Due Date is almost a modern remake of the classic John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles; a buddy comedy about the straight man (Robert Downey Jr.) being forced to travel across country with the annoying, fat slob (Zach Galifianakis) in order to get home to his family. In this case, he’s trying to get home to his wife who is about to give birth, rather than wanting to get home in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Robert Downey Jr.’s character is a hell of a lot meaner than Steve Martin’s in PT&A, however. He often “sees red” and makes poor life decisions that result in someone being punched, something being broken, and dogs being spit on. Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) is an aspiring actor who desperately wants to appear on Two and a Half Men and spread his father’s ashes along the way. The two bump into each other and after they’re both kicked off their plane, hilarity ensues.

It’s not the most ground-breaking comedy ever, but I enjoyed it. It had a good blend of wackiness, Robert Downey Jr. being himself (awesome), and even heart.
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I always had a hard time deciding how I felt about Walt Disney’s 1942 film Bambi. I remembered watching it as a kid, but that’s not always the best judge of how good something is, so a few years ago I rewatched it. Even though I was in the middle of a geeking-out-about-animation-history phase I went through, I wrote Bambi off as boring.

It’s still not a Disney movie I can watch as often as others, but at least I’ve come to a better understanding of it as a work of art. I lump Bambi in the same category as Fantasia, more on the poetic side; something to sit and ponder while I’m wearing my smoking jacket and puffing my bubble pipe until I give up and decide to play Nintendo.
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The year was 1975 and production was gearing up for a new animated film based upon a line of children’s books and toys that had been a favorite for generations.  The budget for the film was $4 million.  Considering that around the same time Disney only spent $1.2 million to make The Rescuers, $4 million allowed the producers to assemble a virtual all-star team of animators and filmmakers to work on the project.

The director was Abe Levitow, a man who earned his animation stripes while working under Chuck Jones, drawing iconic characters like Pepe Le Pew and Wile E. Coyote for the Looney Tunes series of shorts during their 1950’s heyday.  He also directed animated versions of Dick Tracy, Mr. Magoo, Tom and Jerry, and even worked on an Oscar-winning animated film, 1971’s A Christmas Carol.

The film’s animation was going to be overseen by the director of the same Oscar-winning A Christmas Carol, Richard Williams, who would later win an Emmy for a Ziggy cartoon special in the early 1980’s, as well as a couple more Oscars as the director of animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.  Sadly, Williams had to take over directorial duties after Levitow died during the film’s production, though with his experience, he was perfectly capable of the helm.

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The year was 1975 and production was gearing up for a new animated film based upon a line of children’s books and toys that had been a favorite for generations.  The budget for the film was $4 million.  Considering that around the same time Disney only spent $1.2 million to make The Rescuers, $4 million allowed the producers to assemble a virtual all-star team of animators and filmmakers to work on the project.

The director was Abe Levitow, a man who earned his animation stripes while working under Chuck Jones, drawing iconic characters like Pepe Le Pew and Wile E. Coyote for the Looney Tunes series of shorts during their 1950’s heyday.  He also directed animated versions of Dick Tracy, Mr. Magoo, Tom and Jerry, and even worked on an Oscar-winning animated film, 1971’s A Christmas Carol.

The film’s animation was going to be overseen by the director of the same Oscar-winning A Christmas Carol, Richard Williams, who would later win an Emmy for a Ziggy cartoon special in the early 1980’s, as well as a couple more Oscars as the director of animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.  Sadly, Williams had to take over directorial duties after Levitow died during the film’s production, though with his experience, he was perfectly capable of the helm.

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We don’t have a poetry expert on staff here at THS, so when we received a copy of Peter Hankoff’s Haiku, Inc., a reflection of corporate culture in 17 syllables, it fell to me our resident corporate drone to review. The work is geared towards the casual reader who can identify with the often frustrating aspects of office bureaucracy. It will be from this perspective that I critique.

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