The Ice Age series has always gone more for the heart that the funny bone, though there is no denying that Scrat’s eternal and Sisyphean struggle both to acquire and to retain the acorn he’s been chasing through the four previous films has, in equal parts, both hilarity and a keen commentary on the noble struggle of humankind against a basically unfeeling universe.
ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS
After an uncertain sophomore effort, the ICE AGE franchise has bounced back, more or less, with its third installment. The message is the same, family arrives in the least expected of forms, and though one may love the other members of ones herd, one doesnt necessarily like them all of the time. The humor is… Read More »
ICE AGE — CONTINENTAL DRIFT
ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT is a sweet film that, like its predecessors in the franchise, delivers the same earnest message about friendship and family. Exactly the same message. If the lessons to be learned by the characters old and new, though, have a too familiar feel, and if some of the tropes are barely a… Read More »
SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS, THE
Time in the Alan Rudolph universe doesn’t flow the same was as it does in the one that you and I inhabit. It lopes along, telescoping events and worrying little about the standard rules of pacing. This can be a good thing when it comes to examing the complexities of human interaction, as in AFTERGLOW,… Read More »
ICE AGE 2 — THE MELTDOWN
Sometimes there is a piquant irony to be relished even with a bad film that, if it doesn’t save the movie going experience, still gives one something to ponder while enduring the running time. In ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN, it’s the contrast with another film that dealt, however briefly with the same theme. That… Read More »