Foster on Film

Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (Scrooge McDuck, voice: Alan Young), ignores Christmas and his fellow “man,” has nothing to do with his nephew, Fred (Donald Duck, voice: Clarence Nash), and makes life difficult for his employee, Bob Cratchit (Mickey Mouse, voice: Wayne Allwine).  The ghost of his partner (Goofy, voice: Hal Smith) appears to him at night

A group of peasant actors, including the blustering Nick Bottom (Kevin Kline), and four mixed-up lovers (Anna Friel, Calista Flockhart, Dominic West, Christian Bale) end up as pawns in a fight between faerie royalty (Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett) on midsummer night. Lust. Lots and lots of lust.  That’s what A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about. That and

There is only one problem with the nice old man (Edmund Gwenn) hired to play the Macy’s Santa Claus; he thinks he is Santa Claus.  When he is institutionalized, it is up to a young lawyer (John Payne) to show that the old man not only isn’t insane, but that he is Santa Claus.  And

Dorey Walker (Elizabeth Perkins), the parade organizer for Cole’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, hires an unknown jolly old man (Richard Attenborough) as a replacement for their drunken Santa Claus, first for the parade, and then for the department store.  The problem is, he thinks he is Santa, and as he tries to bring a bit of

Biopic of Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit. Miss Potter (Renée Zellweger), an upper-class, thirty-two-year-old spinster, bucks social norms by rejecting unappealing suitors, instead working on her stories and watercolor art of anthropomorphized animals. Although London publishers are uninterested in her book, it is accepted by the Warne brothers, who assign it to their younger brother,

Super agent and all around swell guy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has given up field work with the Impossible Mission Force in favor of instructing, and lying to his fiancée, Julia (Michelle Monaghan)—but she doesn’t have enough personality to talk about, so lets forget about her.  When cute-as-a-bug agent Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) is captured

Near-sighted Mister Magoo (Jim Backus) arrives late at the theater, but they’ve held the show for him since he is the star.  It’s a musical production of A Christmas Carol, and Magoo is Scrooge.  Once Dickens’s story begins, it’s the old tale we know so well, told relatively straight.  53 min. Mister Magoo’s shtick, of

While cynical Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson) are tricked into realizing they love each other, young Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard) is tricked into believing his bride-to-be, Hero (Kate Beckinsale), is unfaithful. Much Ado About Nothing is an odd play, at least as it is normally produced. Claudio, assumed to be a good man, tosses

Old humbug Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine) learns the meaning of Christmas from three spirits, but this time, the three spirits are made of felt. The duality of this film is a bit much, even for a film with a talking frog. On the one hand, it is a very straight and rather dull re-telling of the

On Christmas eve, Jerry the mouse begins playing with the Christmas presents and goads Tom the cat into chasing him. 9 min. The third Tom and Jerry cartoon produced, The Night Before Christmas looks like all the other early Tom and Jerry shorts, and has pretty much the same structure as all of the later ones. The

Michael Baldwin (Paul Le Mat), working for an unreasonable boss (Mason Adams), is drilling for oil too close to Santa’s workshop.  The head elf (Paul Williams) takes Michael’s wife, Claudia (Jaclyn Smith), and their three kids to visit Mr. and Mrs. Claus (Art Carney and June Lockhart) so they can hear about the danger, but

Three sailors, Gabe (Gene Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra), and Ozzie (Jules Munshin),  have twenty-four hours to see New York before their leave ends.  Gabe becomes infatuated by Ivy (Vera-Ellen) based on her picture on a subway poster, thinking that the title “Miss Turnstiles” means that she’s a celebrity.  Searching for her, the other two pick