Based on a Book

The natural beauties of Florida find some young champions in Hoot, based on the young adult novel by satirical crime writer Carl Hiaasen. While trying to resist being bullied on the school bus, Roy (Logan Lerman, Jack & Bobby) becomes intrigued by a baref... Read More

The natural beauties of Florida find some young champions in Hoot, based on the young adult novel by satirical crime writer Carl Hiaasen. While trying to resist being bullied on the school bus, Roy (Logan Lerman, Jack & Bobby) becomes intrigued by a barefoot boy running frantically along the sidewalk. As he investigates, Roy learns that a nearby construction site is a habitat for a protected species of burrowing owl and that a tough girl at his school named Beatrice (Brie Larson, Sleepover) has some connection with the barefoot boy, who has some connection with vandalism at the construction site. Hoot has been attacked by conservative critics for promoting eco-terrorism--a charge most viewers may find overheated--but the movie's real weakness isn't political but artistic; the clumsy dialogue barely sounds like human speech and the plot takes some hard-to-believe turns. At one point, as part of protecting the burrowing owls and their chicks, a kid releases poisonous cottonmouth snakes onto the construction site; apparently his ecological knowledge doesn't include the feeding habits of these snakes, which eat birds. The colorful scenery and the affable presence of Luke Wilson (Bottle Rocket, Old School) keep the movie alive. Also featuring Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Holes) and singer Jimmy Buffett, whose tropical honky-tonk bubbles up all over the soundtrack. --Bret Fetzer

Roy Eberhardt is the new kid--again. This time around it's Trace Middle School in humid Coconut Grove, Florida. But it's still the same old routine: table by himself at lunch, no real friends, and thick-headed bullies like Dana Matherson pushing him ar... Read More

Roy Eberhardt is the new kid--again. This time around it's Trace Middle School in humid Coconut Grove, Florida. But it's still the same old routine: table by himself at lunch, no real friends, and thick-headed bullies like Dana Matherson pushing him around. But if it wasn't for Dana Matherson mashing his face against the school bus window that one day, he might never have seen the tow-headed running boy. And if he had never seen the running boy, he might never have met tall, tough, bully-beating Beatrice. And if he had never met Beatrice, he might never have discovered the burrowing owls living in the lot on the corner of East Oriole Avenue. And if he had never discovered the owls, he probably would have missed out on the adventure of a lifetime. Apparently, bullies do serve a greater purpose in the scope of the universe. Because if it wasn't for Dana Matherson...

In his first novel for a younger audience, Carl Hiaasen (Basket Case, etc.) plunges readers right into the middle of an ecological mystery, made up of endangered miniature owls, the Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House scheduled to be built over their burrows, and the owls' unlikely allies--three middle school kids determined to beat the screwed-up adult system. Hiaasen's tongue is firmly in cheek as he successfully cuts his slapstick sense of humor down to kid-size. Sure to be a hoot, er, hit with middle school mystery fans. (Ages 10 to 15) --Jennifer Hubert