Horton Hears ... a nation of immigrants?

Before I go any further, a hearty huzzah to the Georgia Bulldogs, who pulled off the seemingly impossible in winning four games (the number of conference games they won all season) in one weekend to win the SEC tournament and earn a matchup with Xavier in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday at noon. It was so nice to see embattled coach Dennis Felton having fun as he cut down the nets on Georgia Tech's home court, so I swiped the AP Photo for all to enjoy. Congrats, indeed!

But that's not really what I want to talk about today, because along with watching a whole lot of basketball this weekend, I also broke my fairly longstanding policy of not going to see big-budget Dr. Seuss spectacles (which lasted through both "The Cat in the Hat" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas") and sprung for "Horton Hears a Who," and I'm mostly glad I did.

Now, its clearly at least a bit of a waste of my time and yours to review a movie that's already made $45 million (the biggest opening so far this year), but I like writing them and hopefully someone will enjoy reading this.

So, what lured me to "Horton Hears a Who"? Well, like everyone in the world, I have nothing but love for Dr. Seuss, and this was the first flick in many years to bear his name that actually looked like it should (rather than being stacked with human beings in hideous makeup designed simply to inflict nightmares.) And kudos to the Blue Sky folks (creators of the "Ice Age" flicks) for accomplishing this seemingly simple feat where others failed.

And secondly, I'm not much of a moralist at all (and, given my vices, would probably be a pretty darn bad one if I ever decided to give it a try), but I will say it was nice to see a G-rated movie that earns its rating honestly. My former cubicle mate Dan Maley must have been smiling when the closing credits rolled and there hadn't been a single fart joke for his two kids to imitate for the next two weeks or so.

But beyond that, is the movie any good? Well, in order to stretch a Dr. Seuss tale to 90 minutes you apparently have to cram a lot of outside stuff into your story, and "Horton" does get bogged down and lose its way about a half hour in or so. In the opening credits it listed three people I really like, Isla Fisher, Jamie Pressly and Jonah Hill, as providing voices, but I couldn't possibly tell you who they were (without cheating with photos like this one) in this way-too-crowded field.

The last third or so, however, is fairly inspired in that slightly twisted Dr. Seuss way. Now, I may be the only person who found - in "A person's a person, no matter how small" - a plea to turn down the rhetoric a bit in the debate about immigration to the U.S. of A, but bear with me.

There's a moment, as poor Horton is trying to find a safe haven for the tiny Whos of Whoville but ends up in a cage, when that odd notion just struck me hard. As the overbearing Kangaroo (Carol Burnett, with one of the few voices that truly stood out) is threatening to destroy the speck (or spic, maybe?), all of its inhabitants, led by the governor of Whoville and his son JoJo, are pleading "We Are Here!"

Now, maybe I'm just thinking about this way too much, but that's how it struck me anyway. And I certainly don't have any solutions to this problem - and probably wouldn't offer them in this space if I did - but it's just nice to see (even if it's only in my own mind) some recognition that we are, and always should be, a nation of immigrants.

And then the filmmakers had to go and just about destroy all that good will (believe me, I'm really not spoiling too much here) by having everyone break into an insipid pop song. For all its virtues, the "Shrek" franchise has apparently doomed us to see this contrivance in just about every kids movie that gets made nowadays.

But enough of that. So, is there a greater lesson to be learned from "Horton Hears a Who," or am I just crazy (I'm very willing to concede that it might be a little of both)? Peace out.

Let it be "Sunny" everywhere on TV

When I first (and admittedly belatedly) started to hear a lot of hype about FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," I had my doubts.

But then, most of that hype came from my former cubicle mate Travis Fain (before I moved across the room), who has a fairly dark view of the world, so I should have known he was on to something. As I found out well after much of the world, it really is just about the funniest thing on TV, and now we're about to get more from it's three main men, Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton.

The trio has signed a two-year deal overall deal with Twentieth Century Fox, with the most immediate benefit being a new show on Fox, "Boldly Going Nowhere." The new comedy series will answer one of those burning questions of life: What does a spaceship captain do when he's not on a mission? Fox has ordered five additional scripts beyond the pilot.

"We grew up watching shows like 'Star Trek,' anything having to do with the future, and it was always about the adventures they'd go on," McElhenney told Variety. "We thought it would be funny to watch what goes on in between those adventures, when they're waiting for the next big thing to happen. How do they keep themselves busy?"

Unlike with "Sunny," the trio won't star in the new Fox show, which is, thankfully, not being shot until October so the guys can shoot a fourth, 13-episode season of "Sunny" this summer for FX (and a hearty huzzah to that!) in time to bow in fall.

And it's really hard to exaggerate just how funny "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is. It's more than a minor accomplishment to create a sitcom full of completely reprehensible characters (who called their first show "The Gang Gets Racist" and hit on women at an abortion protest for the second) that's also utterly devoid of sentiment.

Given my fear that the writers' strike had poisoned the water so bad that we'd get only reality fare from now on, I'll take anything else I can get, especially from guys as funny as these dudes.

Fincher digs "Heavy Metal"

While I'll probably go see "Horton Hears a Who" this weekend, and am rather naively hoping it's a genuinely G-rated flick that captures the spirit of Dr. Seuss, I also have a tremendous soft spot for the kind of R-rated animated fun we used to get with "Heavy Metal."

And luckily David Fincher and some of his cohorts seem to have that same longing. In what sounds like a wonderfully crazy project, Fincher will supervise and be one of eight or nine directors on a new animated film inspired by the '70s sci-fi fantasy magazine. (I probably should have lead with news as good as this, now that I think of it.)

The film will consist of eight or nine individual animated segments, each of which will be directed by a different director who hopefully has the "Heavy Metal" spirit at heart. On board so far, along with Fincher, are "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" co-creator Kevin Eastman and Tim Miller, whose Blur Studios will handle the animation

Thankfully, this gives David Fincher a very full plate. I would assume he's just about finished with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald tale about a man (Brad Pitt) who ages in reverse through the 20th century, but after that it gets a bit murky. Along with the "Heavy Metal" project, he's also attached to direct a flick based on Charles Burns' graphic novel "Black Hole" and. if the IMDB is to be believed (and it almost always is), maybe "Rendezvous with Rama," based on the sci-fi novel by Arthur C. Clarke.

Whew! That's a lot to keep track of, but a world in which David Fincher has too much work is just way preferable to one in which he has too little. 'Nuff said.

"Pineapple Express" trailer

"That's not gonna get us a ride, man."

Since it's Friday, I'll leave you with this trailer for "Pineapple Express," which, against almost all odds, looks more and more like it will be an actually insanely funny stoner movie. The line above made me laugh the loudest, but there's a lot to enjoy here (with headphones on if you're at work!) in this preview of the flick starring Seth Rogen and James Franco as, well, basically what their "Freaks and Geeks" characters Ken Miller and Daniel Desario would have turned into by now. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.