With Shorts, Rodriguez takes a cue from his old friend Quentin Tarantino and attempts to make the Pulp Fiction of kids movies. The story is an anthology of sorts, and as the title implies, it's told through a series of short vignettes. Despite this fact, the plot is fairly easy to follow. The story takes place in a community which is centered around the company which makes the Black Box, an iphone-like device that can do practically anything. Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) is a lonely boy who is constantly being questioned by his older sister, Stacey (Kat Dennings). At school, Helvetica Black (Jolie Vanier) and her brother Cole (Devon Gearhart) (the children of the Mr. Black (James Spader), the creator of the Black Box) pick on Toe and put him in trash cans. This all changes when neighborhood kids Loogie (Trevoer Gagnon), Laser (Leo Howard), and Lug (Rebel Rodriguez) find a rainbow-colored rock which can grant wishes. When their attempts at making wishes fails, Toe gets the rock and tries to better his situation, both at home and at school. But, when "Nose" Noseworthy (Jake Short) and some greedy adults get the rock, the power of wishing gets out of hand. The community must then come together to right everything which has gone wrong.

The trouble with most kid's movies today is simple: they aren't made for kids. (I actually went to the theater today and saw Fantastic Mr. Fox and trust me, that's not for kids.) Knowing that adults are going to accompany their children to the theater, filmmakers insert jokes and moments just for the adults. Typically, one of two things happens here -- we wind up with a risqué joke which is inappropriate for the kids, and we get a mature idea (such as worrying about the mortgage) about which the kids don’t know or care. So, we can have a situation where the kids are bored or where the adults are horrified by what was just said.

This isn’t the case with Shorts. This is truly a movie for children. In fact, the target audience is between 8-12 years old. Some may find it weird that Rodriguez takes input from his kids when making a movie, but clearly it lets him know what children want. This is a bright, vibrant, silly movie which never talks down to the children, nor does it go in any needless directions. The movie is about kids using a magic power which gives them anything that they want, and while the movie is certainly far-fetched, when the kids wish for things like a fortress or for their braces to be off, it rings true. Also, the movie isn’t afraid to be gross without necessarily going for the gross-out -- there’s a story concerning a booger which is certainly unsavory, but never vile (in other words, pre-adolescents will love it).

The only true mis-cue here is a chapter which focuses on Toe parents, played by Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann. They are competing project managers for Black Box and their overuse of technology has left to a rift in their marriage. Through a run-in with the wishing rock, they learn that they must start communicating again. Trust me, kids will get bored with this segment, so thankfully, it’s brief. (Rodriguez went through a divorce in 2008, so maybe this section was therapeutic or a message to other couples who are struggling.) This part of the movie never gets “adult”, it simply doesn’t feel like the rest of the movie, and I don’t think kids will like it. The good news is that Shorts is free from any unnecessarily mature content, and other than a few uses of “sucks”, I didn’t see anything which bordered on offensive.

The drawback of Shorts is that except for a certain audience, the movie is simply too lightweight. It has some positive messages and other than the aforementioned chapter, rarely slows down. The movie shows kids in heightened, but not unrealistic situations, which are pushed into the realm of the fantastic. But, teens and adults may find all of it a bit too silly and whimsical. However, my 8-year old loved it and laughed out loud on many occasions. Reminiscent of his short film Bedhead, Shorts shows that despite his earlier family films, he does have a grasp on showing that he can deliver material to children which works on their level. Silly, goopy, and fun, Shorts is a nice distraction for kids who aren’t ready for the dark nature of things like Harry Potter.

Warner Home Video has also brought Shorts to DVD. The disc contains both the widescreen and fullscreen versions of the film. For the purposes of this review, only the widescreen version was viewed. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the transfer is enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. The image is sharp and clear, showing no grain and no defects from the source material. Again, assuming that this is coming from an HD source, the picture looks good. It isn't as sharp as the Blu-ray, but it looks good. The DVD carries a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track which provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo and surround effects are effective and nicely placed. The subwoofer is pretty good and adds to the finale.