Handy Manny: Manny's Green Team

Enjoyable and fun for the entire family and educational as well!
You break it, we fix it!

Welcome to the world of Sheetrock Hills where Manny Garcia, a bilingual Latino handyman helps save his city (from breaking down) with making repairs with his team of talking tools. The children's CG animated series is created by Roger Bollen, Marilyn Sadler and producer Rick Gitelson (known for writing/producing for animated shows such as "Rugrats", "LazyTown" and "Dragon Tales") and is shown on Playhouse Disney.

With the upcoming celebration for Earth Day on April 22nd, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is releasing a special Handy Manny DVD titled "MANNY'S GREEN TEAM" with five episodes that revolve around using good sense for green consumption of energy, such as using solar power and more.

"Handy Manny" focuses on the following characters:

Manual "Manny Garcia - Voice acting by "That 70's Show" actor Wilmer Valderrama. Manny is half Puerto Rican and half Mexican. He is the repairman that many people call...

My grandsons love it!
My grandsons are big fans of Handy Manny. They requested a Handy Manny DVD and loved this one, so we are all happy!

Good Show
Good kids show. My toddler loves it.
Learns basic things and entertains.
Clean and active with good stories that all can relate to.

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Thomas & Friends: High Speed Adventures

Review from www.firrkids.com
I think you just can't go wrong with Thomas & Friends. The programs always contain positive messages, they are wholesome in nature and yet still exciting enough for children to enjoy. There are always great lessons in that the characters make the same types of mistakes that everyone is prone to make. We see the consequences from being in a hurry or just plain fooling around, becoming jealous of others or lying to cover up mistakes.

These episodes feature the new CG animation, which means better facial expressions for the trains and townspeople. As always, the same great life lessons of discovery, friendship and cooperation are most certainly included.

In Thomas and the Billboard, Thomas becomes upset when he is inadvertently excluded from a photo taken of all the trains. Although it was a genuine mistake by the photographer, Thomas heatedly blames another train, which causes a whole new set of problems.

Steady Eddie refers to Edward, one of the older...

Love the new Thomas series
This DVD is a new series where Thomas and every characters are animated. It's pretty neat to see them animated and move more than just their eyes and their mouth expressions. PBS started playing these episodes and I'm glad they are finally out on DVD for when we travel. My 4 year old LOVES Thomas and I have to admit I was pretty excited when these episodes came out on tv too.

My Preschool Class Loves this movie
I bought this movie for my 3 year old son. At first he was not happy about "talking thomas" and wanted to watch an old Thomas movie. The next day he asked to watch "talking thomas" and enjoys watching it every time now.
I am also a preschool teacher, and for a special treat on Fridays we watch a movie. I brought in this movie to watch, every single boy I have LOVED it and always ask me if we can watch "Talking Thomas" for movie day.

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Slumdog Millionaire

Epic. Touching. Horrifying. Romantic. Uplifting.
Slumdog Millionaire deserves a place among the masterpieces of world cinema. Praise is pouring in for this brilliant film, directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy adapted from a novel by Vikas Swarup.

The settings move from the bleakest - the slums outside Mumbai, where our hero, Jamal Malik, lives as a child with his older brother Salim - to high rise vistas and no less than the Taj Mahal. The story ranges from the worst despair and heartbreak to the noblest sacrifice and most romantic love.

We are introduced in the opening moments to the young adult Jamal, played by Dev Patel. He is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and has just answered the ten million rupee question prior to the end of the show. His next question will be worth twenty million rupees, an unimaginable fortune to the average Indian. The arrogant, primping star of the show, played with artificial charm concealing an oily narcissism by Anil...

Love over gold
I saw this movie back in the Christmas season last year with some reluctance. Were it not for a good friend edging me on I probably would not have bothered. I incorrectly sensed that it was just another drippy foreign film about drippy people living on the edge and getting lucky.

Boy was I wrong.

This is such a smart, cleverly woven story with a classic twist--reminding me of Dickens--and all the stuff we love about life, but what's really striking--and I just watched this twice on DVD--is the precious love that is expressed here.

Lump in throat anyone?

Goosey bumps, too?

I just lap it up. Call me a sucker--but I had to re-play the last two minutes over and over again--where our hero brushes his sweetie's scarred cheek...and you either already know or will know the rest. It just kills me every time.The quintessential message is: LOVE OVER $$, GOLD, whatever, ANY DAY!

Amen.

Bogus special features
Do not buy this DVD if you are interested in the special features listed on the box and at the Amazon site. This DVD does not contain the making of, the deleted scenes or the audio commentary. The special features contain only trailers for 4 other movies. The movie is great, but the main reason I bought the DVD was to watch the making of. This false advertisement was a complete disappointment.

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Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Big Journeys

Berry Interesting...
On this DVD, Strawberry Shortcake has grown up and can drive a car... and then travel around the world with her friends. There are some new characters I'm not familiar with, such as Banana Candy, Peppermint, Tea Blossom and Tangerina to name a few. Not my favorite Strawberry Shortcake DVD, but still berry cute and teaches positive messages. So far my favorites are "Berry Blossom Festival" and "Let's Dance". Overall, I would recommend this DVD for any Strawberry Shortcake fan.

Featuring popular cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake on a new road trip adventure
Young children ages 3 to 6 will enjoy watching "Strawberry Shortcake Berry Big Journeys", a new DVD in which the 'pint sized' Strawberry Shortcake, along with her friends Angel Cake, Rainbow, and Banana Candy, engage in two new adventures - 'Strawberry's Big Journey' and 'Around the Berry Big World', a colorful pair of road trip journeys where they learn that having a positive attitude will help to overcome any obstacle. When Strawberry Shortcake wages the Pie Man that she can travel around the world in 80 days, there are bound to be high excitement indeed! With a total running time of 44 minutes, English and Spanish language tracks, and captioning, the DVD format also allows bonus features that include three greeting cards, a character gallery memory book, and DVD-ROM printable coloring pages. "Strawberry Shortcake Berry Big Journeys" is especially recommended for family, preschool, elementary school, and community library DVD collections for children.

We love Strawberry Shortcake
If your daughter is a fan of SS, she'll love this movie too. I loved SS as a kid and enjoy watching the movies with her. It has some cute song I find myself even humming.

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Autopsy (After Dark Horrorfest III)

Surprisingly not terrible
I'm not exactly sure why, but I was expecting Autopsy to be a pretty bad entry in this year's After Dark Horrorfest. Well, Autopsy ends up being one of the better entries in this year's lineup, as it provides ample amounts of blood, gore, and entrails, and even a slight wicked sense of humor along the way. The story is typical slasher fare: a group of hard partying friends coming back from Mardi Gras wreck their car, and wind up at a creepy clinic run by the strange Dr. Benway (played by Robert Patrick, William S. Burroughs readers should definitely recognize the not-so-good doctor's name). Before you know it, they're picked off one by one, and wind up in some ultra gorey demises. While Autopsy offers little in the way of ingenuity, it does deliver what horror fans and gorehounds are looking for, and it does both groups justice as well. The acting is all over the place, and we really don't end up caring for any of the characters at all, but in the end, Autopsy winds up being a...

Loads Of Fun And Loads Of Gore - Only The Lame Final Moment Keeps It From Being The Best Of 2009's "8 Films To Die For"
The last of the "8 Films To Die For" that I watched this year is also probably the most "enjoyable." Whereas the other films seemed to want to encourage my suicide with grim themes and cold atmospheres, AUTOPSY harkens back to the old days of horror with gleefully over-the-top psychos and buckets of gore.

This is not to suggest AUTOPSY is the best film of the festival, but it is perhaps the most wildly entertaining. The threadbare story is of five college kids in Louisiana who end up in a car crash. Next thing you know, they are being whisked away to a nearby hospital, sharing an ambulance with a man they ran over, who they are told had left the hospital prior to an operation.

It becomes clear as soon as they arrive that this is not General Hospital! The nurse methodically separates each kid from the others, until only our leading lady, Emily, is left wondering the deserted halls looking for her friends. Soon enough she will be fleeing the resident "mad...

Autopsy
Really enjoyed Jenette Goldstein's campy performance. Some great lines, lots of gore, twisted humor. Too bad the young performers played it straight.

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Goosebumps: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

3 Scary Tales from R.L. Stine
The R.L. Stine "Goosebumps" book series has been popular for years, and my three children enjoy watching the new series on DVD. This disc contains three scary episodes: "The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight", "Don't go to Sleep", and "Calling all Creeps".

In the first episode, Jodie and Mark go to their grandparents' farm to spend the summer. Upon arriving, the children sense something different from the times they were there previously. The field is full of scary scarecrows, plus, the hired hand is acting very strangely. But, the terror begins when the scarecrows come to life!

In episode two, Mark Amsterdam is jealous of his older brother and sister getting to do whatever they wish. Mark wants to move his bedroom to the upstairs attic. Before moving, he goes to the attic and falls asleep. During his nap, he has a strange dream that convinces him that things are better they way they are.

In the final episode, Ricky Beamer publishes an ad in the...

Scarecrow's at their best!
My kids love this! My husband and I enjoy it also. Great way for us to agree on a Family movie together!

Happy consumer
This movie and a couple others were ordered for my brother. We they came he was very excited. The movie was in excellent condition.

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Happily N'Ever After 2: Snow White

Nauseated
I happened to watch this against my will at the preschool I work at. This is probably the worst children's movie I have ever seen. I have to warn parents, caregivers and educators of young children not to view this because it was extremely uncomfortable to watch.

The Cons
- The animation is terrible. It's extremely awkward to watch the badly-rendered characters move so unnaturally. Think early version of the Sims or worse.
- The content is garbage. Snow White is a spoiled brat for most of the movie. The evil stepmother's apple causes Snow White to spew mean gossip about everyone in her kingdom (a boring, petty, and anti-climactic alternative to the poisonous apples in other versions of Snow White). She learns how to treat others kindly, but that transformation happens in 5 minutes of screentime, and I'm still stuck on the previous 60 unbearable minutes of her brattiness.
- The soundtrack is bad mainstream pop/hip-hop that's incredibly cringe-inducing.
-...

STUPID
Like many reviewers said, the animation is awful. Not appropriate for little kids. Not sure who the target audience are?

Wit and Originality of #1 is TOTALY absent here, Rent ONLY
The family (wife and kids 8 and 9) thoroughly enjoyed the tongue in cheek wit and originality of the first HNA. There is a reason this cheap remake went straight to DVD. Here is the quick and dirty (or should I say fairly ugly).....

Story and dialogue is inane and could have been written by a 8 year old. All of the originality of the first is lost in the repetitive valley girl/cool kid blabbering of snow white and her friends. In addition, the "story line" if I dare call it that is a complete remake of the "tip the scales by the wizard's minions" of the first movie but the minions have completely lost their charm and wit. There is of course the nice wholesome message of the spoiled privileged royalty looking down their noses at the poor lower class and snow white's inevitable redemption but it is so "in your face" that it is best suited to a toddler or a bright golden retriever. In all fairness, the kids gave it 3 stars but I dropped it here so you won't have to suffer this...

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