New Movie News

Yes, it’s been quiet here at KidsFlix, but two days of travel time returning from the West Coast (read: airport hell), will take it out of you. (And, um, how dumb was it to have my laptop with me, but not my power cord? Talk amongst yourselves.)

We’ll get back into gear soon, promise. I think we’re having a Marx Brothers fest here in the KidsFlix household this weekend, so we’ll let you know our thoughts again on these great but dialog-driven films and how they work with the younger set.

For now, take a gander over at AwardsDaily.com’s report on upcoming Dreamworks projects, and you can get a Monty Python booster while you’re at it. (Big cheers for a Kung Fu Panda sequel, and for the Ben Stiller executive-produced Oobermind, featuring Robert Downey Jr. voicing a super villain.)

Also at AwardsDaily, you can get more on Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and its showing at Cannes, along with some clips. The visuals alone seem enough to save the film from any tepid reviews.

Speaking of tepid reviews, I’m over my disappointment that Land of the Lost is rated PG-13 (sounds like the filmmakers were lost!), but want to just make sure parents know about some of the comments being made by reviewers before they relent and take their 10-year olds to see it.

(RedCarpetRatings notes: Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content and for language, including a drug reference.)

From Cinematical:

Directed by Brad Silberling and starring Will Ferrell, this update on the Sid and Marty Krofft television series from the 1970s is the strangest, filthiest summer movie I think I've ever see.

From RottenTomatoes (where Land of the Lost earns a paltry 25% rating):

About once a year, I like a film everyone else despises, a film so admittedly and indefensibly bad that I have no justification whatsoever for having enjoyed it. Last year it was The Love Guru. This year it is Land of the Lost. -- Brandon Fibbs.com

Land of the Lost becomes an endurance test -- one that's too borderline bawdy for families and too dull and rote for anyone over 15. Who, exactly, is the intended audience for this drivel? -- Miami Herald

From the L.A. Times:

The filmmakers get props for persuading Leonard Nimoy to suit up as the Zarn -- you know, an invisible alien creature except for the spots of light that totally make him visible. But not so much for a close-up shot of Ferrell delivering an F-bomb that seems the definition of gratuitous ... 

Ok, don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Did you know you can watch movies on YouTube now? Granted, it’s with commercial interruptions -- highly annoying, no? -- so exactly why people would choose this over Netflix Instant Play, or SnagFilms or iTunes, etc., is beyond me.

Any ideas? What do you think? 

(Apologies for the font wackiness here... I can't seem to track down the issue.)