That loud sucking noise you hear is Flushed Away drowning in an oversaturated vat of CGI 'toons. The first computer-animated feature from Britain's Aardman studios, Flushed should send Wallace and Gromit's caretakers rushing back to the greener pastures of stop-motion animation and doughy clay figurines where they made their name and reputation. Certainly a movie as creatively lackluster and visually undistinguished as this will do nothing for Aardman's critical rep or corporate bottom line.

The tale of an aristocratic pet mouse who gets flushed down the toilet by a Cockney sewer rat, Flushed Away is yet another variation on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. When the foppish Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) arrives in the bowels of London's vast sewer system, he discovers a topsy-turvy universe in which rats and mice are working-class drones and everyone is bossed around by a porcine, megalomaniacal toad (Ian McKellen). Roddy's only hope of returning to his posh Kensington address lies in the makeshift barge of scrappy prole rat Rita (Kate Winslet). But since Rita wants nothing to do with Roddy — she immediately, and correctly, deduces that he's a coddled, snobby wimp — it's not going to be easy. Complicating matters further is the toad's diabolical plan to unleash a flood of Biblical proportions to drown the rodent population.

Any 'toon set principally in a sewer and featuring a cast of vermin has an uphill battle if it expects to achieve cuddly, Happy Meal-friendly status, and Flushed Away directors David Bowers and Sam Fell certainly don't make it easy. Despite stray patches of wit — a Greek chorus of singing maggots, some thickly-accented, food-obsessed French frogs — this is a grim slog that quickly wears out its welcome. And you don't need a Ph.D. in show-biz economics to know that it's going to get pulverized at the holiday box-office by Tim Allen's Santa Clause 3 and those frisky, frolicking CGI penguins of Happy Feet. — Milan Paurich

Flushed Away

Opens Friday areawide

loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies 1/2

The Pixies' lyrics were so weird and cryptic that, in contrast to heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriters, it was nigh impossible to get a bearing on what sort of people the Pixies actually were. (Well Å  apart from maybe "weird and cryptic.") This documentary follows the Pixies on their wildly successful 2004 reunion tour, revealing a more personal view of the band. (Well Å  sort of.) There's substantial vulnerability captured here, as directors Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin did an amazing job of maintaining an invisible presence. The documentary subjects seem to be living life as if they weren't being filmed. That makes loudQUIETloud consistently engaging, as does its stylish editing and camerawork that successfully avoids feeling forcibly artsy.

Among what we learn about the Pixies is how relationally flawed, warmly down-to-earth, commendably humble, and brilliantly funny and charming they all are. But at the end, we still really don't know much that's uniquely personal about these people. We're actually given broad archetypes instead of deep, distinctly individual character profiles — e.g., folks struggling to make a living, a recovering addict and her bond with her sister, a son grieving his father's death, fathers raising young children, etc. But that's in no way a shortcoming, nor is the fact that this film arguably understates the crazed buzz and scope of the reunion tour. Nor is it problematic that it offers no assertion or explanation of the Pixies' over-the-top influential-band status alongside the likes of the Beatles or the Velvet Underground. The gentle way in which loudQUIETloud depicts fans is more engaging than a bunch of gushing hype. That approach works well with the limited but universal portrayal of the band members' humanity to cultivate a lasting, warm sweetness that's otherwise generally lacking in rockumentaries. And that ain't all: There are several knockout Pixies reunion tour performances. — Michael David Toth

Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque

At 9:15 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. Friday, November 3

Running with Scissors

This Tuesday, vote no on Issue Four, yes on Issue Five. As a happy consequence of banning public smoking in Ohio you'll chase out the irritating characters in Running with Scissors, many of whom light up regularly in carcinogenic close-ups. This is the off-putting film adaptation of the shadenfreuden-propelled memoir by Augusten Burroughs (Chris Robison), detailing his dysfunctional coming-of-age in a literal madhouse. The future author (Joseph Cross for most of the movie) yearns for normality, but he's the product of the non-nurturing marriage of a numbed, ineffectual alcoholic of a father (Alec Baldwin) and a ghastly would-be poet mother (Annette Bening), a psychobabbling 1970s feminist of the worst kind (there being no best kind). His parents' divorce is approved by Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), mom's new feel-your-feelings guru, a crooked, creepy Yale-educated shrink with a Freud beard and an obsession with bowel movements. Mounting IRS problems make the quack close his office and start seeing/housing patients and their kids at his rattletrap mansion, a pink-painted estate filled with junk and a Christmas tree that's been up for two years. Thus poor Augusten becomes part of the Finch family circus, eating dog biscuits, witnessing ugly fights (encouraged by the doc) and watching Dark Shadows on daytime TV instead of going to school.

While his mother gets addicted to pills, ego, rage and lesbianism, adolescent Augusten has his initiation into gay sex with another of Dr. Finch's patients-turned-wards, Neil Bookman (Joseph Fiennes), 33. What was creepy, masochistic chickenhawk stuff in the book is Brokebacked into a more marketably tender guy-on-guy love affair. Still, the proceedings are pretty freakish ("What are you doing?" and "You're crazy!" seem to comprise half the dialogue), and every time writer-director Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck) evokes a dramatic highlight his soundtrack — bam! — obnoxiously blares an oldie hit, possibly from thrift-store LPs the production designer found while gathering vintage props. I even recognized the signature tune of a Cleveland radio personality. Ultimately, the only thing Running With Scissors makes look worse than psychiatry (and smoking) is feminism. Motherhood would be up there too if not for the hagged-up warmth radiated by Jill Clayburgh as Finch's pathetic wife, more ennobled here than she was in print. The movie is well-acted enough to satisfy the book-club voyeurs who have made Mr. Burroughs very successful and fulfilled his manuscript's moral: Despite a hideous upbringing, you can still emerge a feted homosexual literary star by feeding your tormentors/guardians to the wolves, in print and, now, on film.

— Charles Cassady Jr.

Tales Of The Rat Fink

Okay, time for the Viktor Schrekengost backlash. It's fab he's 100, and that Jazz Bowl is nice, but enough already with the desperate Believe-in-Cleveland boosterism! Nobody outside Northeast Ohio cares. It's not like Schrekengost invented the novelty T-shirt. Or the iMac. Or the 1960s. Or Bart Simpson. No, that and more can be credited to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, if you believe Tales of the Rat Fink, a rambunctious, jolly documentary from Canada's rambunctious, jolly documentary specialist Ron Mann (Twist, Comic Book Confidential). It's a swooningly nostalgic study-hall fan's note to the late Roth, who looks positively Ghoulardi-ish in beatnik hair and informal wear in many vintage photos (and precious little cine footage; much of this is Adobe AfterEffected into digital motion, a la Tupac: Resurrection). Roth emerged out of SoCal car culture and the post-WWII generation that enjoyed souping up automobiles and motorbikes, tinkering with Detroit's hardware in looks as well as speed. Opening a custom-car paint business, Roth evolved from fancy detailing to concocting trendsetter vehicles with the malleable wonder-stuff fiberglass.

Mann assigns the Roth-touched vehicles, now museum treasures, narrative duties. They talk with all the celeb voices passed by Pixar's Cars (Ann-Margaret, the Smothers Brothers). Roth's own alleged thoughts are uttered by John Goodman. Yet, apart from constant experimentation and pushing the cultural speed limits, little of the artisan's personal life and outlook comes across. You'd never know Big Daddy, hero to hobby-kit model builders, weirdos and punks, was a devout Mormon. "Rat Fink," a.k.a. Finkster, was Roth's signature creation as car-toon illustrator, a scabrous, anthropomorphic rodent (inspired by a Steve Allen gag) who was followed by a distinctive set of pop-eyed gearhead monsters. Computer animation makes Rat Fink move, and Matt Groenig supplies his groans, while the Sadies provide a Dick Dale-like surf and dragstrip soundtrack. Now let's makeover Schrekengost to get him worthy of a campy hip-hype hagiography himself. Is the nickname "Uncle Vik" taken?

— Charles Cassady Jr.

Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque

At 7 p.m. Thursday, November 2, and 9 p.m. Sunday, November 5