MOVIE REVIEW
$9.99 (2009)
Regent Releasing
Some of the best animated films are the ones in which the story could not be told any other way. Perhaps you need a flying house held aloft by balloons as in "Up," or you are attempting to re-create spotty memories of a traumatic past as in "Waltz with Bashir." Either way, for whatever reason, live action just won't do. An Israeli-Australian stop-motion film directed by Tatia Rosenthal, "$9.99" joins the ranks of well-written and beautifully-rendered modern animated films, but it ultimately lacks that essential relationship between form and function achieved by the best.