights as Maggie Smith. Claire Bloom, Burgess Meredith, and Sir Laurence Olivier. Nor could he get anything subtle from Hamlin, who developed far better acting skills on television soon after. He also settled for horrible sets so Mount Olympus looked like a schoolhouse production, lacking grandeur and scale. Thankfully, the location shooting around Europe made Earth seem a far more interesting place.

And while Harryhausen swears the mechanical owl Bubo was conceived long before R2D2, it is hard to believe. Once that droid rolled across the screen, most genre productions had cute robotic companions much to the detriment of the stories. It’s no different here and a real let down from someone far more imaginative as was Harryhausen.

The Blu-ray edition is lackluster in that the original film seems to have been barely touched for the upgrade. Inconsistent film stocks look worse in h-def and the transfer is competent at best. The audio is fine although it shows us how dated even Laurence Rosenthal’s score was, shamed by John Williams and a new generation of composers.

The disc comes with two extras culled from the 2002 DVD release so if you have that edition, you can skip this one. The disc comes with an extended look at the new film and while the effects and creatures look impressive, and it has a nicely pedigreed cast, it also looks to lack the same depth of character that helped spoil this film.

The packaging is nice, though. Similar to the recent [[[North by Northwest]]], the disc is contained in a bookcase, with a 48-page booklet containing actor bios and a short article on Harryhausen’s amazing career. The package also contains a discount movie ticket for the remake.

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Review: ‘Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths’

jl-crisis-bd-3dskew-42-3085184DC Comics brought the notion of parallel universes to comics, beginning with the classic “[[[Flash of Two Worlds]]]” and then began the annual team-ups between the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America. Since then, the inhabitants of Earth -3, the Crime Syndicate of America, have been interpreted and reinterpreted with regularity. As a result, they have remained a popular aspect of the multiverse and certainly ripe for use in animation.

[[[Justice League: Crisis on Two Worlds]]] brings us a brand new take on the CSA, using Grant Morrison’s [[[JLA: Earth-2]]] graphic novel as a launching pad and going in a brand new direction.  The original animated feature goes on sale this month in a variety of formats from Warner Premiere and Warner Home Video. With a script from veteran comics and animation writer Dwayne McDuffie, the story posits an early version of the JLA with a limited membership. We open as they are still building their satellite headquarters only to have their work interrupted by the arrival of the parallel universe Lex Luthor.

On his world, the CSA has effectively taken control of the world, dividing it in six sections with each member exerting control through ten super-powered “made men”. Luthor and the Jester were the last of the metahuman resistance but the Joker-doppelganger sacrifices himself, taking their version of the Martian Manhunter with him, to allow Luthor to escape.

The JLA argues whether or not their mission should include other realties and when Batman is outvoted, he remains behind to oversee construction. The others cross the barrier and the action begins, rarely letting up. Overall, it’s a swift story that’s very entertaining with some playful touches including Slade Wilson as Earth-2’s US President. We see many “evil” versions of familiar JLAers in addition to the addition of new heroes to the JLA, so we get to watch the growth of the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes.

It’s far from perfect including my dislike for the character designs. Each of the Warner Premier videos is stand-alone and that seems to mean they are forced to reimagine how the heroes appear. This time, they’re a little too lean, too angular to appear as powerful as they should be, notably Superman. While a stellar alignment of voices is used, most feel miscast or bad matches to the characters designed. For me, the best characterization, dialogue and voice work are seen in Superwoman, performed by Gina Torres.

The overall threat, put into place by Owlman, has a poor rationale while the resolution leaves huge dangling threads. It’s a good effort, overall, but also not WP’s strongest offering.

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2009 Stoker Nominees Announced

  • News
  • February 21, 2010

The Horror Writers Association has announced the nominees for the 2009 Bram Stoker Award, honoring superior achievement in horror literature:

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FIRST NOVEL

  • Breathers by S. G. Browne (Broadway Books)
  • Solomon’s Grave by Daniel G. Keohane (Dragon Moon Press)
  • Damnable by Hank Schwaeble (Jove)
  • The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay (Henry Holt)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN LONG FICTION

  • “Dreaming Robot Monster” by Mort Castle (Mighty Unclean)
  • The Hunger of Empty Vessels by Scott Edelman (Bad Moon Books)
  • The Lucid Dreaming by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
  • Doc Good’s Traveling Show by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN SHORT FICTION

  • “Keeping Watch” by Nate Kenyon (Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror)
  • “The Crossing of Aldo Ray” by Weston Ochse (The Dead That Walk)
  • “In the Porches of My Ears” by Norman Prentiss (Postscripts #18)
  • “The Night Nurse” by Harry Shannon (Horror Drive-in)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN FICTION COLLECTION

  • Martyrs and Monsters by Robert Dunbar (DarkHart Press)
  • Got to Kill Them All and Other Stories by Dennis Etchison (Cemetery Dance)
  • A Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O’Neill (Apex Book Company)
  • In the Closet, Under the Bed by Lee Thomas (Dark Scribe Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN ANTHOLOGY (EDITING)

  • He is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson edited by Christopher Conlon (Gauntlet Press)
  • Lovecraft Unbound edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse Books)
  • Poe edited by Ellen Datlow (Solaris) [See SF Signal review]
  • Midnight Walk edited by Lisa Morton (Darkhouse Publishing)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN NONFICTION

  • Writers Workshop of Horror by Michael Knost (Woodland Press)
  • Cinema Knife Fight by L. L. Soares and Michael Arruda (Fearzone)
  • The Stephen King Illustrated Companion by Bev Vincent (Fall River Press)
  • Stephen King: The Non-fiction by Rocky Wood and Justin Brook (Cemetery Dance)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY COLLECTION

  • Double Visions by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions)
  • North Left of Earth by Bruce Boston (Sam’s Dot)
  • Barfodder by Rain Graves (Cemetery Dance)
  • Chimeric Machines by Lucy A. Snyder (Creative Guy Publishing)

Congratulations to all the nominees!

UPDATED: And a belated hat tip to John DeNardo at SFSignal, who took the time to format the list of nominees and which we dropped in here. Thank you!

Review: ‘Graylight’

Graylight

By Naomi Nowak
NBM ComicsLit, 144 pages, $12.95

[[[Graylight]]] is a wispy story surrounded with lovely, ethereal artwork, but utterly fails to create characters or situations with enough clarity to maintain your interest. The attractive Swedish artist hails from Sweden and developed her style as she discovered comics and began producing graphic novels, influenced by European albums and [[[Manga]]].

She received excellent notices for her first two offerings and this third book, released this month through NBM’s ComicsLit imprint, is said to be aimed at women 16 to 24.

It’s attractive and certainly a quick read but everything is sketchy. A woman has a son, Edmund, sees her mate walk away, and then she becomes a reclusive and famous author. Erik, middling journalist arrives in town to seek her out for a profile but first encounters Sasha, a woman who claims to be collecting geological samples but clearly has been drawn to the area for other reasons. She’s been there long enough to develop relationships with the locals and has a demonstrated habit of stealing. When she accompanies the journalist, the woman is offended that permission wasn’t obtained before hand and is rude. The younger woman leaves but not before stealing a book. Over the next few weeks, the handsome son stalks her in the hopes of retrieving his mother’s book.

So, we have several triangles going: the two women and the son; the two men and the woman. Toss in some witchcraft and you have the makings of something interesting.

Nowak’s pastels and art are lovely to look upon and her page compositions are interesting to study. Somewhere along the way, though, she needs to stop and learn storytelling, both in words and pictures. Her characters are underdeveloped and the exact motivations for the reclusive mother/witch are murky at best. Who Sasha is and what she really wants is left up in the air.

The story is sparse and the dialogue does nothing to help the reader. In fact, her characters need more distinctive voices to help make them more identifiable.  While lovely to look at it, its misty look and feel is easily forgotten because you care nothing for the people and the situation. The book has no substance and can be easily dismissed. If you like Nowak’s art, then check this out, otherwise, wait until she has something to say.

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Review: ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show – The Complete Sixth Season’

There were many groundbreaking television series as the 1970s arrived and most have been extensively written about because of their casting or long-term cultural impact. Norman Lear made the sitcoms more relevant by making his characters more like us and Larry Gelbart helped make sitcoms comment on issues of the day by adding an edge to the humor. But James L. Brooks, Allan Burns and company helped bring about a revolution in character-based comedy with [[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]].

Running from the 1970-71 season through the 1976-77 season, the series was built around Mary, a single, independent working girl. Initially, she was to be divorced but CBS wasn’t ready for that but she still broke ground. She had friends at home and at work, she dated, she gave terrible parties, but was exceptionally competent at her job, producing the evening news at WJM.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment finally released the penultimate season this month and as with the best of comedy, it’s all in the timing. One of the show’s best writers, David Lloyd, died recently and just about every obituary singled out his episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust”, which is included in The Complete Sixth Season three-disc set so now we can see it once more.

By the sixth season, neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) had been spun off into her show as was her landlady Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) so the series focused more on the newsroom. By now, the relationships and inter-personal dynamics between Mary, her boss Lou (Ed Asner), the news writer Murray (Gavin McLeod), and anchor Ted (Ted Knight) had been sharpened. The ensemble worked well together and their comic timing is strongly evident here, especially when they’re all together such as at Chuckles’ funeral. The supporting cast had been broadened allowing Betty White’s salacious Su Ann Nivens and Georgia Engels’ innocent Georgette to gain more screen time and each get showcased during the 24 episode season. It may have been MTM’s name in the title, but she graciously allowed everyone to take their turn.

The season opens and closes interestingly on characters not Mary. “Edie gets Married” is a terrific spotlight for Asner as he watches his ex remarry while “Ted and the Kid” shows how Ted and Georgette struggle to conceive only to wind up adopting (spoiling the episode was the pat pregnancy at the end). In between, we see Mary date and fall in love, only to have her heart snapped in two. She meets new neighbors, recurring characters played by Mary Kay Place and Penny Marshall (just as she gained fame as Laverne). Place, by the way, also wrote for the series so her contributions were strongly felt.

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Review: ‘Amelia’ on Blu-ray

America loved [[[Amelia]]]] Earhart, as much for her pioneering work in the sky, but for being a woman of accomplishment at a time women were still getting used to having the right to vote. She was celebrated in book, story, and song up to her disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Since then, her story has been told and retold numerous times and the woman herself has been portrayed by the likes of Rosalind Russell, Diane Keaton, and Jane Lynch. On [[[Star Trek: Voyager]]] she was portrayed by Sharon Lawrence and most recently, Amy Adams displayed her as a plucky, ready-for-action woman in [[[Night at the Museum 2]]].

But, until Hilary Swank was cast as Amelia in the recent Mira Nair film, it had been some time before her story had been explored on screen. It’s a shame that the movie wasn’t a better, more engaging product. Swank is picture perfect as Earhart and Richard Gere was well cast as her husband G.P. Putnam.

The movie, out now on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, is solemn and sucks the joy out of flying and doesn’t really let us into Earhart’s mind. Instead, the movie goes through the motions but the motivations and emotions are all kept at a distance. Structurally, her fateful final flight is intercut throughout which is a nice concept but really interrupts the flow of the film itself.

While she goes from passenger on her maiden trip over the Atlantic to full-fledged pilot on her next outing, we never see her train or work at aeronautics. Meantime, the plans she takes up grow more sophisticated and no doubt more challenging. The movie does a better job showing how Putnam, already a successful publisher, reaps a tidy sum from endorsement deals. He says it’s to invest in her career but it’s told, not shown, violating one of the storytelling rues Also, her affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) is present but we never understand how she recoils her feelings for both men and why she ultimately chooses to stay with Putnam. The movie also addresses the rumor of her affair with navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston with a horrible American accent).

What makes the DVD worth checking out, though, are the archival Movietone film clips showing us the real media frenzy around Lady Lindy. The Blu-ray disc has plenty of these and they’re worth checking out. Also, the nearly 14 minutes of deleted scenes actually answers some of the questions above, making one wonder about how this was edited. There is also the by-the-numbers Making Amelia; The Power of Amelia Earhart which has everyone discuss the pilot’s significance; The Plane Behind the Legend, a nice piece on the final plane in her life; and Re-constructing the Planes of Amelia, which is for the model makers in the audience. The two-disc set comes with the requisite digital copy.

The video transfer is particularly crisp and a joy to watch, make one want to soar along with Amelia, something the film itself fails to do.

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Review: ‘Civil War Adventure’

cwa-cover-large-6790030{{{Civil War Adventure]]]
By Chuck Dixon & Gary Kwapisz
History Graphics Press, 144 pages. $14.95

The graphic novel as memoir and teaching tool has become accepted in schools and libraries and there is a growing need for well-researched material. Thankfully, Chuck Dixon knows his history and how to do research. He’s displayed this in a rich career, covering all the eras. Here, he’s partnered with veteran artist Gary Kwapisz to produce the first in a line of Civil War graphic novels.

The first volume was recently released and makes for good, solid reading. There are seven stories in this inaugural collection, spanning the length of the war, along with single page features on terminology, weaponry and personalities. The book smartly opens with a timeline of the Battle Between the States, placing each story contained in context. On the other hand, the stories appear in a jumbled order that makes little sense.

If anything, there appears to be a preference for stories told from the point of view of the seseches, that is, the Confederacy. Their passion certainly outweighed their level of preparedness and organization. If anything. Both North and South were comprised of militias and armies that were loosely organized and commanded so sometimes it’s hard to keep track of the squads.

Dixon keeps things personal, largely following a father and son both leaving their farm to go to war, to protect a way of life that was largely unsustainable. They crop up in several stories and we’re promised more about them in subsequent volumes. Wisely, many of his stories are taken from journals and letters written during the war and lend a voice of authenticity to the book.

The stories are light on ideology so there’s little about why the Union split in two, nothing about states’ rights or even much about the slavery issue. These are the men, largely uneducated, who are fighting for freedom on the front lines, far from the news and politicians.

Kwapisz provides the majority of the artwork and is a strong storyteller. Some of his characters border on the exaggerated and backgrounds could be more detailed here and there but overall, he does a commendable job with differentiating his players and battlefields. Silvestre and Enrique Villagran each contribute art for a story, providing a little visual variety.

The volume is a nice, if jumbled, package and promises more to come. While not to be considered a sole source for readers, it certainly helps bring some of the history to life. These two have formed their own company and I wish them well so other historic times can be explored in compelling ways.

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Review: ‘Whip It’ on Blu-ray

When people get excited about something, they blossom and their affection can become contagious. Such is the case for screenwriter Shauna Cross, who stumbled across the world of roller derby and decided to get her story into print. She wrote it first as a young adult novel, Derby Girl
and then managed to option it to Drew Barrymore’s production company. Barrymore loved the material so much she decided to turn it into her directorial debut.

Whip It [Blu-ray]
opened last fall to generally positive reviews but middling box office, vanishing without much of a splash, which is a shame because the movie is pretty good and worth your attention. Out this week from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the movie is available in the usual formats with the Blu-ray edition containing a digital copy disc.

Much as Cross, who wrote the screen adaptation of her book, came to love the rough and tumble world, so too does Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page). A high school senior, Bliss is the dorky good girl who goes to school and lets her mother push her into competing on the pageant circuit. Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) is a former beauty queen now working as a mail carrier, eking out a lower middle class existence with her husband Earl (Daniel Stern) and is somewhat smothering with her love and attention.  A chance encounter at a store acts as Bliss’ entrée into the roller derby world and after watching one competition with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat), decides to try out. Her speed earns the awkward athlete a spot on the team and the beginning of a new world.

Pretty quickly, Bliss, now dubbed Babe Ruthless, is accepted by the team who become a circle of friends despite the disparity in their ages. Now, Bliss has to juggle school, work at the local BBQ joint, the pageants and the derby. Along the way, her arrival acts as the catalyst the team needs to evolve from losers to competitors. And she meets Oliver (Landon Pigg), the somewhat older guitarist in a band. Cue the violins.

Harden and Stern make an odd but effective couple of parents, grounding the film every time it feels ready to speed off track. (more…)

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