Hey folks, Harry here... Rav decided to brave Dallas to check out that ICE AGE screening we were told about. It seems that it wasn't quite what was represented in the advertising for the event, as the film isn't quite complete. Now before you get too bummed about Rav's coverage, the director was showing highlight moments from the film... key emotional sequences... that sort of thing... Though Rav felt unaffected by them. THis could be because they just didn't work... OR HOPEFULLY because they are scenes which really count on all that has come before. That the development of the characters is such that you need to see the rest in order for it to make you go, "COOOOOOOL!!!!" Now, without further to do... Here's Rav...

Ice Age, Big Fat Liar Review, and why Dallas, Texas fucking SUCKS!

Kiddfilm Dallas - That Ice Age Shindig

Well it all started Friday night, sitting around about to start watching "Where a Good Man Goes", yet another Johnny To film I borrowed from a friend, I've grown a fetish for To-films the past week after viewing Running Out of Time and Fulltime Killer. Suddenly the site has been updated with Dallas/Ft. Worth Area Geeks Attention!!! Fox's ICE AGE cgi film plays tomorrow, SATURDAY!!! Details Here!!! hrrmmmmmm Spike and Mike has taken over the Alamo, so nothing much to do tomorrow, fuck it ill go to Dallas and see Ice Age, after all its only a four hour drive, and has the coolest fucking teaser trailer ever. After doing a little more investigative work on this kid film thingamajigger, I discovered they are sneaking that Frankie Muniz flick "Big Fat Liar" as well (insert subdued wooohoo here) and are giving a lifetime achievement award, or some shit like that, to Leonard Maltin following a screening of The Three Caballeros (cool). Woah cool it looks like they are screening this new Christopher Walken flick Scotland, PA in Dallas that night as well, badass. Fuck yes this is going to be so fucking cool.

--------------------------Fast Forward here (Driving at five in the morning, two hitch-hiking transvestites dressed as nuns, a run-in with a trucker named Sal, Big Dick Blaque, Dallas Freeways, and eighteen decapitated seven year olds later)--------------------------------

Wow now I'm at the Anjelika film center Dallas, surprisingly its nearly a carbon-copy of the Houston anjelika except with a second story, wow. They are showing that Cate Blanchett movie Charlotte Grey as well, I hope I have time to catch it before I leave. I still have nearly four hours before tickets go on sale. hmmmmmmm whats there to do for 3 hours in cold-as-fuck Dallas Texas?? Absolutely nothing. Well theres Starbucks or you can wait in line. Needless to say, I found myself camping out in the anjelika for the next four hours. Shit this is getting pretty fucking boring again.

------------------------Fast Forward again (pacing around a few moments, many many bitchy mothers, Scotland, PA is sold out, women with 4,000 kids cut in front of me, Big Dick Blaque makes an encore appearance, bruckheimer isn't dead yet and hes making Beverly Hills Cop 4)---------------------

Now its Ten minutes before tickets are going on sale WOOOHOOO I'm about to see Ice Age this is going to be soo fucking cool, (insert teaser trailer flashbacks here> Orgasmic Smile here). hmmmm that butch-woman that just told me there was no way in hell I was going to get into Scotland, PA tonight just posted a pink paper sign about Ice Age, hmmmm. hrmmmmmm FUCK FUCK FUCKING BITCHES ASSMONKIES DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!! The sign says that Ice Age is still incomplete and that they will only be showing a short preview of the movie, and that the co-director Carlos Saldanha will be on hand. After catching my breath, I am able to hold myself back from lodging my car keys down the director's throat for not finishing his movie. I buy my tickets and prepare myself for the Ice Age presentation.

Ice Age presentation

Being the top-notch (*Groan*) organization that the USA Film Festival is, it was no suprise that 95% of the seats for ice age were "reserved for festival staff or VIPS" which all happened to be under 12. All of these kids who still did not know they were not going to see the feature, instead they had a video projector set-up ARGHH!!! Hundreds of babies are crying, the co-director takes stage, babies are still crying. The director seems nice, this is his first movie, so he's a little bit excited, and he seemed to love telling kids about animation. He showed us Blue Sky's academy award winning short Bunny, which was really cool. Then he started getting into Ice Age, he talked about how they were really happy with the teaser trailer, then he started explaining the clips we were going to see and explained a bit about their relevance to the movie. It was roughly around twenty five minutes of footage.

The Clips: SPOILERS

- the first clip he played was the full intro of the film, which is basically not that much different than the first teaser trailer, there was just a little bit more acorn stuffing to it really.

- the next clip he showed was the introduction to manni, the mammoth voiced by Ray Romano, and Sid the Sloth, voiced by John Leguizamo. Heres basically what happens, the scene opens up with two rhino's putting together a salad with what is possibly the last dandylion left in existence, Sid walks in and eats it, ruining their "salad," they chase him this is where he finds Manni, who he hides behind his leg near a cliff ledge. Manni tries to bluff them telling them there is a puddle of quicksand in front of them, well then sid is dumb enough to ruin the bluff and throw a stick to prove it, GULP oh shit that was a bluff! What follows is Manni kicking their ass with his cool tusks.

- next is the director's "favorite scene" a group of dodo-birds are practicing what seems to be a Doomsday Cult, fearing an impending Ice-Age they are stocking up on melons. Except they wind up with only three melons, Manni and the gang wind up catching up with them. Well manni and the gang try to take a few of the melons, most of the dodo birds wind up falling off cliffs or into holes and dying trying to get the melons back, and the other two melons wind up being destroyed. Except in the end Sid winds up with the last melon, does a celebratory in-zone dance and winds up smashing the melon like a football.

- the next scene the director tells us shows off the drama of the film, this is where they see a group of hieroglyphs of Wooly Mammoths being killed by humans, (they are bringing a little baby back to its parents), this is supposed to be really touching or something but all in all it really didnt seem to have any effect on me, hopefully it will when I see the entire film. They also see a hieroglyph of a Sabertooth killing a sloth, this makes sid freaked out by the Sabertooth now.

- Next is a sequence where they are walking around in an ice cave, seeing many frozen creatures inside, a couple of humorous moments happen, like a UFO is frozen, and you get to see the evolution cycle of the sloth frozen in place. Then the baby falls down through an Ice slope and they all jump down the Ice slide for what is supposed to be a fun and thrilling sequence.

- Next is a sequence that is supposed to be really near the end of the movie. The group is walking across a few ice bridges and run into trouble with a river of Lava. Here Manni saves the sabertooth, this is another one of those supposedly touching scenes that just didnt seem to work here.

End of Clips

John Leguizamo's voice is pretty cool as usual, you wouldn't recognize it as Leguizamo unless you knew already. Denis Leary gives a real gruffy rough weird take on the sabertooth's voice, and Ray Romano well he's just well it's ray romano.

Overall I was very disappointed by the clips, the film's story was described by the director as "The group is bringing the baby that they found back to their mother, cause well they just felt that was the right thing to do." The baby seems like they ripped the baby from monster inc. out and made it a Indian. The clips gave off a very big Land Before Time meets Monsters Inc. vibe, but honestly I'd rather watch those films. Ice Age could still be very good when its released in March, and I'll still see it, but it's fell pretty low on my list of films im looking forward to. Seeming to be just a cheesy kids film, with okay CGI. Although the CGI will surely look much better on film and hopefully the final score will be much better.

Big Fat Liar