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Links
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Full reviews of all the latest films and where you can see them.
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Book Reviews
The Cuddliest Cuddle in the World (0-3 years)
by Sarah Nash
Description
Whilst Little Leopard’s mummy is off looking for food, he starts to really miss her cuddles. All the animals try to help him feel better. But Bear’s, Snake’s, nor Monkey’s cuddles seem to help… Because only his mum gives the cuddliest cuddles in the world!
Review:
With the combination of it’s heartening storyline and the stunning illustrations of lots of different animals, this book is a favourite with children.
RR Price: £9.99
Publisher: Gullane Children’s Books
ISBN: 1862335672
Category: Fiction
Type: Hardback
Suitable for age: 2+
Illustrator: Daniel Howarth
A New House for Mouse (0-3 years)
by Petr Horacek
Description
Mouse’s house is too small for both her and her new apple, so she decides to try to find a bigger house to fit them both. But as she visits all sorts of other creatures houses to ask if she can come to live with them, she nibbles at her apple and it shrinks and shrinks!
Review:
The bright colourful pages and little peepholes through to the next page of this book make it a very fun and exciting read.
RR Price: £6.99
Publisher: Walker Bks
ISBN: 1406301221
Category: Fiction
Type: Paperback
Suitable for age: Baby
Illustrator: Petr Horacek
The Lamb-a-roo (3-5 years)
by Diana Kimpton
Description
When a kangaroo, who’s longing for a baby, finds a little lamb who’s lost and lonely, she falls in love with him and puts him in her pouch to raise him as her own. But he’s so different from his new family of bouncing kangaroos, so Maa and the little lamb try to be more like each other, but things just aren’t the same.
Review:
This book teaches children that love can be shared across boundaries and how it doesn’t matter if you are different, teaching children to treat everybody in the same way.
RR Price: £10.99
Publisher: Gullane Children's Books
ISBN: 1862336024
Category: Fiction
Type: Hardback
Suitable for age: Foundation (3-5)
Illustrator: Rosalind Beardshaw
The Really Rude Rhino (3-5 years)
by Jeanne Willis
Description
Rhino is really rude to everyone; he sticks his tongue out, makes rude noises and waves his bottom at anyone and everyone. The doctor said there was no cure for Little Rhino’s rudeness so he continued to be rude to everyone until he finally meets his equal…
Review:
The really rude rhino is really rude to everybody, until he finally learns the importance of being polite and behaving well.
RR Price: £9.99
Publisher: Andersen Press
ISBN: 1842702785
Category: Fiction
Type: Cloth/Hardback
Suitable for age: Foundation (3-5)
Illustrator: Tony Ross
Film Reviews
All of the films listed below are clasiffied "U", unless otherwise stated, so they will be suitable for the whole family.
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (PG)
Directed By: Tim Hill
Produced by: John Davis, Neil A. Machlis, Michele Imperato
Cast: Bill Murray, Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lucy Davis, Billy Connolly
Garfield follows his master to the United Kingdom where he is mistakenly presumed to be royalty. Switching places with royal cat Prince, Garfield enjoys the special treatment bestowed upon him by his loyal subjects. Until, that is, the nefarious Lord Dargis hitches a plan to do away with Garfield to claim the royal estate as his own.
This film is more charming and funny than its predecessor and the combination of a short film with a fast pace is bound to keep the interest of its very young target audience.
Cars (PG)
Directed By: John Lasseter
Produced by: Darla K. Anderson
Cast: Paul Newman, Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, John Ratzenberger, Cheech Marin, Larry The Cable Guy, Michael Wallis
Following a succession of brilliantly innovative and hugely successful animations from Pixar, ‘Cars’ has many hard acts to follow. But this fast paced film, packed with adventure and comic moments looks promisingly equipped to challenge its predecessors’ success.
The film is set in the world of cars where Lightning McQueen, a hotshot race car voiced by Owen Wilson, gets waylaid on his journey to the Big Piston Cup Championship in California when he is unexpectedly detoured to a town called Radiator Springs. Here he meets some intriguingly bizarre characters including Sally the Porche, Doc the Hudson Hornet and Mater the rusty tow truck.
This is a journey of discovery for Lightning, where he learns the meaning of true friendship and discovers that there are more important things to life than winning trophies and getting fame.
‘Cars’ is a delightful film that will entertain movie-goers of all ages. The vibrancy, laughs and charm of the film are bound to appeal to the younger audiences, whilst adults will be amazed at the excellent animation and will enjoy the diversity of comical characters that the film provides.
Over the Hedge (PG)
Directed By: Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick
Produced by: Bonnie Arnold
Cast: Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, William Shatner, Avril Lavigne, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Wanda Sykes, Nick Nolte, Omid Djalili, Allison Janney, Thomas Haden Church
“Over the Hedge” is an adaptation of a comic strip telling the tale of RJ, a raccoon conartist, and Verne, a philosophical tortoise. When their home in the forest is invaded by suburbia, Verne’s first instinct is to flee, but RJ convinces the woodland animals to take advantage and exploit their new environment. RJ and Verne, form an unlikely friendship whilst learning to exploit their new world.
This slapstick comedy adaptation by DreamWorks is a load of laughs and leaves you feeling surprisingly satisfied. Children will love the woodland characters, and the film is entertaining for adults too. Ken Fox from TvGuide.com described it as "a sly satire of American 'enough is never enough' consumerism and blind progress at the expense of the environment. It's also very funny, and the little woodland critters that make up the cast are a kiddie-pleasing bunch"
Ice Age2:The Meltdown PG
Directed By: Carlos Saldanha
Casting the voices of: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Jay Leno
The three friends, Manny, Diego and Sid begin a hilarious new adventure in the sequel to Ice Age. When the ice starts to melt, they have to move their herd on to higher ground to flee the oncoming floods. They encounter a number of hindrances along the way, including the confused mammoth, Ellie, convinced that she is a possum!
Whilst the storyline isn’t quite as entertaining as its predecessor, the film is redeemed by the numerous laughs given by the entertaining antics of the hapless, bulge-eyed prehistoric squirrel, Scrat, in his quest for acorns.
This is a must see film for the whole family; hysterically funny for all ages and very entertaining.
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo’s breakthrough computer animation takes you into the breathtaking world of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
When a diver catches Nemo, the little clown fish and takes him to a dentist’s office aquarium, it’s up to Nemo’s father Marlin and a friend with short-term memory loss Dory, to find him and bring him home.
Their journey leads them beyond the Great Barrier Reef and into deeper, darker waters, where they meet vegetarian sharks, hypnotic jellyfish and many more weird and wonderful sea creatures.
Meanwhile Nemo works out a plan with his friends in the aquarium to escape the fish tank, but will they be just like fish out of water?...
From the award-winning Pixar, makers of Toy Story and Monsters Inc, this is a beautifully animated adventure with charismatic voiceovers by Williem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush and Ellen DeGeneres. They are joined by a brilliant cast of extras, which include surfer-dude-turtles, cleanliness-obsessed French shrimp and a trio of sharks engaged in a step-help programme whose motto is ‘fish are friends, not food’
This family film has buckets of humour suitable for all ages and is feel-good entertainment at its very best.
Ice Age
Cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Goran Visnjic, Denis Leary. Director: Chris Wedge
Running Time: 80 minutes.
Back when the Earth was overrun by glaciers and animals were scurrying to save themselves from the coming Ice Age, a stupid sloth named Sid, Manny the woolly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger named Diego, and an acorn-loving saber-toothed squirrel named Scrat become unlikely heroes!
The foursome reluctantly come together when they begin a quest to return a human child to its father while braving the deadly elements of the impending Ice Age.
Ice Age makes few concessions to older viewers. But there's an upside to this approach - it's not as inventive as Shrek, and it lacks the depth of the incomparable Toy Story, but it harks back to simpler times, when you could enjoy a well-crafted bedtime story without having to worry about where your next in-joke was coming from.
Where it does score over it's rivals is it's more emotional approach. There are a couple of tear-jerking scenes when Diego is it thought to be dying and later when the Manfred the mammoth and Sid the Sloth finally catch up with the child's father and hand him back safely.
It's the kind of emotion that is missing from other movies of its kind. It is also what sets Ice Age apart from them and makes this a gem and something for the whole family to enjoy. Kids watching will both laugh and cry at this. And parents will enjoy watching the full eighty minutes too.
The Wild Thornberrys Movie
Running time 85 minutes
Certificate PG
It's the movie your kids have been waiting for! The Wild Thornberrys Movie.
Based on Nickelodeon's much-loved Saturday morning cartoon it opens on February 7th at cinemas across the country.
It's about the David Attenborough-style family who travel the world's jungles making their animal documentaries - Nigel Thornberry's Animal World.
Before plunging into this Tanzanian tale, just like the cartoon series, the film provides some background about the characters and the story.
The heroine is of course Eliza the Thornberry's 12-year-old girl who magically inherited the gift to talk to animals from an African shaman--a power she will lose if it's revealed.
While settled in Africa's Serengeti Plains, Eliza discovers that poachers have hatched a sinister plot to kill a herd of elephants with an electrified fence, and she must use her power to stop the slaughter before it's too late.
This is a lively animation with interesting settings, including London's overcrowded underground, a Nairobi market and the expansive Serengeti. It's an intelligent storyline that avoids becoming too syrupy and cute.
The beauty of it is that it deals with environmental issues in a way that will help our future generations appreciate the planet perhaps more than we do.
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Kenneth Branagh, Robbie Coltrane Dir: Chris Columbus. Running Time: 161minutes
Cert: PG - Possibly unsuitable for young children.
The second of JK Rowling's books once again makes the big screen and many parents will be wondering if it's suitable viewing for younger children...
This time Harry Potter (Radcliffe) is in his second year of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But he's warned by an elf named Dobby that disaster will strike if he returns to school.
Harry ignores the warning and, although still disliked by Professor Snape (Rickman) and hated by Draco Malfoy (Felton), he gets off to a great start with his two best friends, Ron Weasly (Grint) and Hermione Granger (Watson).
But then strange things start to happen at Hogwarts. Students are being mysteriously turned to stone and Harry keeps hearing a malevolent voice which seems to be coming from within the walls.
When everyone begins to suspect Harry of being behind the mischief, the young wizard sets out with his friends to crack the mystery and ends up finding more than he bargained for!
Scriptwriter Steve Kloves and director Chris Columbus keep pretty much to the book, although there are some visual touches and twists which add to the magic of Rowling's best seller.
Most of the cast from Philosopher's Stone have returned, including the late Richard Harris in his last role as the wise headmaster Professor Dumbledore. And added to the star-studded cast this time around is Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart.
While containing plenty of humour, this time around the film is much more graphic and there are some scenes which would do justice to any horror film.
Even the author of the book, JK Rowling said that the film adaptation may be a little too scary for younger children.
Beauty and the Beast
Voices: Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White ,Monsieur Gaston, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden, and Angela Lansbury
Running Time:84 mins
Disney has just release the DVD of Beauty and the Beast (Disney Special Platinum Edition).
It relates the story of Belle, a bookworm with a dotty inventor for a father; when he inadvertently offends the Beast (a prince whose heart is too hard to love anyone besides himself), Belle boldly takes her father's place, imprisoned in the Beast's gloomy mansion. Naturally, Belle teaches the Beast to love.
What makes this such a dazzler, besides the amazingly accomplished animation and the winning coterie of supporting characters (the Beast's mansion is overrun by quipping, dancing household items) is the array of beautiful and hilarious songs by composer Alan Menken.
Lilo and Stitch
Voices: Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Tia Carrere Director: Dean Deblois, Chris Sanders Running Time: 85 minutes
Cert: PG
In a place far, far away, illegal genetic experiment No 626 is detected - ruthless scientist Dr Jumba Jookiba has created a strong, intelligent, nearly indestructible and aggressive being with only one known weakness: the high density of his body makes it impossible for the experiment to swim in water.
The scientist is sentenced to jail by the Grand Council of the Galactic Federation.
The experiment is supposed to be transported to a prison asteroid, yet manages to escape Captain Gantu, who was supposed to deliver him there.
With a stolen police cruiser (the red one), the destructive being races towards a little and already doomed planet: Earth.
Stranded on Hawaii, experiment 626 can't actually do much harm: water all around, no big cities and two well-equipped representatives of the Galactic Federation already following close behind to catch him again.
Lilo and Stitch is unlike any Disney cartoon you will ever see – with plenty of animals, some song and dance numbers, and cute kids, it's definitely aimed at youngsters.
Monster's Inc.
Voices:John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn and Jennifer Tilly.
Running Time:92 mins
Starring Billy Crystal and John Goodman as loveable monsters Sulley and Mike, this is the story of how monsters in the bedroom cupboard are simply doing a night's work in order to generate power from screams for the city of Monstropolis.
Children will love the fact that the monsters are mortally afraid of the little ones they're trying to frighten. But the humour in this film will also make parents laugh without going over the heads of the children.
The animation is amazingly detailed and the set-piece action sequences top anything that has gone before.
Toy Story
Voices: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Jim Varney, Annie Potts Dir:John Lasseter
Running Time: 77 minutes
Toy Story is about the 'secret life of toys' when people aren't around. When Buzz Lightyear, a space-ranger, takes Woody's place as Andy's favourite toy, Woody doesn't like it and gets into a fight with Buzz. Accidentally Buzz falls out the window and Woody is accused by all the other toys of killing him. He has to go out of the house to look for him so they can both return to Andy's room. But on the outside they get into all kind of trouble trying to get home. A classic animation guaranteed to keep the little ones and big ones occupied for a while!
Rugrats - The Movie
Voices: Elizabeth Daily, Christine Cavanaugh, Kath Soucie, Cheryl Chase, Tara Charendorff
Running Time: 90 minutes.
With the birth of his new baby brother Dylan, Tommy Pickles knew things were about to change, but he never expected being a big brother could be such an adventure. While attempting to return little Dil to the “hopsical,” the Rugrats commandeer the Reptar Wagon and inadvertently get lost in the forest. It's a rollicking, musical ride into a world beyond their backyard as the Rugrats encounter obstacles and some big surprises in their quest to get back home. Little girls, in particular, love this one.
Antz
Voices: Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken. Dir: Eric Darnell, Tim Johnson
Running Time: 79 minutes
Cert: PG
Life is no picnic for Z, a small worker ant with some very big ideas, whose chances of landing the beautiful Princess Bala are literally one in a billion. But when Z convinces his soldier ant buddy Weaver to switch places with him, his simple life takes a wild turn. From his battles in the termite war to his search for “Insectopia,” Z's adventures land him in a final confrontation with the ruthless General Mandible who has planned to liquidate the colony. Once the most insignificant of workers, Z may just turn out to be the biggest hero of them all! An absolute joy!
Teletubbies - Animals Big And Small
Running Time: 71 minutes
Children love animals and they'll love to see the Teletubbies having fun with animals of all different sizes. One day in Teletubbyland, Laa-Laa sees a little lamb. But the little lamb is very sad... until another little lamb arrives and everyone is happy. Tinky Winky loves to say "How Now Brown Cow"... again and again! Po and all the Teletubbies see a beautiful butterfly and Dipsy finds a very friendly dog.
Rugrats In Paris: The Movie
Voices: Christine Cavanaugh, Debbie Reynolds, Jack Riley, Casey Kasem, John Lithgow, Susan Sarandon Dir: Paul Demever, Stig Berggvist
Running Time: 78 minutes
All Chuckie wants is a new mummy. But he barely has time to wish for one when Tommy's daddy, Stu, gets sent to Paris to repair a broken robot in Euroreptarland - and brings the whole Rugrats bunch along. With Paris and the park as their playground, the babies and their new French friends set out on a quest to make Chuckie's wish come true.