Catch Scrat and Yogi on the silver screen

Scrat gets his short

Scrat, the acorn-chasing critter from the popular animated “Ice Age” comedies, gets his own 3-D film short, “Scrat's Continental Crack-Up.” It can be seen at the beginning of Jack Black's new movie “Gulliver's Travels,” opening Saturday.

Aykroyd: Yogi the best!

I kinda crashed Dan Aykroyd's poster-signing session at the Hollywood Boulevard Theater in Woodridge when the star came through last weekend to promote his new animated comedy “Yogi Bear” that opened No. 2 at the nation's box office. The star provides the voice and personality of Yogi.

I asked Aykroyd why he liked Yogi Bear, even more than Huckleberry Hound and his animated pals.

“He was the best of them all,” the actor said. “He was the schemer. He was the hysteric. He was the larcenist in kind of an endearing and sweet way.

“I loved the character. I tried to replicate the character as much as possible, but also infuse a little bit of substance of myself and then bring some acting chops — just as Justin (Timberlake, alias Boo Boo Bear) did to build a relationship between the two characters.”

The whole chat was captured on video. Go to http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20101220/entlife/101229980/video/

Campbell defended!

Steve Schneider comments on my review of “True Grit” in which I praised Matt Damon for playing Texas Ranger LaBoeuf and letting us forget that pop singer Glen Campbell played the role in the 1969 original. I compared Campbell's Ranger to Ricky Nelson's gunfighter in “Rio Bravo” as reasons to keep singers away from western movies at all costs.

“I can't agree. Dann,” Schneider writes, “both were central characters in great movies and played strong parts. You seem to have fallen for newer is better. Why not critique Elvis, truly the worst actor/singer in movie history?”

Hi, Steve: I never wrote that Campbell was the worst singer turned actor. He is not. I said he provided the worst portrait of a western hero by a singer. But I'll take your advice and critique Elvis: He was extremely convincing as a western hero in “Flaming Star.” His performance was far superior to Ricky Nelson's distracted, dazed persona in “Rio Bravo” where he uttered every line in a lethargic monotone.

“Dann,” Schneider replies, “Thanks for a convincing response. I will try to see ‘Flaming Star.' I still think Campbell's character was a nice, somewhat comedic contrast to the Duke. As an aside, my favorite Jeff Bridges' role was when he played with Eastwood as Lightfoot (in ‘Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'). I'm glad the western genre is still around to still have these discussions!”

Dear Steve: Me, too.

Psst! Free movie!

Instead of paying for a $10 ticket, how would you like to see the movie “The Vicious Kind” for free? Yes, free! Here's what you do:

Go to the box office at the Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center, 150 E. Wood St., Palatine before the 7:30 p.m. show time on Wednesday. Say the code: “Dann in Reel Life.”

Presto! Free ticket!

The movie stars Brittany Snow as a woman who comes in between two brothers when she goes home with them during the Thanksgiving holiday. Producer Tim Harms will be in the theater for a Q&A after the show.

Early tickets cost $8 and can be purchased at cuttinghall.org. Are you nuts? Why pay when you can go to the box office and get in by saying “Dann in Reel Life”?

The event is part of the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Series associated with the Palatine-based production group CNGM Pictures.

Reel Life review: ‘A Christmas Tale'

This is some wacked-out, horrific, cold and scary children's fairy tale.

Santa's elves are murderous minions and St. Nick himself is more sadistic than jolly. But make no mistake, “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale” earns its bells as a well-wrought, blackly comic, classic children's fairy tale of the sort that the late Bruno Bettelheim would approve.

Finnish filmmaker Jalmari Helander spins a visually stylish yarn based on a couple of his own film shorts: “Rare Exports, Inc.” and “Rare Exports Inc.: Safety Instructions,” whose tongue-in-cheek elements seep into “A Christmas Tale.”

The story takes place in the Finnish Arctic where a young lad named Pietari (Onni Tommila) and his wifeless dad Rauno (Jorma Tommila) eke out a living in a frozen wasteland.

Trouble begins when an American scientific expedition finds something buried deep in the ice under a huge man-made mountain. Why would anyone want to make a mountain?

Pietari knows: To keep the original, nasty Santa Claus imprisoned. Turns out that St. Nick wasn't always that happy, kind, Coke-drinking marketing gimmick we know today. He was more into punishing the naughty than rewarding the nice.

Soon, Rauno and his friends discover hundreds of reindeer slaughtered in the wild. All of the town's heaters and hair dryers mysteriously vanish. And so do all the children.

Now, don't be thinking that “A Christmas Tale” is one of those reindeer-dropping-quality, killer-Santa exploitation movies such as “Silent Night, Deadly Night.”

This is closer to “Gremlins” even with its deserved R rating for violence and nudity. (Santa's violent elves are old naked men unafraid of flashing the full monty).

While Dad and his pals constantly contemplate how they can turn this terrible situation into a moneymaking enterprise (foreshadowing a gloriously giddy and bizarre final sequence that rips the commercialization of Christmas), young Pietari is the one to devise a daring plan to save the children and stop the marauding elves.

“A Christmas Tale” isn't for very young children, of course. They won't notice that Helander has a firm grasp on the ridiculous in this movie, and gleefully messes up the genre's PC conventions by reflecting children's fairy tales in their much darker, original forms.

“Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale” opens at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago. In both Finnish and English. Rated R for nudity and language. 84 minutes. ★ ★ ★ ½

• Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!