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Neal Vitale Reviews: Over The Hedge, United 93

Over The Hedge--4.5 stars

This DreamWorks Animation (Shrek, Madagascar) film is a delight. Inspired by Michael Fry and T Lewis' comic strip, Over The Hedge is, on the surface, a inspiring but fairly standard story of friendship and family. What energizes and elevates it is a strong narrative and visual undercurrent that lacerates many aspects of current American life - sprawling development, conspicuous consumption, and antiseptic suburbs. A band of animals - voiced by a terrific cast, including Bruce Willis, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, and Garry Shandling - go on a food-foraging crusade, and attempt to outwit homeowners and pest control heavies in their quest for sustenance. The results are hilarious - Over The Hedge fully achieves the Holy Grail of appealing to adults as well as to kids. My only complaint is the insipid songs from Ben Folds - including a completely incongruous Clash cover - in the soundtrack. Round One of this year's Animation Derby goes to DreamWorks . But Pixar's much-delayed Cars comes out next month, which should make It an interesting summer. 

--Neal Vitale

United 93 - 4.5 stars

Writer/director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Bloody Sunday) has created a masterful, wrenching film, capturing the story of the one hijacked jet on September 11 that did not fulfill its mission. I had approached United 93 with trepidation and skepticism. Would it be believable? Sensationalized? Jingoistic? Greengrass has done an extraordinary job of capturing the chaos of that day, tracking events from multiple perspectives - the hijackers, passengers and crew on the plane, flight controllers on the ground, and the military. Confusion, errors, and misinformation abound. Through this maelstrom of activity, United 93 elicits powerful reactions in the viewer - anger, frustration, horror. I came out of the theatre shaken and moved, unlike anything I can remember in my recent filmgoing. Don't miss this film.

-Neal Vitale

[Editor's note: I try not to second-guess Neal's reviews, and since I haven't seen this film, I really can't second-guess it. I just want to say, speaking only for myself and based on the previews, I really don't think I can watch this film yet. Maybe when it comes out on DVD. But it appears to me to be a too-intense experience. --Paul]

May 15, 2006 in Film |

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Paul's Reading

  • Laton McCartney: The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country

    Laton McCartney: The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country
    I am fortunate to know the author of this book; he used to be my boss at InformationWEEK. He has written numerous first-rate works, including a swell book about the discovery of the South Pass on the Oregon Trail and the inside story of Bechtel. Here, he takes an obscure but extremely important scandal in American history and makes it come alive. Teapot Dome is hard to grasp for several reasons: it was complicated, it unwound slowly (over almost a decade) because of the nefarious delays in the congressional investigation, and it became less urgent after the death of Harding, the man in the middle. Astoundingly, the GOP, corrupt to the core in the 1920s, escaped unscathed, winning in 1924 and 1928 as Teapot Dome unfolded. McCartney's trademark "you are there" recreations, founded in the carefully researched historical record, make the whole thing squalid affair quite vivid, and his Wyoming roots (half the scandalous land involved was in Wyoming) clearly motivated him to tell the story. (*****)

  • Max Barry: Jennifer Government

    Max Barry: Jennifer Government
    I am not really a sucker for every book I read, which is why this is a four star, not a five star. It begins slowly, and the first half is a confusing, hard slog. But eventually this dystopian vision of corporations rampant and a vestigial government picks up speed, excitement and interest. In Barry's world, your last name is the company you work for, thus, government agent Jennifer Government and her nemesis John Nike. Absurd, rollicking, action-packed and scary. (****)

  • Dick Meyer: Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium

    Dick Meyer: Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium
    Vicki and I heard Dick Meyer on an NPR Podcast (from their excellent series on authors speaking at bookstores), describing this book, which explains why Americans are so angry about their culture and what can be done about it. A former CBS producer, he now works for NPR. He has noticed downward spiral of--well, nearly everything, but he does not believe it is inevitable or unstoppable. It is a refreshing book, full of pointed observations, with an abbreviated but still thoughtful "prescription" section at the end. Both the problem and the solution start with you. (*****)

  • David Sedaris: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

    David Sedaris: When You Are Engulfed in Flames
    David Sedaris is an acquired taste, like smoking. He is a New Yorker essayist and "memoirist," whose life is recounted in essay form in a "heightened," and so more humorous, reality. I find his work laugh out loud funny, and can't recommend his new book too highly. He does not achieve his effects, like Perlman and Allen, with vocabulary, but with simple words and a nasty self-deprecation that never fails to amuse me. (*****)

  • Paul Auster: The Book of Illusions: A Novel

    Paul Auster: The Book of Illusions: A Novel
    For anyone who likes every page of their novel soaked in the feeling of being a Hollywood insider, this piece of literary fiction should be like catnip. Auster has written the tale of a woebegone academic who stumbles across a silent film comedian. The comic made movies for a year and a half, then disappeared 60 years earlier. The academic writes the first and only book about the actor, and is then told his subject is still alive! The interweaving of the two narratives, the richly imagined life of the actor and the sadly lived life of the professor, is skillful in a way that makes me jealous as a writer. It's a great read. Sep. 08 (*****)

  • Christopher Buckley: Supreme Courtship

    Christopher Buckley: Supreme Courtship
    Consistently funny, Buckley walks a fine line between parody, satire and slapstick, and does so in a consistently amusing and entertaining way. Supreme Courtship is the story of a television judge elevated to the Supreme Court by a frustrated president. Buckley deftly skewers modern presidential campaigns and modern internal Supreme Court bickering at the same time, as well as taking a few well-aimed swipes at reality television. There are several characters who are recognizable burlesque version of real people (including Sen. Joe Biden), but unlike, say, Black and White and Dead All Over, such thinly disguised portraits are incidental, rather than central. Rollicking fun. Be sure to read it. Sep. 08 (*****)

  • John Darnton: Black and White and Dead All Over

    John Darnton: Black and White and Dead All Over
    You finish this book feeling as though you are covered with printer's ink. You'll have no trouble spotting Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., R.W. "Johnny" Apple, former executive editors Howell Raines and A.M. "Abe" Rosenthal. The novel features a detailed tour of the important parts of the building (including the hole where the presses used to be and the neglected morgue), as well as a seemingly accurate and well-sketched look at actual daily newspaper operations. Fantastic, engaging and well written. Aug. 08 (*****)

  • Christopher Buckley: Boomsday

    Christopher Buckley: Boomsday
    Once again, Buckley shares his comedic genius with us. This time, he takes the fact that the simultaneous retirement of all the boomers is going to bankrupt the country, mixes it with presidential politics and a little polite sex, and creates gales of hysterical laughter. Smart, witty and clever, this book once again marks Buckley as a worthy successor to the greats of American narrative humor, and makes him one of my favorite living authors. Aug 08 (*****)

  • Keith Colquhoun: Beyond Reason

    Keith Colquhoun: Beyond Reason
    Well-written, fast-paced, entertaining, and, like his other works, endearingly eccentric. If you are interested in a good novel that doesn't read just like every other novel, and some thoughtful chatter about the state of religion, wrapped into an entertaining package, you'll like Beyond Reason. Jun 08 (****)

  • Sven Birkerts: The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

    Sven Birkerts: The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
    This collection of essays alternates between hopeful and depressing as it soberly considers the future propspects of the act of reading dead-tree media. In this re-issue, the author admits to succumbing to electronic creation, but clings to reading on paper. A reasonable compromise? I think so. Thoughtful and engaging. 1/07. (*****)

Paul's Permanent Content

Favorite Movies

  • My all-time favorite movie:
    Groundhog Day. I have created a fan site that is universally acknowledged to be the best on the Internet dedicated to this work of art.

    All the rest of my favorite movies (Deadline USA, The Paper, CitizenKane) are Journalism movies.

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