Dr.Seuss Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When I feel a little blue, there are a few movie moments that are guaranteed to lift my spirits with a straight shot to the serotonin. At the top of the list is the "Do-Mi-Do Duds" song from the bizarro kids' flick The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (video after the jump).

I first saw this 1953 film on TV as a small child, and I was utterly freaked out by it. For years I didn't know the name -- I'd ask random people if they remembered a movie with a kid playing the piano while wearing a rubber hand on his head, and I'd get blank, puzzled stares. Eventually, it was released on home video, and I discovered that there's something of a cult following for 5,000 Fingers among folks like me who had their brains bent by it at an early age.

If you've never seen the movie, you've missed out on one of the great pieces of American surrealist cinema. The screenplay and songs were written by Theodore Geisel, best known as Dr. Seuss, and originally released under the title Crazy Music. Geisel later denounced the movie, calling it a "debaculous fiasco," and even insisted that mention of it be excised from his official biography. Lore has it that some audience members at the film's premiere were so weirded out that they walked out after just 15 minutes.

The story's a dream-tale that takes place in the mind of a boy named Bart (Tommy Rettig, who played Timmy on TV's Lassie), who falls asleep during his piano lesson. In his dream, he's a captive at the Terwilliker Institute, a musical asylum run by his evil music teacher (Hans Conreid). He gets a plumber, Mr. Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes) to help save his enslaved mother and sabotage Dr. Terwilliker's plan to force 500 boys to play his new concerto on a massive, specially-constructed piano. All of this takes place amid freakish, Seussian sets, with lots of songs and a few hilariously uncomfortable, intimate moments between Mr. Zabladowski and the father-figure-hungry Bart.

So it's no secret that Steve Carell hasn't always made the best choices when it comes to movie roles. The same could probably be said of some of Jim Carrey's choices as well, so there could be a lot riding on both their reputations for the big-screen adaptation of the classic Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears a Who!. Erik had brought us the first teaser back in July and now a full feature trailer has been released.

Horton is based on the 1954 children's story about a microscopic world that gains an elephant as their protector. Over the years the story's moral of "a person's a person no matter how small" has been interpreted as a response to the McCarthy anti-communist era and the importance of treating the "least of us" with a little care and respect -- pretty heavy for a kid's book, I know, but it does make me long for the days when children's entertainment had more going for it than tie-in deals. The film stars Carell as the feisty mayor of Whoville and Jim Carrey as their elephant advocate. The film has a solid supporting cast that includes some truly hilarious people; namely Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Amy Poehler, and Carol Burnett.

So even if you are not the biggest fan of kid's movies, after watching this trailer, you can't deny this is one snazzy looking movie with some big-name comedic talent. But I guess everyone said the same thing about Bee Movie, and we all know how that turned out. Horton Hears a Who! arrives in theaters on March 14th, 2008.

China is waxing philatelical with the issue of postage stamps honoring (among many others) three modern icons of Chinese cinema -- Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and the super-cool Chow Yun-Fat. The stamps are part of a collection celebrating Chinese cinema's 100th anniversary, and feature mini biographies and filmographies (they would have to be very mini to fit on a postage stamp). Some films that the collection also celebrates are Fist Of Fury, Hero, Farewell My Concubine and Infernal Affairs (I doubt that China will issue a stamp commemorating another great recent "fiction", The Tienanmen Square Massacre.)

In the United States, a person must have been dead for 10 years before the United States Postal Service (USPS) will consider stamphood (1 year for late Presidents). In San Francisco, a movement is under way to pay props to late Grateful Dead frontman, Jerry Garcia, who is just now eligible (the article describes the selection process). Recently, the USPS has honored the likes of composer Henry Mancini and all-around sillyheart, Dr. Seuss.

What American movie icons should get licked next (and why)?