WALTER

Walter the daydreamer is walking home one day when he falls into a hole, and this is all about the neighborhood kids' attempts to get him out. All fail, and so Walter's parents, who can reach farther, are called; they succeed, and that's that (well, almost--for at the end it looks like Walter is off again). As in last year's Phoebe Dexter Has Harriet Peterson's Sniffles, Numeroff perks up a thin story with some odd-angled shots of the proceedings; in fact this story almost seems to have been cooked up for the sake of Waiter's views-from-the-hole. Sadly, neither these nor the contrasting straight-on blowups of Walter's parents are quite odd or interesting enough to justify their focal position. Still, this has a pleasantly un-hampered air, and it might work as a loosening-up exercise.