Jumanji

Special Effects Critics Beware

Alan Parrish has been stuck in a board game for 26 years! As crazy as that may sound, it isn't nearly as crazy as all the things that come out of the board game when Judy and Peter Shephard begin to play the game 26 years after Alan and Sarah began. But once the game has started, there is no going back to normal life, they must gather all the original players and finish the terrible game they started.

Family Movie Night Activity - Kiki’s Delivery Service

Just Follow Your Heart And Keep Smiling!

Kiki is 13 years old, and for a young witch that means it’s time to venture out on her own for a year. She’s about to find out what it’s like to be on her own and if she’s really cut out to be a witch or not. Enjoy this fun film from the maker’s of Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro, with your whole family for your next Movie Night, and you’re sure to have a magical evening.

Abduction

Abduction Review…. Take 2!

Just to preface my review, I do agree with all of Ben’s assessments of Abduction, but I feel the need to meaty it up a bit and add my two cents (or sense) as a member of Team Jacob.

Nathan lives a life that one might call enchanted. But one night while working on a school project with his “crush” Karen, he comes across a picture online that leads him to believe that he was once a missing person.  Are his parents really his parents? Is his whole life a lie? To discover the answers he’ll fall deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole and put his life and that of Karen’s in grave danger. 

Abduction

Nathan (Taylor Lautner) and high school hottie Karen get assigned to do a report on missing children together and discover Nathan’s picture on a missing children website. Nathan’s world is suddenly turned upside–down as he learns that his parents really aren’t his parents. When the shadowy underworld comes calling, Nathan and Karen must run from the CIA and a dark criminal force while they try to sort out the mystery of Nathan’s past.

The Ides of March

In The Ides of March, Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Meyers, a rising–star political media consultant heading into the most critical leg of his candidate’s Presidential campaign, the Ohio democratic primary. Soon, however, his idealism is sacrificed when he finds himself embroiled in a scandal that threatens to topple his candidate (George Clooney) and many involved with the campaign.

Peter Pan

For the Child In All Of Us!

Wendy Darling and her two brothers John and Michael live in proper London and while growing up is inevitable, they discover a way to procrastinate it. One night, a boy named Peter Pan visits the Darling nursery to entice the three children to come and live with him in Never Never Land where they’ll never have to grow up.  An offer too good to turn down, Wendy and her brothers fly off to this magical land, only to arrive in the midst of an age old battle between Peter Pan and Hook.  A place with the makings of magic and wonder becomes a place of formidable danger, and the kids want only to return home but soon discover that it might just be too late.

National Treasure

 

A National Pleasure to watch!

Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) the youngest in a long line of Treasure Hunters grew up believing his family had a key to a secret treasure dating back to the Founding Fathers. In the hopes of clearing his family name, Gates sets out to steal the Declaration of Independence before another treasure hunter does. Ben, accompanied by his witty sidekick Riley (Justin Bartha) use their brains, luck and some computer savvy to help solve history's riddles that they encounter, leading them on an historical wild goose chase.

Inkheart

Someone Please Get Brendan a New Haircut!!

Brendan Frasier stars as a talented Silvertongue in this book made movie. When he reads a story, the characters come to life which may seem like a great way to get to know a story's characters. Too bad that some characters you would never want to meet in real life because their evil natures would come through the pages in tact and ready to wreak havoc on the world. Not to mention the other draw back being random people from the real world being sucked back into the world of the story read.

Moneyball

This is the true story of Billy Beane, a General Manager for the Oakland A’s baseball team. Faced with the loss of his three best players and a shortage of money in a small market, Billy turns to a new tool to recruit a team on a budget: computer statistical analysis. When the analysis tells him to sign scratch and dent players nobody wants, he runs afoul of the traditionalists and naysayers, but Billy’s approach would change the Oakland A’s and eventually the way baseball teams recruit players.

Killer Elite

A mercenary, Danny (Jason Statham), is called back into action when his former partner (Robert De Niro) is being held captive by a sheik. Danny’s new assignment is to hunt down and kill the men who killed the sheik’s three sons, eliciting confessions from them while making their deaths look like an accident. The tricky part: the targets are all British SAS agents, and a high-profile member of a secret illegal group (Clive Owen) is tracking Danny and his team.

Family Movie Night Activity - Freaky Friday

When The Fortune Comes True, Then You’ll Go Back!

Anna thinks her Mom, Tess, has a perfect life where nothing goes wrong, especially compared to her own where everyone is out to get her. Tess thinks Anna is self-centered and overly dramatic about everything. What would happen if they traded places and had to see life through the other person’s eyes? They’re about to find out! Grab this fun flick and have a Freaky Friday of your own… especially since this Friday is Friday The 13th!  Still trying to decide if this movie is right for you, check out the review here!

Star Wars

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Well, more like 1977, but whatever, we were introduced to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and the American Film Institute’s #3 All-Time Movie Villain, Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) just to name a few.  Thirty five years later and it is still making new fans of this sci-fi/fantasy classic.

Mr. Popper's Penguins

Really Quite Rentable

It's the age old story of a man who is too wrapped up in work and less than popular with his estranged kids. But when his own estranged father passes away, leaving him with six penguins, Mr. Popper has no choice but to change the way he lives and the temperature of his apartment.

Contagion

Directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich), Contagion is an almost clinical look at a deadly airborne virus that manages to wipe out a large percentage of the world’s population while society’s infrastructure breaks down. Part detective story, part thriller, and all scary, it follows various factions, including the Centers for Disease Control. Contagion takes a fact–based approach as to the types of events we might expect if a super–virus arose.

I Don't Know How She Does It

Kate Reddy is a talented and successful finance executive. She is also a devoted wife and the mother of two kids. The precious balance between the workplace and home gets thrown out of whack when she lands a big project with the handsome Jack Abelhammer and is required to travel and work more than ever. Kate frantically tries to save her marriage, manage her guilt, excel at her job, and do right by her family. How does she do it?

Kindergarten Cop

"I'm the Pah-dee Poopah"

Detective John Kimball is a cop with no life outside of police work and at the moment, his work, and life, revolve around putting away the notorious bad guy Cullen Crisp. In order to do that Det. Kimball needs to find Crisp's ex-wife and son who are living in Oregon. So he's going deep undercover as a kindergarten teacher so he can figure out which kid is Crisp's and therefore, which mom is the key to closing this case.

Midnight in Paris

Staying Up Past 10:00pm Actually Can Broaden Your Horizons!

Gil is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who longs to be a novelist the likes of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Soon to be wed to fiancé Inez, the two take a spur of the moment trip to the national city of Romance, Paris France.  Inez is there to shop and relax while Gil is looking for inspiration on his first novel.  Which he finds every night at midnight when he’s whisked away, in a Rolls Royce no less, to meet some of the most iconic authors of all time.  Both Inez and Gill find what they are seeking in beautiful Paris, but will it change the path of their future together forever?

Family Movie Night Activity - Kung Fu Panda 2

“Every Master Must Find His Path To Inner Peace.”

Now that Po is the Dragon Warrior, he and the Furious Five are doing a great job of protecting China. Po’s Kung-Fu skills are put to the test when he meets a Peacock with an unmatchable weapon who knows more about Po's past than Po does. Can Po stop a crazy Peacock, save China and find inner peace? Find out with this fun Movie Night! If you’re still trying to decide if you should see this film, check out the review here.

Best Seven of Two Thousand Eleven

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on the best of the crop of movies released to DVD during 2011. A special thanks to ClearPlay for making these films more accessible to the whole family.

7. Tangled

I was massively underwhelmed by The Princess and the Frog, so I was pleased to see Disney redeem itself with an adventuresome, fun tale of love and rebirth. This creative retelling of the Rapunzel story has something for everyone to enjoy and is bound to make you smile at least once.

Top 5 of 2011

Rather than choose from all the movies I saw this year, I’m going to focus on my favorite five I watched for ClearPlay. And I’ll do it by genre:

Foreign Film

In a Better World — Few American movies pack the same emotional wallop as this tale of two boys’ friendship that at first looks to be mutually beneficial but exhibits portents of catastrophe. Interesting arguments about the role of non-violence to solve problems, with some powerful scenes along the way.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Imaginative with some clever humor.

It’s not every day that it is raining food from the sky, wait, it never is unless you have a scientist named Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) in your town.  Flint was an awkward child and didn’t have many friends but he loved science.  He was not known for his “successful” experiments but more for his “blunders” until one day one of his so called accidents may have saved his town or so he thought. 

Warrior

Two men, with disparate reasons for entering the ring, train and enter the world’s largest mixed martial arts (MMA) competition. The real pull for the movie, however, is their back-story and family relationships, which increases the empathy in what could have been an ordinary sports tale.

Dolphin Tale

Sawyer is struggling since his Dad left, socially and academically. One day he helps rescue a dolphin washed ashore and injured by a crab trap. He bonds with the dolphin and works with the maritime rescue crew to rehabilitate her. But when the dolphin’s tail has to be amputated and the maritime hospital starts running short of cash, Sawyer and his friends have to find a way to keep the dolphin and hope alive.

Family Movie Night Activity-A Christmas Story

“You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!”

Some Christmases are never forgotten! Told as some hilarious memories of this Christmas in the 1940’s, you and your family with laugh as you get a look back on Ralph, his family, friends & classmates, their holiday celebrations and mishaps, and everything it takes for a 9yr old boy to try and get an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas!

Holiday Classic-A Christmas Story

A Story That May Be For Adults Only!

With only a couple of weeks until Christmas Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) has but one goal in mind: to convince his parents, his teacher, and even Santa Clause himself that the only thing that he wants in the whole wide world is a Red Ryder BB Gun.  Seemingly a simple task except that all the parents and adults seem to think that “you’ll shoot your eye out...” But as each day passes the pressure mounts and Ralphie’s potty-mouth and school yard fighting are not helping his cause.  On Christmas morning as he approaches the tree, chalk full to the brim with anticipation, he looks, but does he see it? is it there? IS IT THERE??