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Racing stripes 212/26/2023 ![]() ![]() Byrd makes a winning and somewhat cool nerd, Murray shows princely posture as the tortured poet-quarterback, and Duff firmly establishes herself as a first-rate young actress with luminous major-league screen presence. It moves along too fast to be sappy, and broadly razzes the shallowness of popular kids, their stupid parents, and whiny siblings in a way that should balm the unhealed wounds of anyone who's ever been to high school. Happily ever after seems like a long shot, though, because Austin is burdened by pressures at school and at home, and Sam can't shake her "diner girl" inferiority complex.This fairy tale comes with plenty of wit, style, and heart. At the dance, she discovers her prince is one of the popular kids, Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray). She also has a fairy godmother in the sweet diner manager (Regina King), who helps Sam get decked out and disguised for the Halloween dance. Luckily she has a friend in artsy nerd Carter (Dan Byrd), and a text-message romance with some poetic schoolmate she's never met. Enslaved by an evil, BOTOX-junky step-mom (a hilarious Jennifer Coolidge) Sam is forced to scrub floors at her late father's diner, thus earning the eternal disdain of the snooty popular kids in school. Emmet Walsh is a welcome addition as a loveable old codger and Wendie Malick is the evil race track owner.A CINDERELLA STORY: Hilary Duff plays Sam, a good-hearted Cinderella stuck in the fairy-tale-gone-wrong atmosphere of modern-day Los Angeles. Though set in Kentucky, the film was actually lensed in South Africa, with real zebras. Adults will cherish some sly references to older movies, while the kids should get a lot out of the mix of real animals, nonstop gags, and an uplifting message about the importance of not judging a horse by its stripes. Steve Harvey and David Spade are a pair of trash-talking horseflies. Mandy Moore does the voice of Stripes' comely mare love interest. Other animal characters include a mob "hit-pelican" (voice of Joe Pantoliano), a nurturing goat (voice of Whoopi Goldberg), a rooster (voice of Jeff Foxworthy), and a hound (Snoop Dogg). Though all the other thoroughbreds turn their noses at this odd-looking interloper, a wizened old pony (Dustin Hoffman) steps in as trainer, and it's time to start prepping for the big race. Setbacks include her dad's over-protectiveness (he lost her mom in a horse-racing accident), and the fact that Stripes is a zebra and not a normal horse. Stripes (voiced by Frankie Muniz) becomes adopted by the trainer's tomboy daughter (Hayden Panettiere)-an aspiring jockey-who subsequently wants to race him in the big leagues.
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