Kurt Loder on Thin Ice and The Secret World of Arrietty
Set in the wintry Midwest, Thin Ice is a dark, twisty crime thriller that recalls the Coen brothers' snowbound Fargo and features colorfully comic performances by Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, and especially Billy Crudup, who charges the film memorably as a menacing psycho. The Secret World of Arrietty, on the other hand, is a lustrous animated adaptation of English author Mary Nortion's 1952 fantasy novel The Borrowers, featuring a script co-written by Princess Mononoke director Hayao Miyazaki. It's a great kids movie, but it's not in any way just for kids. Kurt Loder reviews them both.