Igor, the evil science fair and science project resources

Mar 21 2009

Published by Anne-Marie at 2:52 pm under Activities,Movies,Science

We are in the middle of science fair planning at school, so when I was watching the movie, Igor I had to laugh. Poor Igor (John Cusack) is obsessed with breaking out of his predestined roll as a hunch-back assistant to evil scientist, Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese), so he enters a creation in an evil science fair.

I couldn’t agree that mandatory science fairs are evil, but more on that later.

After reanimating a road kill bunny, Igor decides he’s ready for a bigger project, creating a Bride of Frankenstein-type monster (Molly Shannon) called Eva. Unfortunately for him, the town’s science fair is all about making evil monsters, and Eva is a sweet girl who couldn’t hurt a fly.

Igor is a wonderfully entertaining movie for the whole family because it reinforces two lessons: “You can aspire to be anything you want – not what people expect of you,” and “Everyone has an evil bone in their body. But you choose to use it or not.”

The animation is gorgeous, a cross between The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Incredibles – gross, cute and sometimes beautiful. Like great kids’ movies, there are lots of in jokes for the adults and references to classic movies like Sunset Boulevard . Plus, the Louis Prima songs add a special swing-era dash of fun.

(Thanks to Click Communications for the review copy.)

Science fair project resources

This year, my children’s principal decided to institute a science fair and make it mandatory for all the grades to participate, except the kindergarteners. (My daughter Lucie decided she wanted to do a project, too.)

Luckily, we weren’t too much on our own. Parents were given a list of suggested topics and my kids picked recycling and growing plants under different conditions. Even so, I’m glad there are online resources available to help out like: