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    Horton Hears A Who

    I'm a bit linguistically hamstrung when it comes to praising kids' films, but, erm, this was good. Amusing, well paced and not too long, as all kids' films wot adults have to sit through should be. Fell asleep for ten minutes (there were just the three of us in a 500-seat theatre) and still picked it up no problem once I regained consciousness, although I have read the book several dozen times (note to self: must stop taking the kids out for lunchtime drinking sessions). Both impettes, even the reluctant 11-year-old, happy with product.

    #2
    Horton Hears A Who

    Easily the best big-screen Seuss outing, though given the competition, that's faint praise. They did an impressive job of replicating and extending his madcap gadgets and architecture, the whole thing has an authentically 'Seuss' feel.

    In all honesty I don't quite see the point of extending a short story to 90 minutes, but it kept the kids' attention, so job done.

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      #3
      Horton Hears A Who

      imp wrote:
      a 500-seat theatre
      Interesting usage of an American word with a British spelling. You're living right on that Mid-Atlantic Ridge...

      It's dawned on me that this is a remaking of a cartoon that I saw once many, many years ago. I still sing "Boil that dust-speck" to myself...

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        #4
        Horton Hears A Who

        Hmmm, I've always spelled it theatre. Theater. Theatre. Yeah, definitely theatre.

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          #5
          Horton Hears A Who

          Really enjoyed it. The only negative comment came from my daughter who thought that Katie (who "pooped butterfies" ) didn't get enough screen time.

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            #6
            Horton Hears A Who

            I've noticed that "theatre" is what a lot of places are using now--I guess it's classier.

            Haven't seen this (or read the book, but I do like Horton Hatches the Egg)

            Peter Sagal, host of NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," had a beef with the movie:

            I don't know what sins Dr. Seuss committed in his life to be doomed to have Jim Carrey star in movie adaptations of his books. But I came out of Horton Hears a Who, with my wife and my three excited and happy daughters, irritated by something even more annoying than Carrey's tics. In a new subplot added by the filmmakers, the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters. He has one son. Guess who gets all his attention? Guess who saves the day? Go ahead, think about it, I'll wait.

            No I won't. What's so irritating about this casual slap at daughters is the sense that the makers of the film didn't really mean it. They seemed mostly interested in riffs on pop culture and jokes about violating bodily integrity. But what writers are told, you see, in Hollywood notes meetings, is that every character has to make a journey, towards something he needs and ultimately gets, and what they decided the Mayor of Whoville needs was a better relationship with his son. Here is a father with 96 daughters — 96 amazing, beautiful, unpredictable, mysterious, distinct, glorious human beings — but gosh, what in the world is he going to care about? I know, let's give him a moody silent uninteresting offspring, but this one's got a Y chromosome... that'll be boffo box office!

            Have the clowns who made this movie ever met a daughter? Have they dated one? If they did, did they meet the daughter's father? Did they then ask that daughter's father if there was anything more dramatic, interesting, arresting, and moving to him than his relationship with his daughter? Did they ask him if he might find that a close relationship with said daughter might be something he would care about? What do they imagine that we do — sit around, and watch our daughters grow and change and suffer and fail and triumph — and idly wish for something more INTERESTING?

            And there's this — not only does the movie end with father and son embracing, while the 96 daughters are, I guess, playing in a well, somewhere, but the son earns his father's love by saving the world. Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?

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              #7
              Horton Hears A Who

              6 posts and nobody's made an "I thought this was going to be about..." gag yet?

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                #8
                Horton Hears A Who

                The Best Seuss film, or book, by the way, is The Lorax. There are no realistic challengers. So there.

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                  #9
                  Horton Hears A Who

                  God forbid they ever make a 90-minute CGI version of The Lorax.

                  There's one theme in Horton that the movie skips, by the way. Initially, the book questions the need for the Whos to be looked after in the first place - do they actually want an omnipotent force dictating their future? A parallel with Vietnam, Iraq et al that the movie's producers were presumably uncomfortable with.

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                    #10
                    Horton Hears A Who

                    Surely the best Dr Seuss film is The 5000 fingers of Dr T. It has two men on rollerskates that share the same beard.

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                      #11
                      Horton Hears A Who

                      Welcome Killah.

                      I have a strong feeling that toro's love for the Lorax is tied to that van with the sealed windows that he tooled around Northern California in while "saving the planet".

                      Yeah, Dude, we speak for the Trees (cough).

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                        #12
                        Horton Hears A Who

                        I struggled with an alternative for 'theatre'. The auditorium? Doesn't sound natural to me any more. The picture house?

                        Melbourne A - my kids loved Katie too the best.

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                          #13
                          Horton Hears A Who

                          'Cinema' has always worked for me...

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                            #14
                            Horton Hears A Who

                            Hmm...I remember someone suggesting the name Toast Face Killah for a sandwich shop on a thread a long time ago...

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                              #15
                              Horton Hears A Who

                              Nope, 'cinema' would be the whole 15-theatre complex. To say we were the only three people in the cinema would have been factually inaccurate.
                              Don't tell me, Rotherham's cinema only has one screen. Not that I can talk - for years when I was a kid Lincoln had no cinema at all.

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                                #16
                                Horton Hears A Who

                                God forbid they ever make a 90-minute CGI version of The Lorax.
                                Hmmm ....... all my life I've waited for trees such as these

                                Only kid's book I enjoyed reading to my sons, "The Lorax", they were often fast asleep near the end; but I had to still finish it each time.

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                                  #17
                                  Horton Hears A Who

                                  imp wrote:
                                  Don't tell me, Rotherham's cinema only has one screen.
                                  In the olden days, when I lived in Rotherham and went to the pictures, we had two cinemas, each with a single screen. Both have now bitten the dust, and Rotherham dwellers have to travel to Sheffield to watch fillums. When someone proposed building a new cinema complex in Rotherham, Sheffield council ensured that it wouldn't be built.

                                  The theatre always was and always will be where you go to see "live" action.

                                  Oh, and does no-one else remember the original "Boil That Dust-Speck" chant?

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                                    #18
                                    Horton Hears A Who

                                    toro toro toro toro wrote:
                                    6 posts and nobody's made an "I thought this was going to be about..." gag yet?
                                    He emailed me yesterday, as it goes. About Kerry Dixon's goalscoring record against Oxford United.

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                                      #19
                                      Horton Hears A Who

                                      ua - you got it in one.

                                      We watched that film as a training exercise. Twice.

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