ReelViews for PG movies

As 1993 drew to a close, movie-goers in search of light entertainment were treated to the delightful (if formulaic) Grumpy Old Men, a reunion of the often-paired odd couple of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Now, two years later, John Gustafs...

The mention of Pinocchio generally stirs up memories of the 1940 Disney animated feature, which (at the time) was the greatly anticipated follow-up to 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Today, Disney’s Pinocchio is regarded as one of the...

With the arrival of this "adaptation" of Gulliver's Travels, author Jonathan Swift must be spinning in his grave fast enough to make a top dizzy. If Swift was alive, no doubt he'd demand that his name be removed from the credits. Little of his sati...

Hairspray follows in the footsteps of Little Shop of Horrors and The Producers as campy movies that became even more campy stage musicals before returning to the screen in lavish song-and-dance productions. (Spamalot may be the next title to follo...

The familiar fairy tales we were weaned on aren't good enough any more. First, Shrek playfully toyed with some of our old friends by having them interact in atypical ways with a big, green ogre. Then along came last year's Hoodwinked, which refus...

Happy Feet is a weird movie. No one can accuse director George Miller and his co-writers of playing it safe, but there are some genres - such as family-friendly animation - where adherence to conventions can be viewed as a positive trait. 75 minu...

There's no question that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is designed more for fans of the book than for those who have never picked up a J.K. Rowling tome. However, while that makes sense financially (after all, the target audience represe...

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince represents the immensely popular series' first outing without the net of having new books waiting in the wings. As far as the written word is concerned, Harry's tale is done. Cinematically, there are still t...

It's interesting to note that, of the three Harry Potter novels thus far filmed, the longest on the written page has turned into the shortest on screen. This is a good thing, because it means that the filmmakers are becoming less literal and more ...

The Harry Potter phenomenon - and make no mistake, it is a phenomenon - is unlike anything we have seen in recent history. Rather than being the result of clever marketing and hucksterism, Harry Potter's popularity began at the grass roots level. ...