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Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year countless films are released into theatres and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

I've been writing this column for almost three months now, and I have to admit, what was once a little bit of a chore has turned into something very nice. The original premise of this column was to look back at movies that have come and gone and see if we perhaps missed something good. As a result of that I've already stumbled over a movie that I consider an absolute masterpiece (Gone Baby Gone). Of course, with the good comes the bad, as I also reviewed Shoot'em Up, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Wild Wild West. Still, if I get one classic for every three pieces of dreck, I'm going to consider myself lucky.

This week's selection is Bridge to Terabithia, featuring Josh Hutcherson as Jess Aarons, AnnaSophia Robb as Leslie Burke, Zooey Deschannel as Ms. Edmunds, Bailee Madison as May Beth Aarons and Robert Patric as Jack Aarons. This movie isn't what I consider a classic, but it's pretty different from what I was expecting and I have to say the producers may have marketed this film entirely wrong as I was under the impression that this film was a kind of Narnia-esque romp.

It's not. I was so very wrong with that impression. There is some fantastic imagery throughout the movie, but it's very peripheral to the main plot of this film.

Bridge to Terabithia revolves around Jess Aarons and his miserable middle school life. The only boy in a family full of girls, a poor kid in a school full of jerks, Jess is lonely and quiet and takes solace in two things, running and drawing. The movie opens up with him arguing with his mother as she has just discarded his pair of sneakers on the day of a big race because she won't have him seen in a pair of completely worn out running shoes. Naturally, the ones that she replaces them with are shoes from one of Jess's older sisters and are pink.

Now, middle school was a long time ago for me. A long, long time actually, but I'm still pretty certain that having a beat up pair of running shoes held together with duct tape is infinitely better than a pink pair of running shoes if you're a boy. But this is Jess's life. It's indignity topped with insult and sprinkled with a crunchy layer of aggravation.

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