Word: bolting
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bolt, the first Disney animated feature made under the supervision of Pixar creative boss John Lasseter, has a premise straight out of Chihuahua: an adorable, pampered L.A. dog gets dropped into an alien environment and has to find its way back home, learning lessons of friendship, confidence and self-reliance en route. (It's also the premise of 140,000 other movies about animals, kids or hobbits.) Bolt fits this familiar mold without looking moldy. Its visual style is unpretentiously attractive, with a limber graphic line, and there's little showboating in the design or the dialogue. Directors Chris Williams...
...story, though, is high-concept and high-maintenance. In the Bond-worthy opening action scene, Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) is introduced as a Superdog: faster than Speed Racer, more powerful than Benji, able to hold a dangling car between his teeth, plus his gifts of bent-track laser-vision and the amazing thunder bark - all to help his "human," Penny (Miley Cyrus), escape an army of bad guys. He could be the family dog of the Incredibles. What Bolt doesn't know, yet, is that all this mayhem and all his powers are fake. He's the star...
...Thanks to conniving from the usual slimy coven of agents and network execs - and a tumble of coincidences nearly as endearing as they are preposterous - Bolt is shipped to New York City, where he strikes up a quick animosity with a sassy cat named Mittens (Curb Your Enthusiasm's Susie Essman). Their itinerary will be no secret to the youngest of viewers: cat and dog, joined by Rhino (Disney animator Mark Walton), a hamster who travels in a Plexiglas ball. Through Rhino, a diehard fan of the TV show, Bolt realizes that his powers aren't so super...
...from the moment Bolt sticks his head out the window of a speeding truck and feels the breeze of freedom and free will, the picture snaps to life and instantly acquires heart (Lasseter's favorite movie organ). Of course each character gets to show a heroism all the more special for being displayed without special effects. Indeed, Rhino's climactic declaration of purpose - that "All my dreaming has prepared me for this moment" - might be the motto, not just of this very satisfying film, but of the Disney-Pixar animators. They're smart kids who dream for a living...
...activists argue that the Connecticut independent should have lost his chairmanship not because of his past behavior but because he could use the powerful committee - which has jurisdiction and subpoena power over the Executive Branch - to make trouble for Obama. To strengthen his bargaining position, Lieberman had threatened to bolt to the Republican caucus if he lost his committee chair...