Dr. Seuss Movie Review: ***^The Cat in the Hat (2003)

 The best way to describe this movie is there is a whole lot of strange going on.  The Cat (Mike M
yers) comes to entertain two children, Sally and Conrad (Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin) who are home with the babysitter (Amy Hill) who sleeps through everything.  Mom (Kelly Preston) is away at work.  The neighbor (Alec Baldwin) wants to get Conrad sent to middle school so he can have more time with mom.  The Cats methods of entertaining are not really normal, and when Thing 1 and Thing 2 get out of the box things really go haywire.  A fun race by the Cat and the kids to beat the neighbor to the house so they can clean up--which seems impossible.  

Movie Review: **^Lilo and Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005)

This movie covers the theme of what happens if more of the egg pods, which hatched Stitch, start hatching.  How will they keep from causing terrible damage.  It also pits the evil people  from the empire trying to get revenge on Stitch and the others, and regain them for their own evil designs.  In this movie again relationships are tested.  Stitch is hard to live with at times, and Lilo seems to get blamed for some of his troubles.  However by the end, they are an official finding of alien creatures team.
Dakota Fanning takes over the role of Lilo, Stitch is voiced by Chris Sanders, David Ogden Stiers plays the misguided professor.

Animated Movie Review: Coraline (2009)

If this movie doesn't, no movie ever will convince you not to creep around the attic.  It also teaches that sometimes things are not what they seem.  Coraline (Dakota Fanning) goes through the attic to meet her other parents.  They are nicer than her real parents, and she is drawn to them, until it is almost too late.  I really like the depiction of the cat.  The animation was very similar to a Tim Burton movie, with its long limbs and skinny bodies, unless the opposite is emphasized.  It was written and directed by Henry Selick.