The O-town Scene

Movie Scene DVDs Coming Tuesday Disney’s A Christmas Carol” (PG, 96 mins.) BLOOMBERG Thandie Newton, left, and Whoopi Goldberg are seen in Tyler Perry’s movie ‘For Colored Girls.’ ‘For Colored Girls’ It started out as a “choreopoem” before being turned into a Tony Award-winning Broadway play. Now it’s a star-studded movie made by the world’s most successful black director. Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” is a tepid, chaotic adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s story about what it’s like to be black and female in the United States. The melodrama is rendered limp and colorless by Perry, who’s best known for cranking out low-brow comedy hits aimed at black audiences. Originally titled “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rain- bow Is Enuf,” it tells the intersecting stories of nine black women of all shapes, ages and economic levels. They include a gentle dance teacher (Anika Noni Rose), a nosy widow (Phyli- cia Rashad), a promiscuous bartender (Thandie Newton), a high-powered busi- nesswoman (Janet Jackson), a supersti- tious Bible thumper (Whoopi Goldberg) and an abused woman (Kimberly Elise) married to a disturbed Vietnam vet (Mi- chael Ealy). Their lives cross in ways that are sometimes logical but frequently not. As in musicals, in which characters stop to sing a song, these women pause to recite Shange’s poems. Though the words may be fitting, the florid language and long monologues usually bring the dramatic momentum to a halt. I’m not sure anyone could have made a coherent movie out of this material. Perry obviously couldn’t. The umpteenth iteration of the holiday clas- sic — about the miserly, miserable Ebenezer Scrooge and his Christmas Eve redemption at the hands of a trio of ghosts — gets a manic makeover under the direction of Robert Zemeckis, who applies the same motion- capture animation he used to mixed effect in “The Polar Express” to create a fable that is by turns antic, scary, sweet and, in the end, slightly soulless. This, despite the Herculean efforts of the voice cast, which includes Jim Carrey as Scrooge and the ghosts that visit him, and Gary Oldman as Scrooge’s dead partner, Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit, and Cratchit’s son Tiny Tim. Dickens’ story has good bones. But just because some- thing can be done with computers doesn’t mean it should be. Contains creepiness. DVD extras: Featurettes “Capturing Dickens: A Novel Retelling” and “On Set With Sammi,” deleted scenes. — Rick Warner, Bloomberg News “The Last Airbender” (PG, 95 mins.) Noah Ringer plays the title role of Aang, a messianic child with the power to manipulate all four elements. Meant to be something akin to the young Dalai Lama, Aang is still an avatar in training. Having run away from the monastery where he was being groomed for his role, Aang left before he had mastered control of water, earth and fire. His only real expertise is in the “bending” of air. That means he can stir up mini- tornadoes with his hands, and blast people with puffs of strong wind. Katara and Sokka (Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone), a teenage earthbend- er and her brother, team up with Aang to do battle with firebender Zuko. Zuko is hoping to capture Aang so that his people, known as the Fire Nation, can suppress the Earth, Air and Water tribes. He has been banished by his father, the Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis), un- til he returns with the prize. Contains martial arts and mildly violent action. DVD extras: “Origins of the Avatar” featurette; deleted scenes and gag reel. Extended featurettes on two-disc Blu-ray edition. 34 O-Town Scene Nov. 11, 2010 “The Kids Are All Right” (R, 106 mins.) This comedy about a flawed-but-functional family captures the drama of growth and separation in all its exhilaration and heart- ache. Eighteen-year-old Joni (Mia Wasikows- ka) and her little brother, Laser (Josh Hutch- erson), are pretty typical teens growing up in Southern California today: They’re good kids, even if they roll their eyes at their overpro- tective mother. Make that mothers: Joni and Laser have two moms, one a doctor named Nic (Annette Ben- ing), the other a dreamer named Jules (Juli- anne Moore). They’ve clearly formed a close, healthy family, which makes it all the more disruptive when Laser persuades Joni to find their biological father, Paul, a bedroom-eyed underachiever. Paul is the last guy anyone would consider a threat, but when Joni and Laser get to know him, his presence shakes the family. Contains strong sexual content, nudity, profanity and teen drug and alcohol use. DVD extras: “The Journey to Forming a Family” with writer/director Lisa Cholodenko; making-of featurette runs; “The Writer’s Process” featurette on Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg’s work on the screenplay. “Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” (PG, 82 mins.) Plagued by cheap-looking special effects and a crummy 3-D conversion, this film leans on its only real asset, the cuteness of its fuzzy stars. Kitty is a hairless feline (the voice of Bette Midler) who is bent on world domina- tion. Opposing her are a team of super-spies: a cat with the voice of Christina Applegate, and two dogs, Butch and Diggs (Nick Nolte and James Marsden). Butch is the old pro; Diggs is the unreliable rookie. The three are tasked with protecting a pigeon (Katt Wil- liams) who has acquired secret blueprints that could endanger Kitty’s plan. Contains animal action and humor. DVD extras: Looney Toons “Coyote Falls” short and, on Blu-ray, outtakes and gag reel plus featurettes “Dog Dishing: Tails from the Bark Side of Hollywood” and “The Best of the Best Cat vs Dog Animated Showdowns.” — Washington Post

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