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You'll find predictions and preferences about next Sunday's Oscars on just about every entertainment Web site. Mainstream critics are making wild guesses for the closest Best Picture race in years. Hollywood must choose between the first of Tolkien's beloved Rings trilogy, Moulin Rouge's "re-invention" of the musical, Beautiful Mind's schizophrenia-to-Nobel-Prize biopic, In the Bedroom's grief and marital distress, or the murder mystery at Gosford Park's British manor. Roger Ebert is predicting a surprise: Moulin Rouge. You can peruse in-depth reviews of Best Picture nominees at Focus on the Family, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Film Forum, my own site Looking Closer, and other Christian film review sites. Instead of joining the chorus of predictions, Film Forum will wait until next week and post the official winners, along with various approvals and disapprovals from religious press critics.

If you do plan to watch the Oscars this weekend, you might find Peter Travers's guide to the Oscar ceremony an eye-opening read—it's published this month in the mainstream music and media magazine Rolling Stone. It's not Oscar propaganda. Travers explains who selects the awards, highlighting the ugly politics and popularity contests that prevent recognition of true excellence. Pop star Britney Spears plays an important part in his analysis, believe it or not. It might be enough to make you seek a second opinion to Oscar's.

Blue Sky Studios has entered the big leagues of animated features. Chris Wedge's Ice Age is the first feature-length CGI cartoon from the studio, which was recently acquired by 20th Century Fox after their own animation company folded following the disappointment of Titan A.E.

Ice Age is a story about a wooly mammoth named Manfred (Ray Romano) and a clumsy sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo) who form an unlikely, reluctant friendship as they try to return an abandoned human child to its clan of early humans. They must overcome a series of environmental obstacles and avoid the wiles of sabertooth tigers, who are hunting the child for vengeance.

Ice Age is a delightful surprise—a well-told story, brought to life with impressive animation. Leguizamo, Romano, and Denis Leary (who voices a tiger named Diego) provide excellent voice work. Many will be relieved to know that the film avoids the typically annoying pop songs. And there's a preference for Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote humor rather than the crass innuendos and pop culture references of Shrek. Sure, it's a familiar story, with elements of Bambi, The Lion King, The Jungle Book, and a dozen other children's classics. But it's not a rip-off. At only 75 minutes long, it should keep your kids' attention, and yours. You'll find my full review at Looking Closer.

"Ice Age isn't perfect," writes J. Robert Parks (The Phantom Tollbooth). "It feels 15 minutes too long. But as Disney seems to have abandoned its award-winning formula, it's nice to see another studio pick up where Disney left off. [It's] a movie your kids will love and you'll enjoy."

At Hollywood Jesus, David Bruce finds examples of selfless love throughout the story, and he points out an echo of Christ in the transforming power of a child in the lives of his caretakers: "The child comes into a world of enemies and furnishes the common ground on which reconciliation can occur."

Michael Elliott (Movie Parables) writes, "The set designs are imaginative and the main characters are expressive and well defined." He says the film's theme of cooperation "resonates with us because God has called us to operate as one, much like a herd."

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March (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46