A Family Affair

After two years in production, Blue Sky Studios' new animated feature, "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" (Fox) is ready for release and is scheduled to hit theaters worldwide, July 1. In the interest of full disclosure, this new family feature has also been a bit of a family affair around these parts as my lovely and talented wife Lynn served as a Senior Lighting Technical Director on the film. As such, the Mrs. and I are excitedly looking forward to watching this long-crafted creation finally make its way to the big screen this summer in hopefully a big way.

It's certainly been a long and winding road over the past two aforementioned years, with my baby's mama putting in her share of 12 hour days and 6-day work weeks in efforts to make these beloved, frozen characters come to life. After attending an advanced screening last week at the Ziegfeld Theater here in NY, it was evident that my wife and her colleagues' tireless efforts had indeed paid off. The movie looks great and is most definitely a fun, playful ride with all the original Ice Age characters returning - Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo) and Diego (Denis Leary) along with the addition of some rather big reptiles; The latter being especially awesome in 3-D (which, by the way, is pretty cool in its current incarnation - gone are the days of cardboard, multi-colored glasses and their accompanying headaches).

If you're looking for Fellini this 4th of July weekend, forget it, obviously read no further but if you're searching for a fun, summertime diversion that the kids (and probably you yourself) will enjoy, than load up the family Winnebago, make your way to the Ice Age...i.e. a theater with really good air conditioning and check out "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" (view trailer).

ps- Look for Lynn's name in the credits next to a little green dinosaur sketched by our obviously talented 4 year old son (I mention this purely without bias of course).