With Kit Kittredge: An American Girl finally opening in limited release on Wednesday, it seemed like a good time to take a look at other films girls in the same age demographic might also enjoy. As a mother of three daughters, I like to seek out films that have strong female characters. So many of the roles for females in Hollywood either fall into blatant stereotypes or position young girls and women as existing on this planet primarily for the pleasures of the male half of the species, and I don't want my girls growing up believing the images of women they're exposed to through the media. Of course, everything in life doesn't have to have a political agenda -- what fun would that be? So some of these are just films my own daughters very much enjoy, that the girl in your life might like also.

Here are seven great films for fans of American Girl books and movies ... let me know what others I've missed that you like; with only seven slots to work with, I had to leave out a lot of films I otherwise would have included ...

The media is playing two pointless games of "gotcha" with Pixar's wonderful Wall-E at the moment. Eric Kohn addressed the first -- conservative critics griping about the film's "left-wing" message -- over here. The other, best articulated in this post by CHUD's Devin Faraci and this mind-boggling missive from the New York Post's Kyle Smith, but also showing up in Todd McCarthy's Variety review, is that Wall-E's supposed anti-consumerist bent is "hypocrisy" on account of it's released by Disney. I think that's a stupid and dishonest argument, and here's why.

In its latter half, Wall-E presents a vision of the future in which humanity is fat, lazy, basically immobile but for their hoverchairs, and in thrall to a mega-corporation called Buy 'N Large that tells everyone what to do, what to think, and what to buy. The rest of the film is dedicated to Wall-E, EVE, and the spaceship Axiom's human population defying the corporation and returning back to Earth to recolonize. This is disingenuous, the thinking goes, because the Disney empire bears more than a few similarities to Buy 'N Large and, in fact, cynically counts on unthinking, overweight masses, to see its movies, buy its merchandise, and ride the rides at Disney World.

What you'll notice from the folks making this argument is a coy ambiguity about who exactly is being hypocritical here. If the claim is that Disney is being hypocritical by releasing Wall-E, then that may well be right -- but it's also not surprising, newsworthy, or even worth mentioning. Is anyone really shocked that a large, profit-seeking corporation is being opportunistic and ideologically inconsistent? Where is all the outrage about Disney flicks that push the individuality and non-conformism message, when the Walt Disney Company is dependent on a herd mentality among its consumers?

In theory, those who write about film are supposed to enter a movie without any pre-conceived notions or bias and proceed to give it a fair shake. However, it becomes exceedingly difficult for one not to eye with suspicion the looming threat of a Raja Gosnell-helmed talking animal bonanza and consequently find their sense of reason rendered stone-cold ...

... which is why it pleases me to report that we as a society have staved off the likes of Beverly Hills Chihuahua for a whole week, as the Disney flick has officially been bumped back from September 26th to October 3rd. Just in case you good readers find this all a mite irrational, might I direct you toward Weinberg's deservedly righteous rant whilst I again praise the heavens for allowing us poor souls an additional seven days with which to gird our loins against the potential awfulness of this film.

In related news, the Richard Gere/Diane Lane romance Nights in Rodanthe has followed an inverse path, moving itself up from October 3rd to September 26th. If October informally qualifies as the month for horror, then thank goodness my Halloween is getting off to just as frightening a start as the prospect of sitting through a Nicholas Sparks adaptation.

[Mercy in the grand scheme of things courtesy of Box Office Mojo.]

It is a long way from an official green light, but here is a confirmation of sorts -- Andrew Stanton is writing John Carter of Mars. According to The Pixar Blog, Stanton confirmed it as his next project. However, no further details were forthcoming so we still don't know if it is live action, animation, or some computerized combination. However, he did mention in the same press conference that he has "caught the bug" for live-action filmmaking.

Nor do we know if Stanton intends on adapting the first book, Princess of Mars, or if it will be some combination of many. As rumors have pegged John Carter as the franchise to eventually replace Narnia, I will venture a guess to say he's working on Princess. Plus it has a sexy title.

Now, I seem to be the only geek online who has not read Edgar Rice Burroughs' sci-fi extravaganza, so forgive my uneducated opinion -- but, from what I know of the series (thanks, Wikipedia), I genuinely hope it is live action. The world needs a glorious sci-fi opera, in all its pulpy glory, and it would be an interesting foray for Pixar. Plus, an animated John Carter just strikes me as a foray into the Uncanny Valley.

As Pixar and Stanton can do no wrong by me, I'm officially intrigued. I hope fans of the books chime in as to whether it ought to be live action or CG. And if your pick is live action, I'd love to know who you want to see as the dark-haired, gray-eyed immortal. I want to know who to picture when I (eventually) read the books.

Quick, what's the first Disney live-action character you can think of that deserves to be the subject of a graphic novel? In the past, a series of Disney comics were published based on cartoon characters, but now Walt Disney Studios has formed Kingdom Comics with one of the goals being to "re-imagine and rejuvenate movies from the Disney 'vault,' the company's library of live action films," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Will we be seeing Old Yeller re-imagined as an avenging canine superhero? Will Pollyanna be rejuvenated as a butt-kicking young woman who insists that everyone look on the bright side of life? Disney has produced more than 200 live-action properties over the years -- check out a list of 30 favorites from UltimateDisney -- so there's plenty to choose from.

The other goal of Kingdom Comics "is to create titles that will be the basis of new film projects for the studio." (Disney's newest division will be headed up by Ahmet Zappa (!), veteran executive Harris Katleman and writer-editor Christian Beranek. No writers or artists have been announced.

What titles in Disney's vault would you like to see 're-imagined and rejuvenated' with a fresh, contemporary approach? Or should they just leave well enough alone? As a starting point, Monika recently listed seven awesome live-action kid adventures, but feel free to come up with your own.

Well, the cat is out of the bag -- all is not well over at Warner Bros. Hopefully the rocky state of affairs at WB isn't going to cause problems for their latest purchase. Variety reports that the studio has picked up Due Date, a pregnancy comedy by Alan Freedland and Alan Cohen.

The story centers on a first-time father and burgeoning workaholic whose wife goes into labor while he is stuck hundreds of miles away in a snowstorm. The only way he can make it to the birth in time is by hitching a ride with a college student. So I can only assume that Due Date will be another one of those movies about a young man lamenting his lost youth in the face of fatherhood. I'm thinking the film will be something along the lines of She's Having a Baby, but with a dash of road movie humor thrown in for good measure.

Cohen and Freedland are two of the writer-producers of the Fox animated show, King of the Hill, and were also behind the Robert Evans cartoon, Kid Notorious. The two recently sold a comedy script to Disney with with Adam Shankman (Hairspray) lined up to direct. These two might want to stay tight with the 'Mouse', because things are starting to look a little shaky over at WB.

Remember that rumor that we reported on several weeks ago -- the one from Jim Hill that said Disney was considering abandoning The Chronicles of Narnia franchise for John Carter of Mars? The response was, well, harsh. No one felt it could possibly be true.

Well, it might be. FirstShowing.net was at the Prince Caspian panel at New York ComicCon, where producer Mark Johnson confirmed that Disney was planning to end the series as a trilogy with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There are "no plans" at present to film the remaining books -- although there is the possibility that if Caspian and Dawn Treader do well, Disney will revive it. As of now, there's no confirmation that Disney plans to replace Narnia with John Carter -- but you have to imagine they'll certainly explore all options.

The news doesn't surprise me at all. I think Disney's enthusiasm for the beloved fantasy franchise was admirable, but not entirely well thought out. I stand by my original opinion that the books become darker, stranger and nigh unfilmable from this point on. I think A Horse and His Boy would make a spectacular standalone film, though, and an ideal place to revisit the series if Disney ever revived it. Well, at least I'm getting Dawn Treader. I can live just fine without ever revisiting The Last Battle, but give me Narnian adventure on the high seas!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian comes to theatres May 16th, 2008.

This just in: Today in New York City, our Moviefone colleague Kevin Polowy attended the Disney/Pixar Animation Presentation hosted by Dick Cook and John Lasseter. Apparently, a whole handful of new, upcoming titles were announced -- some of which we've known about and some brand new. Additionally, they screened 30 minutes of WALL-E footage and announced that Sigourney Weaver would do a voice in the film. Kevin reported back, saying the footage "looked really strong, and turned this skeptic into a believer." (I don't know how Kevin was worried about this one; it's just too damn adorable.) Aside from WALL-E, here are highlights of what else was announced:

• Up will follow WALL-E for Pixar, featuring the voices of Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, John Ratzenberger and Jordan Nagai.
  
• Tinkerbell will go direct-to-DVD, followed by three sequels. So four Tinkerbell films all together.
  
• Rapunzel is back! Not only that, but the classic story will be done in full CGI.
• King of the Elves is another film coming from Disney animation in 2012, and it's based on a Phillip K. Dick story.
  
• Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to be released in 3-D in 2009 and 2010.
• Toy Story 3 hits theaters on June 18, 2010
• Newt will be Pixar's film in 2011, and it comes with this description: "What happens when the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet are forced together by science to save the species, and they can't stand each other?
• Cars 2 coming in 2012!

UPDATE: Full press release after the jump, including more titles from Disney animation ...