Movies like “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” aren’t necessarily made for critics, who are frequently presumed to have it in for live-action family films, with their primary colors and jokey, obvious set-ups for the lowest common denominator. And director Mark Waters’ film, starring Jim Carrey as a realtor who inherits a half dozen penguins and finds his swank New York penthouse apartment turned into a raucous, chilly wonderland, is certainly not a subtle thing. But it is sweet, and has a heart, and it also benefits in comparison to many movies of its ilk by the use of actual real, live animals rather than talking critters or overly slick CGI creations. Based on the…

Title: Toast Directed By: SJ Clarkson Written By: Lee Hall, adapted from Nigel Slater’s memoir Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Ken Stott, Oscar Kennedy, Victoria Hamilton, Freddie Highmore Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 9/13/11 Opens: September 23, 2011 The way to a man’s heart may be through his stomach, but there is this big exception: it helps if you like the cook. Watching SJ Clarkson’s period piece, which takes place in small-town British Midlands during the sixties, you’ll be tempted to re-think the Scepter’d Isle as Europe’s prime location for godawful food, but Lee Hall’s script, adapted from food writer Nigel Slater’s memoir, makes us wait a while before liberating a…

Michael Angarano is not yet 24 years old, but he’s already racked up an impressive list of credits, even if a lot of folks might recognize his face from a more cherubic state. He was the young William in ‘Almost Famous’, and the young Red Pollard in ‘Seabiscuit’. Other audiences might know him best from a stint on ‘Will & Grace’. Crucially, though, Angarano is in the process of showing he has what it takes to navigate the tricky terrain between adolescent performer and young adult actor. A solid turn opposite Uma Thurman in this year’s split-generation romance ‘Ceremony’ affirmed his keen touch with uniquely verbose sensitivity, and he gives…

Title: Toast Director: S.J. Clarkson Starring: Oscar Kennedy, Freddie Highmore, Helena Bonham Carter, Ken Stott, Victoria Hamilton, Matthew McNulty British period piece import ‘Toast’, playing at Laemmle theaters in Los Angeles this weekend as part of their “From Britain With Love” series, is a well-acted if somewhat meandering and pedantic coming-of-age story, based on the memoir of Nigel Slater, a popular English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. Fans of ‘EastEnders’ and all other sorts of across-the-pond television, as well as kitchen-sink dramas in general, will find reward in the detail and clarity of this tale. The movie opens in Wolverhampton in the late 1960s, where nine-year-old Nigel (Oscar Kennedy, quite…

Title: The Art of Getting By Director: Gavin Wiesen Starring: Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, Michael Angarano, Blair Underwood, Rita Wilson, Sam Robards, Alicia Silverstone Early on, the audience may think they’re watching some sort of existential ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’. Towards the end, ‘The Art of Getting By‘ kind of turns into a play-it-straight ‘Billy Madison’ angle. And then there’s the middle portion, that sees its charisma levels drop faster than Anthony Weiner’s approval rating – but his libido is still kicking. Once the viewer finishes absorbing the 84 minutes, the story – with an assist from the progressive rock soundtrack – feels like adaptation from an artsy concept album…

Title: The Art of Getting By Directed by: Gavin Wiesen Starring: Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, Michael Anagarano, Rita Wilson and Blair Underwood Existentialism in movies is a hard thing to nail down. How do you illustrate nothingness in being in a movie which has a plot, narrative and characters? It is even harder to pull this off and be completely entertaining. I wanted to like this movie so much but I feel it got in the way of itself. For all the themes and relationships presented in the movie, it ultimately falls flat but is, somewhat, kept alive through its very charming leads, Freddie Highmore and, the alluring, Emma Roberts….

A pinch of wry fatalism, and the ability to step back and view the trials and tribulations of adolescence as moments in time, fixed suffering on a much broader horizon, is an attractive quality in teenagers (and especially so once they age out a bit more, into their twenties, and begin to reflect back on younger years). It’s that sort of emotionally jumbled ironic detachment that drives writer-director Gavin Wiesen’s feature film debut, ’The Art of Getting By’, a coming-of-age tale in which bright but undermotivated slacker George (Freddie Highmore) is befriended by and finds a kindred spirit in Sally (Emma Roberts). We had a chance to speak one-on-one with Wiesen recently, about his previous…

Summit Entertainment recently released this brand new movie trailer from the upcoming animated film “Astro Boy” by director David Bowers (Flushed Away) and starring Kristen Bell (Serious Moonlight), Nicolas Cage (Season of the Witch, Kick-Ass), Bill Nighy (Valkyrie) and Freddie Highmore (The Spiderwick Chronicles). Synopsis: Set in futuristic Metro City, Astro Boy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost. Unable to fulfill the grieving man’s expectations, our hero embarks on a journey in search of acceptance, experiencing betrayal and a netherworld of robot gladiators, before he returns to save Metro City and reconcile with the…

Check out the latest movie clip “The Sight” for the upcoming fantasy film “The Spiderwick Chronicles” by director Mark Waters and starring Sarah Bolger, Nick Nolte and Freddie Highmore. Synopsis: Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.

Check out the latest high quality movie trailer for the upcoming fantasy film “The Spiderwick Chronicles” by director Mark Waters and starring Sarah Bolger, Nick Nolte and Freddie Highmore. Synopsis: Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.