All movies are free and will be screened at dusk by video projection, as part of the Chicago Park District’s “Movies in the Parks” series.
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This hokey growing-up story (2000) set in segregated Mississippi during World War II is based on a memoir by Willie Morris, who apparently never got over the death of his childhood pet. A bookish boy (Frankie Muniz) is picked on by several bullies: a fat kid, an unwashed kid, a wide-eyed kid, some nasty bootleggers, and even his own father, whose tough loving apparently stems from the loss of his leg. Mom, we’re told in a voice-over that’s both superfluous and unlikely to make things clearer to young viewers, isn’t a typical housewife: against her husband’s wishes she presents their son with a puppy. Jay Russell directed a screenplay by Gail Gilchriest; with Kevin Bacon. PG, 95 min. (LA) Thu 6/23, Portage Park, 4100 N. Long, 773-685-7235
Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Pantoliano, Jeff Foxworthy, Snoop Dogg, David Spade, Steve Harvey, and Fred Dalton Thompson provide the voices for wisecracking animals in this dumb but harmless live-action comedy for kids. A zebra left behind by a traveling circus is adopted by a thoroughbred horse trainer (Bruce Greenwood) and his preteen daughter (Hayden Panettiere), who takes a shine to the little fella (voice of Frankie Muniz) and trains him to run races. The jokes are pretty weak (as a wiseguy pelican, Pantoliano dispenses every Mafia-movie catchphrase you never want to hear again), and there’s a cliched backstory about the girl’s mother having died in a fall from a horse. Always reliable, Greenwood acts up a storm, perhaps unaware that he’s in a talking-zebra movie. PG, 94 min. (JJ) Fri 6/17, Athletic Field Park, 3546 W. Addison, 773-478-2889
