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Great reviews for The Lion King and Willy Wonka, Luke! I always like reading what you think of the films themselves (and the rest of the review, too).

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The Divulgations of One Desmond Leica: http://desmondleica.wordpress.com/

Luke:

Have you ever just sat back and watched a movie without taking notes and just letting it entertain you???

Was curious after reading your review of "Zookeeper". I don't consider this or any Adam Sandler movie a 'family-friendly' movie. I have 10 grandkids between the ages of 3 and 13 and I would not let any of them watch this movie or any Happy Madison produced movie. I know as a grandparent that I can't protect the kids from everything, but I sure as heck can be involved in what they watch for entertainment. Unless the movie carries a G rating, these kids will not be watching them. Parent Guidance is what PG stands for, and my daughter and son-in-law both agree with us about what films our grandkids should be allowed to view.

We have watched a few movies that were rated PG and then let the older kids watch, but not before letting them know that there are some offensive words or a scene of bullying or something, but let them watch the movie with us in the room so they can ask questions.

"Zookeeper" is far from being a family-friendly movie, and it also joins movies like "Mr. Popper's Penguins" and "The Smurfs" as films that we don't feel are proper for kids to watch without some guidance.

This all being said, I wanted to thank you for your review of "Zookeeper" and just found that the words 'family friendly' were not used properly in the review. My wife and I watched "Zookeeper" in the theater and felt like you, that this movie could have been a lot better and funnier, but the humor that is in the movie is definitely NOT for kids.

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The only way to watch movies - Original Aspect Ratio!!!!
I LOVE my Blu-Ray Disc Player!

Luke, do you plan on reviewing Scream 4?

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http://teendramaforum.proboards.com/
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I enjoyed your fairly recent review of Willy Wonka, Luke.

I very rarely take notes while watching a movie and I've watched many more movies for entertainment than for reviewing. You don't consider <i>Bedtime Stories</i> family friendly? If not, I think you're in the minority regarding that and <i>Zookeeper</i>. Both were definitely made primarily with kids/families. But aside from broad gags, there just is not a lot for kids (or anyone) to enjoy about <i>Zookeeper</i>. If you limit your grandchildren to G-rated movies, there really isn't much for them to see. From this year's output so far, there have been just 4 animated movies (5 counting <i>The Lion King</i> reissue), the Justin Bieber movie, <i>African Cats</i>, and six limited release movies: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/cha ... g=G&p=.htm



Unfortunately, I didn't get it as I assumed I would, since Anchor Bay titles usually come without request and this is one of their biggest. Probably wouldn't be the best person to review it anyway, since I've only seen the original <i>Scream</i> and only recently at that.

Thanks all for the feedback and encouragement!

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"Fifteen years from now, when people are talking about 3-D, they will talk about the business before 'Monsters vs. Aliens' and the business after 'Monsters vs. Aliens.' It's the line in the sand." - Greg Foster, IMAX chairman and president

Just finished reading your review of Cars 2 and while I do agree that it isn't the worst thing ever done by Pixar, it is far from the best, but I don't think that it deserves the harsh criticism that you gave it.

I paid to see "Cars 2" four times, once in IMAX, and the rest in the regular presentation, and don't feel I wasted my money. In fact, I think I enjoyed it as much as my 7-year-old grandson and four-year-old grand daughter did. While the story (what there is of it) forces you to believe a lot of things that are never really presented, I thought it was easy to watch, and I never once noticed the length of the film, as I did in "Wall-E" and "Up".

While I think they overused "Mater" in the film, I thought that some of the humor was very well done. My biggest objection was the G-rating the film received when the 'toon violence was very much high on the scale and the words "Kill them" were used to obviously put a little bit of a scare in the younger audience.

I abhor what Pixar/Disney is doing with their 'bare-bones' release of this movie on Blu-ray/DVD Combo pack. I never bought into the 3-D thing and never will, and like many others, I won't shell out any money for a disc that will never get played. Yes I will buy "Cars 2" when it is released Tuesday because I am a Disney completist and will add it to the Blu-ray collection. But I also will be watching this at least once a week for a while because I know that I have a certain 7-year-old and 4-year-old who will want Grandpa to put it up on the big screen.

I have read a lot of negative reviews of this movie that I also thought were un-warranted, but I thought you covered all the bases and as I have said, I agree to disagree with most of your comments on this one. Movies are supposed to be entertainment, and I was "entertained" by "Cars 2".

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The only way to watch movies - Original Aspect Ratio!!!!
I LOVE my Blu-Ray Disc Player!

Luke, I'm having a problem with the Smurfs review - the FAO Schwarz video clip starts playing by itself and it's freezing up the whole page. I start scrolling up or down and shortly after I do it completely freezes. If the video wouldn't play automatically, I'm pretty sure the page would stop freezing.

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4 Disney Atmosphere Images

It shouldn't be playing automatically, although it may have been set up that way briefly on Saturday. When did you access it and are you still having that problem now?

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"Fifteen years from now, when people are talking about 3-D, they will talk about the business before 'Monsters vs. Aliens' and the business after 'Monsters vs. Aliens.' It's the line in the sand." - Greg Foster, IMAX chairman and president

As usual I read all the way from the beginning to the picture and sound, and then jumped to your final thoughts in the Beauty and the Beast: Enchanted Christmas review, but I wanted to say I got this little gem of wit of yours: "If you win, though, you get to hear the whole short melody and what follows it, the cherry on top of your sundae of music pun encouragement/putdown at every right/wrong move." I thought that was a very clever, unique and humorous way of quickly summing up that part of the review. I just think it's example of your good writing/reviewing. Plus stuff like "the Beast can't forbid Christmas, they reason" and "of course, the Beast can forbid Christmas". LOL!

By the way, are you going to re-review Cinderella when it comes out, and admit that it's not "the slightest of Disney's beloved early classics", or did you mean from Snow White to Cinderella as "the early classics", because I would say that almost any film directly after Cinderella are much slighter. Sure, they have good things, but as much good as Cinderella, as a whole, does?

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Luke, I'm really glad you liked Drive! It was my favorite film of 2011, and one of the more original films of the last decade.

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http://twitter.com/clemxens

Love the review for The Apartment. It's my personal favorite movie, or at least in a three-way tie with Pulp Fiction and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and this was a brilliant tribute to it. One minor nitpick though.

"The Artist is poised to become the first black and white winner of the Best Picture Oscar since Schindler's List."

Technically, The Apartment was indeed the last Best Picture winner shot entirely in black and white, since the final scene of Schindler's List was done in color. You could just ignore that and regard the rest of the movie in black and white, since it's only one scene that mostly adds closure to Oskar Schindler's legacy, but it still exists.

Luke, I really enjoyed your review of My Week With Marilyn. It's a film I've been really wanting to see for many reasons (my love for Williams and Watson, and my fascination with Marilyn herself), so I'm glad to hear a positive review.

Nice work!

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http://teendramaforum.proboards.com/
http://twitter.com/clemxens

Color of Money review = perfect example of why I still refuse to do Blu-Ray.

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4 Disney Atmosphere Images

Re: The 39 Steps

I think the reason for this film's popularity in comparison to the rest of Hitchcock's British works, besides being quite good, is that it was mentioned in The Catcher in the Rye, I believe as a movie that Holden saw. Considering the timeless appeal the novel has, I think it helped to keep the film in some sort of remembrance.

Joe Dante rocks!

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Most of my Blu-ray collection some of my UK discs aren't on their database

What an offensive Cinderella review. Saying that certain parts of the movie can only be falled for by "suckers". And as for things that only pretend to advance the plot, that could be said of anything. Simba runs away...only to come back in the end. So that only pretends to advance the plot. Or Ariel and the animals take all that time to crash the wedding only to have her be too late anyway.

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Luke, thanks for an excellent (and early) review of the Santa Clause trilogy! For about two months of the year I have a borderline unhealthy obsession with the first one for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, especially the score.

The sequels are fine on DVD for me and I would almost say I like the 3rd better although the second has its moments -that don't include awkward teenage Charlie - until Spencer Breslin and plastic Santa highjack it again. And who could go past the Mother's transformation from frumpy and serious to Glamazon in the gap between 1 and 2 - it gets me every time!

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I was waiting for a response, but since it looks like I won't get one, I thought I'd say something nice to Luke about the Cinderella review. I will say that some things about it seemed accurate and to what I agree with about the film, mainly that the mice take up too much time and there isn't enough time spent on the romance. And thanks for reviewing it a second time for the Blu-ray.

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I want to thank Luke for the Pete's Dragon review! I was contemplating whether or not I should replace my DVD with this, but it sounds like that isn't necessary.

It's a great review either way, though.

Your reviews are always very thorough and go into the details of the disc that a lot of sites skip or gloss over (menu design, value, etc). Recently, I enjoyed reading your take on The Dark Knight Rises and Men in Black 3.

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"Mustard? Don't let's be silly!"
--Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland

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