>Depp, Bieber win Kids’ Choice gongs

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Johnny Depp and Justin Bieber were among the big winners at the 2011 Kids Choice Awards in Los Angeles last night.

Depp took home the ‘Favourite Movie Actor’ gong for Alice In Wonderland, while Bieber earned two Nickelodeon blimps for ‘Favourite Male Singer’ and ‘Favourite Song’. Bieber was unable to make the event due to touring commitments, but Depp attended the event at the Galen Centre and celebrated by sliming the front rows of the audience.

Other winners on the night were Miley Cyrus, whose ‘Favourite Movie Actress’ accolade means that she is now the most successful female KCA winner of all time, moving ahead of Britney Spears.

Selena Gomez took home the ‘Best TV Actress’ title for her role in ‘Wizards Of Waverly Place’, iCarly earned the Favourite TV Show title, while Randy Jackson took home the ‘Favourite Reality Show’ blimp for
American Idol.

Host Jack Black opened the ceremony by performing with the Black Eyed Peas on a medley of ‘Time Of My Life’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. Band member Fergie later renamed the group the Jack Black Eyed Peas in tribute to the comic, after they picked up the ‘Favourite Music Group’ title.

Willow Smith flew across the audience on a high-wire for a rendition of her hit track ‘Whip My Hair’, which had her father Will dancing and singing along on the front row. Meanwhile, boyband Big Time Rush collaborated with hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg for a special performance, which culminated in Dogg getting slimed.

Other special guests who were honoured with a sliming at the ceremony included Russell Brand, who had green gunk thrown at him by kids on the front rows, Jason Segel, who was given a slime slushie by Glee’s Jane Lynch, supermodel Heidi Klum and, in the show’s finale, Jack Black and Jim Carrey.

>Rango: An animated feature that doesn’t force you to like it

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With his first animated feature, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski shows ambitions considerably beyond producing the usual standard of most children’s fare. To put it plainly, Rango is one weird movie.

Among other things, it features a mariachi band of owls, functioning like a Greek chorus, that tells us we are about to hear the story of the life and death of Rango. The titular character is a blue-skinned, bug-eyed chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) who we first meet while he’s in his terrarium, acting out mini-dramas with his plastic fish, a mannequin torso and fake palm tree.

A few minutes later, a bump in the road sends him flying from his perch in the back of a car, and his unseen owners drive on, leaving him lying in a pile of broken glass on a Mojave Desert highway. After that, the late Hunter S. Thompson (who Depp played in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) makes a cameo. Next, as Rango has a conversation with a dying armadillo (a truck tire has nearly severed his mid-section), audiences may begin to wonder who slipped a peyote button into their soft drinks.

Gradually, Rango becomes slightly more conventional, a quest tale in the Finding Nemo line. Soon Rango meets a female lizard named Beans (Isla Fisher) who has an inconvenient habit of freezing at peculiar times (“It’s a defence mechanism”). He also meets a girl rat (Abigail Breslin), who promises he’ll soon die. Through a series of accidents and some ill-advised boasting, Rango finds himself the sheriff of a dried-up town called Dirt, whose population consists of various rodents and reptiles.

As it turns out, the Fear and Loathing reference was just an appetizer. Rango is stuffed with allusions to other films. These aren’t Shrek-like pop-culture references, but more Verbinski’s homage to other filmmakers, which gives Rango an eccentric personal quality. The plot echoes Bob Hope’s The Paleface and its remake with Don Knotts, The Shakiest Gun in the West, about a fast-talking coward becoming, in a case of mistaken identity, a western hero.

Otherwise, it’s chock full of vintage movie references: The town’s mayor is an old tortoise (Ned Beatty) who controls the water supply, and it doesn’t take more than a moment to recognize his impersonation of John Huston playing Noah Cross in Chinatown. There’s an action sequence, perhaps 10 minutes long and overly busy, which involves Rango and a posse chasing down a gang of moles. In rapid succession, it makes reference to the Ride of the Valkyries sequence from Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey and various John Ford films set in Monument Valley.

It even echoes True Grit, a movie still in the theatres. True Grit’s cinematographer, Roger Deakins, was a visual consultant to Rango, helping to create the anamorphic western landscapes which seem to mix Frederic Remington with Salvador Dali.

The same sophistication extends to the screenplay by John Logan. The dialogue, including Rango’s stream-of-consciousness rambling, goes by quickly, but with an unexpected life-likeness. Rather than working in recording studios, the actors performed on stages with partial sets and props, captured on video as references for the animators.

What will all this mean to children? Undoubtedly no more than that this is a story about a homely-but-cute young hero who must defeat an old tortoise for control of the water supply so the little animals don’t die. But don’t look for the big heart-tugging moments of Up or Toy Story 3. Though its level of execution is consistently high, Rango is a non-pandering comedy that takes its message of western individualism seriously: It’s here for you and your children to enjoy – or not – as you please.

>‘Rango’ a clever nod to famous westerns

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“Rango,” an animated spoof of spaghetti westerns, stars the little chameleon that could. Boy, could he.

The score, with lots of horns and a mariachi band of owls, is by Oscar winner Hans Zimmer (“The Lion King”). It more than suggests Ennio Morricone’s legendary work on “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

The cinematography, by Roger Deakins, rivals his Oscar-nominated work on “True Grit” and eight more films.

Double Oscar nominee John Logan (“Gladiator,” “The Aviator”) wrote the script.

Gore Verbinski, who knows something about spoofing a genre after helming the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy, directed.

And Johnny Depp gives a voice and character to that little chameleon that echoes more than a little of Capt. Jack Sparrow’s swagger, bravado and ability to fly by the seat of his pants when in a tight spot.

As the movie opens, the chameleon (we never learn his real name) lives alone in a terrarium. He uses his imagination to cast a decapitated doll, a plastic palm tree, a dead bug and a yellow wind-up fish as supporting players in his self-starring movies.

Suddenly, the car in which the terrarium is riding swerves, and our lizard friend finds himself out the window, learning new survival skills in the Mojave Desert.

Chased and nearly eaten by a hawk, he ends up in the aptly named town of Dirt, populated by a variety of birds, rodents, bugs, fellow lizards and a turtle mayor. The dilapidated town has mysteriously lost its water supply, and the citizens are desperate.

Amid a hostile crowd downing cactus juice in the saloon, the chameleon calls on his fertile imagination and casts himself as Rango, a legendary gunslinger. Soon he’s tracking down the mystery of the missing water, giving the town hope and a hero.

Parents and grandparents will be thoroughly entertained by all the references to classic westerns and a long list of nicely realized characters. Kids will love an exciting chase and aerial assault sequence involving a water-cooler jug passing as a covered wagon and bomb-diving bats.

The animation, from Industrial Light & Magic, is incredibly crisp, finely detailed and realistically rendered with a mix of real-looking objects and animals infused with human personalities. Imagination is on display everywhere.

Depp is by no means alone in the list of top voice talent, which includes Alfred Molina as Roadkill, an aptly named armadillo; Bill Nighy as the fearsome villain, Rattlesnake Jake; Isla Fisher (“Wedding Crashers”) as Rango’s love interest who talks with a perfect western twang; Abigail Breslin as a cute little tyke who embodies the town’s hope in their hero; and Ned Beatty as the smooth-talking mayor.

I could have sworn the legendary character, Spirit of the West, was voiced by Clint Eastwood, but no, that’s Timothy Olyphant doing a mighty fine impersonation.

Just about every western cliche is in here somewhere, including a duel on main street at high noon.

Pixar better watch out. The new kid on the animation block is on the street with both guns blazing.

>Friday Box Office: Matt Damon Improves Film-to-Flim, ‘Rango’ Leads Night

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The all-star cast of Rango, lead by Johnny Depp, easily topped the Friday box office yesterday with the animated series raking in nearly $10 million. The movie played in 3,917 locations and on 5,200 screens. Matt Damon’s Adjustment Bureau brought in $6.7 million at the 2,840 locations at played in, doing better than the first night of Damon’s last movie, Hereafter, which only was good for $4.1 million on its first night.

The Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens led Beastly brought in $3.5 million for CBS Films, surpassing Warner Brothers’ Hall Pass, which was good for fourth place with $2.72 million. All in all, Hall Pass has brought in $20.7 million in the week it has been theaters. The movie had a budget of $36 million.

Just Go With It was fifth with $1.93 million, adding it to the total movie gross thus far of $83.63 million. Unknown now has a total gross of $48.37 million overall. The movie brought in $1.87 million on Friday night, doing better than The King’s Speech (1.64 million, total gross of $118.96 million).

I Am Number Four ($1.61 million, total gross of $42.34 million), Gnomeo and Juliet ($1.51 million, total gross of $78.29 million) and the debut of Take Me Home Tonight ($1.25 million) rounded out the top ten.