Summary: A collection of three animal-themed films suitable for all the family. CHARLOTTE'S WEB follows one little piggy's plight to stay alive--and off the menu--with the help of a spirited farm girl and a talking spider. In LASSIE, the Turner family discover that there really is no place like home when they leave their city abode for the wilds of Virginia. Once there, they are befriended by a homeless collie who helps turn their lives around. The theme of home continues in PAULIE, where a cheeky little bird with a big personality goes off in search of the girl who raised him, but discovers his way with words has a way of landing him in big trouble.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

Charlotte's Web

E.B. White's classic tale gets a Babe-like makeover in Charlotte's Web, a delightful and well-made film that is sure to become a family classic. Directed by Gary Winick (13 Going on 30), the new version eschews the musical numbers of the 1973 cartoon and mixes CGI with live-action animals. Dakota Fanning brings the right amount of chutzpah to Fern, the young farm girl who rescues a runt, Wilbur, from death and visits him every day at her Uncle Homer's farm. But it's Wilbur's friendship with Charlotte the spider (voiced by Julia Roberts) that ultimately saves him from the "smoke house" (a kid-friendly alternative term to the slaughterhouse), for Charlotte's talent for weaving praiseworthy words about Wilbur into her web turns the Zuckerman farm into a tourist attraction. The more tragic elements of the book are handled sensitively by Winick, working from a script by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), and Roberts' soothing, maternal voice (who knew it would work so well?) makes it all go down easy. It turns out to be just one of many perfect celebrity voice-casting choices, for the farm animals, voiced by an all-star cast including Oprah Winfrey (the goose), Robert Redford (the horse), Steve Buscemi (Templeton the rat), and John Cleese (the sheep), lend plenty of sharp humour. But it's two corn-hungry crows, voiced by Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) and OutKast's Andre "3000" Benjamin who steal the show. (Ages 4 and older) --Ellen A. Kim

Lassie

This 1994 update on the Lassie legend stars Thomas Guiry as a troubled city kid whose family retreats to the country, where he befriends the famous collie and changes for the better. Conflict develops when a ruthless sheep rancher causes trouble for everyone. Director Daniel Petrie (The Bay Boy) aims only to revive the healthy spirit of previous Lassie films (and the television series) in a new milieu, and toward those modest ambitions--predictable plot and all--he succeeds. Guiry is unusually good in what many young actors would have taken to be just another blossoming-teen part. --Tom Keogh

Paulie

The human beings are almost as interesting as the title character in this surprisingly subtle and engaging film about the cross-country adventures of a smart-mouthed parrot. As director John Roberts deploys the footage, the bird becomes a vivid personality; every quizzical twist of his head is oddly expressive. The people who interact with Paulie are a quirky and interesting bunch as well, and the casting is topnotch: Tony Shalhoub (The Siege) as a Russian immigrant janitor, Cheech Marin as an open-hearted mariachi musician, and Gena Rowlands as a widowed painter in a footloose Winnebago--all are vividly eccentric individuals, memorable in their own right. There are some tired swipes at the cold-blooded meanies of Big Science (beady-eyed researcher Bruce Davison has Paulie clapped in irons), but for the most part the film respects the complexity of everyone's motivations, and that's virtually unheard of in today's Hollywood, even in films supposedly designed for grownups. --David Chute

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Release Date:	October 6, 2008
Runtime:	272 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P H E 9636
Keywords:	Family, English, Web, Lassie, Paulie, Charlottes
Genre:	Family