Parental Guidance

Parental Guidance, written by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Lisa Addario, and Joe Syracuse and directed by  Andy Fickman, features your basic comedy, humor, and family plot.  But it's stinking hilarious!  Yes, you get your basic crotch hits and bathroom humor, but there are so many un-cheap shots, that, in the end, the whole thing pulls together really well.  The storyline, a forcibly retired baseball announcer and his wife agree to babysit their only daughter's kids for a few days, and learn quickly that the smart house and lifestyle the grand kids are used to is a whole new game for this set of grandparents, is old fashioned in a sense of entire plots.  But the situations, humor, and approach to this change is very well done.  And, for Billy Crystal, it was fabulous!  I give the screenwriters my complete, (As they say), hats off.  My entire family agrees that we are totally buying this movie when it comes out!

Rating: 4.5 stars

Harry Potter Book Series

The Harry Potter series is a delightful set of books that keeps you on your toes the whole time!  The plot, a young boy discovers he is a wizard who saved the entire wizard world when he was just a baby, is extremely original and amazingly accurate.  These books get your attention easily and is the exact description of imagination.  The only thing is I would suggest waiting to be at least 10 before you start reading.  There are a few intense scenes with Voldemort.                                           Rating: 4.5 stars

Gremlins

The movie Gremlins, written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante, is a classic Halloween movie, but works great for Christmas too, as the story takes place around the Christmas time.  When a teenage boy receives a little creature as a Christmas present from his father, he finds that some unnatural side affects, like feeding it after midnight, causes the creature to produce evil, little gremlins that multiply!  Can he stop them before they destroy the entire town?  This movie does include some intense scenes with the gremlins, especially when they destroy a bar.  I would recommend you to be at least 10 years or older if you're going to watch this.

Rating: 4 stars

Ever After -short film

Ever After, written by Cam Caddell and directed by Isabella Beals, was rather enjoyable and very creative.  I've seen characters mixed from different fairy tales before, but this was a great new display!  The plot is an excellent twist on familiar story lines that we all know, and has a cute, quick arrangement that gets right to the point, and I like that in a film!

Rating: 5 Stars                 (Note:  Ever After can be viewed on YouTube) 
                                         (Note:  If you would like to help fund Cameron Cadell's, Isabella Beals', and their old friend from Ever after, Iris Blok's next film project, pleae click on the link below.)

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1321550321/the-young-renegade?ref=live

Hotel Transylvania -movie

Hotel Transylvania, written by Robert Smigel & Peter Baynham and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, is great film for families.  There are some jokes that can get kind of goofy, but there are also plenty of cheap shots!  The plot is very traditional, monster falls in love with a human, but is displayed in a way that is pretty original.  I thought, overall, it was an excellent film, and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.  I would recommend it as a family activity and certainly for kids.

Rating: 4 STARS