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MADEA’S TOUGH LOVE (DVD)

January 24, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Comedy, Entire Family, PG rated Leave a comment

MadeasToughLovecoverGrade: C
Entire family: Yes, but . . .
2014, 64 min., Color
Rated PG for rude humor and brief scary images
Lionsgate
Aspect ratio: 16×9 widescreen
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Tyler Perry once described his fictional Madea as “exactly the PG version of my mother and my aunt, and I loved having the opportunity to pay homage to them. She would beat the hell out of you but make sure the ambulance got there in time to make sure they could set your arm back . . .”

The old lady with a heart of gold who wants everybody to be nice and successful and respectful and play by the rules stands in sharp contrast to the thuggish grandma who has a quick temper and breaks laws just as readily as she’ll break your face if you backtalk her. That contradiction is apparently one of the reasons Madea is somehow beloved by so many. But you do have to accept the contradiction, because it’s a part of every Madea movie . . . even her first animated feature, Madea’s Tough Love.

MadeasToughLovescreenIn this direct-to-video film we get an intro/outro that shows the live-action Madea (Perry, in fat suit, makeup and drag) entering and returning from the world of a cartoon she watches on TV while she enjoys her breakfast cereal. In between, the menu is a Saturday Morning Special formulaic plot about Madea being sentenced to community service for her outbursts and wearing an ankle bracelet to ensure she goes straight to the Moms Mabley Community Center. There’s a little of the late comedian Mabley in the dowdy way that Madea dresses, and the basic situation is also overly familiar: basically good but disrespectful and wary-of-authority kids are on their own at the crumbling center, which mayoral candidate Betsy Holiday (Rolonda Watts) plans to tear down and build a park that looks suspiciously like a swanky shopping mall.

There’s a positive message here, despite the contradictions, but you’d still have to call Madea’s Tough Love the polar opposite of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids—an animated series from the ‘70s and early ‘80s that featured a more consistently wholesome, civic-minded “gang” with a more clearly articulated educational lesson embedded in each episode.   More

POM POKO (Blu-ray combo)

January 23, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Comedy, Drama, PG rated Leave a comment

PomPokocoverGrade: B
Entire family: No
1994, 119 min., Color
Rated PG for violence, scary images and thematic elements
Disney/Studio Ghibli
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: English dubbed 2.0 DTS-HDMA
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Based on an idea by legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, Pom Poko is the story of a community of shape-shifting raccoons who struggle against developers that tear down forests and natural habitats to build stacks upon stacks of new subdivisions.

It’s a solid film from director Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya)—one that may strike Western viewers as having at least four “endings” where the film felt neatly wrapped up but then kept going, and in another direction. The runtime is only 119 minutes, but it frankly felt longer because of those false endings, which can also make the film seem like an episodic patchwork.

Once you buy into the premise—that raccoons (called raccoon dogs in the original Japanese version) have the power to transform into anything they want, including humans (watch for someone whose rings under the eyes look just a little TOO dark)—the film has its own kind of magic. While the plot itself doesn’t move all that fast or far, what holds our interest is the artwork and animation, and the various, often mischievous transformations that these animals engage in—first as a kind of training, then as a revolutionary tactic, and finally as a way to adapt. Call them a Far Eastern version of the trickster characters that North American audiences might be more familiar with. But if you watch this with younger children, be prepared to explain the prominent testicles that are visible even when these tricksters, known as “tanuki,” are seated.   More

THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY (Blu-ray)

November 22, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama, Entire Family, PG rated Leave a comment

HundredFootJourneycoverGrade:  B
Entire family: Yes
2014, 122 min., Color
Rated PG for thematic elements, some violence, language and brief sensuality
Touchstone/DreamWorks
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features: C
Includes: Digital HD Copy
Trailer

There’s nothing in The Hundred-Foot Journey that the whole family can’t see, thanks to an overly dark night scene that’s so murky you can’t tell what’s going on. There is a fire and a character does die, but there’s nothing so graphic that it would warrant staying away—especially when the theme of cultural acceptance and understanding is one that many parents would like their children to see.

The Hundred-Foot Journey goes a surprising number of places for such a short trip. It’s a love story, a story about culture clash, an underdog success story, and a movie that celebrates food—albeit one that devolves into a food fight at one point, figuratively speaking.

But this little film has heart. How can it not, being executive produced by the reunited team of Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey? Everybody in the audience gets a box of warm fuzzies.

Director Lasse Hallström (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) is no stranger to films that celebrate food. His Chocolat (2000) was among those first-wave attempts to incorporate the transformative properties of delicious concoctions into the narrative. In fact, there are a few similarities to The Hundred Foot Journey. Both films focus on characters new to a conservative, provincial French town the plot revolves around the way that the new arrivals gradually win everyone over because of the food that they make.

Adapted from Richard C. Morais’ 2010 novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey features Helen Mirren as Madame Mallory, a widow who operates an haute cuisine restaurant that has earned a single Michelin star, and she wants another. Soon, as the audience senses, her life will radically change when an Indian family buys the shuttered, former restaurant one hundred feet across the road from her.   More

INTO THE WOODS (1987) (Blu-ray)

November 19, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama, Entire Family, Musical, PG rated Leave a comment

IntotheWoodscoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes
1987, 153 min., Color
Not rated (would be PG for several intense sequences)
Image Entertainment
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features: None
Opening song (audio only) 

 Into the Woods is a strange musical that’s about to get even stranger this Christmas when Disney’s film version debuts with Johnny Depp as the wolf and Meryl Streep as the witch. But if you want to see the original Broadway production that inspired it, James Lapine does a nice job of filming a performance from the show’s initial 1987 run, with camerawork that pulls in tight for plenty of medium shots that give the stage production a filmic feel—especially since there are no audience reaction shots. It’s a technically accomplished film version of a real Broadway production.

Into the Woods earned Bernadette Peters a Tony Award for Best Actress and statues as well for Stephen Sondheim (Best Score) and Lapine (Best Book). You can see why. There are a few catchy songs, but you won’t walk away singing the score the way you might with something like Frozen. In weaving together the stories of Cinderella, Jack and his mother (and the beanstalk), Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and the Baker and the Baker’s Wife, Lapine uses the witch as a lynch pin and Sondheim creates song after song that mimics the narrative structure with its high level of discordance and overlapping and interwoven sung lines. That’s one thing that makes this Broadway musical distinctive, and one thing that adds a level of sophistication that might push it beyond the comfort zone of some younger viewers.

What makes Into the Woods strange is that after a first act that playfully pokes fun of children’s fairy tales while at the same time celebrating them, a second act deconstructs the whole idea of fairytale endings by introducing darker elements . . . certain to become even darker in the 2014 film, given Hollywood’s recent forays into fairy tales. Not that the first half is rosy-cheeked and cheery, mind you. Cinderella’s stepmother cuts off parts of her daughters’ feet so that the prince detects they’re not the real deal because of the blood that drips into the golden slipper (only a cartoon character can wear a GLASS slipper). And the wolf’s stomach is cut open so the Red Riding Meal he ingested can escape unharmed. In other words, this fairytale mash-up can be pretty Grimm in an “ewwww” sort of way, despite the infusion of humor at every turn.   More

A BELLE FOR CHRISTMAS (DVD)

November 9, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama, Entire Family, PG rated Leave a comment

BelleforChristmascoverGrade: C
Entire family: Yes, but . . .
2014, 91 min., Color
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Rated PG for “mild thematic material and rude humor”
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Bonus features: None
Trailer (Caution: spoilers)

Anchor Bay Entertainment has found a nice little niche by marketing family movies—including Christmas-themed ones that feature dogs. They’re unabashedly warm and fuzzy, with second-tier supporting actors and screenplays that fall somewhere between Hallmark movies and the kind of kid-pet-parent shenanigans we often see on the Disney Channel. This holiday season you can even pick up a five-pack of canine Christmas movies: Chilly Christmas, A Christmas Wedding Tail, The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation, and The Dog Who Saved the Holidays. They’re either made-for-TV movies or direct-to-video offerings, and how much your family likes them will likely depend on their ages and viewing tastes. The good news is that A Belle for Christmas, a new 2014 entry, is better than any of the previous doggie-holiday releases, with several likable characters, a cute pooch, and a plot that has kids, not adults, saving the day. The bad news is that if your children are as picky about their movies as they are their food, they may not respond well to the film’s clichés, the over- (or sometimes under-) acting, occasionally weak writing, and a pervasive undercurrent of sentimentality. The most likable character isn’t the dog at all. It’s Glenn Barrows (Dean Cain), a single father who’s trying to date again after losing his wife earlier in the year. He’s such a nice guy you wonder how he ever became a rich attorney and where he finds the time to spend with his kids. Personally, I think it’s a little soon for a relationship, much less a partial live-in girlfriend, but you can chalk that up to a facile screenplay that takes the quick route to conflict and relies on exaggeration to make its points.   More

THE WONDER YEARS: COMPLETE COLLECTION (DVD)

October 25, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama Leave a comment

WonderYearscoverGrade: A-
Entire family: No. Age 10 and older.
1988-93, six seasons, Color
Time Life/StarVista Entertainment
Not rated (would be PG because of mild language, content)
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Featured audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0
Includes: 12” tall metal locker, 26 DVDs, yearbook and notebooks, etc.
Bonus features: A-
Trailer

There are plenty of coming of age stories, but the classics for me are still Stand by Me and A Christmas Story in film, and The Wonder Years on TV. In each, you get the full impact of adolescence, but with a terrific sense of the time period, along with plots that bring everything into sharp focus. The Wonder Years is funny, it’s fresh, it’s thought provoking, it insightfully and colorfully captures the attitudes of the era, and it plays well 20 years later.

Why wouldn’t it? Like Leave It to Beaver, the series’ episodes were seen from the point of view of an adolescent, and you knew you were in for an interesting ride when this half-hour comedy-drama shunned a laugh track and introduced the kind of voiceover narrator that we got in A Christmas Story—an adult version of the main character, who was 12 years old when the series began. And you knew that The Wonder Years would meet the ‘60s head-on when the pilot called for the girl-next-door’s older brother to be killed in Vietnam, and for our hero to comfort her in a scene that would culminate in a first kiss for each of them—both as characters, and as actors.

In short, The Wonder Years gets it right. Kids Kevin’s age were too young to worry about a draft number, yet too old to ignore the events that were shaping history and the lives of Americans—things like the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations, the moon landing, Woodstock, the Apollo 13 crisis, and events that were an outgrowth of Civil Rights, women’s liberation, and increasingly strident anti-war protests. The result is a series that combines the innocence of childhood—of who likes whom, and passing notes—with a world that’s pushing them to grow up more quickly.  More

BLENDED (Blu-ray)

September 12, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, PG-13 rated Leave a comment

BlendedcoverGrade: B
Entire family: No
2014, 117 min., Color
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content and language
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV copy
Bonus features: B-
Trailer

Sometimes you just have to ignore the buzz. Our family had heard that Blended, the latest Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore comedy, wasn’t all that good. But hey, I said, we loved them together in The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates, so let’s give it a chance.

We did, and our whole family was entertained—enough to watch it again in the future. Yes, there were some cheesy spots and a few gags that fell flat, but that’s the nature of comedies—especially those that try to balance humor with warm fuzzy moments.

So I’m going to have to disagree with my colleagues at Rotten Tomatoes that gave this film a crappy 14 percent “rotten” rating—meaning only 14 critics out of 100 liked it. The telltale sign is that 66 percent of the Rotten Tomatoes readers liked it, and audiences aren’t looking to criticize. They’re just looking to have a good time. So were we.

Blended won’t be for everyone, though, because it does try to do the impossible: to make a family movie that’s also adult, insomuch as it’s full of put-downs, sexual innuendo, and slapstick that bounces back and forth between the adult and juvenile realms. Running gags include the girls’ boyish looks, one “blended” couple’s get-a-room antics, a 15-year-old girl’s flat chest, and a boy’s babysitter and dirty magazine fetish. Blended is rated PG-13 for “crude and sexual content and language,” and parents who are uncomfortable letting their children watch films like that will want to take a pass.

But you know what? The juggling of adult and family content is the realistic theme of this film—and the bulk of it takes place at a South African resort specializing in blended families, one which makes no bones about wanting to keep (or rekindle) the flame between the mother and father so that they don’t just think of themselves as 24/7 parents.  More

MUPPETS MOST WANTED (Blu-ray combo)

August 13, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Entire Family, Musical, PG rated Leave a comment

MuppetsMostWantedcoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes
2014, 107 and 124 min., Color
Disney
Rated PG for some mild action
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: B-
Trailer

With The Muppets (2011), Disney breathed new life into a near-dead franchise by infusing it with self-reflexive jokes and getting back to the clever writing, memorable songs, and manic energy that made Jim Henson’s marionette-puppets a hit in the first place.

Though Muppets Most Wanted follows a more familiar screenplay formula, the gags are still there, the trio of humans—Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, and Ty Burrell—seems brilliantly cast, and the songs, though they don’t stick in your head, are still engaging. Our entire family thought this 2014 sequel was funny and entertaining, and we’re getting close to the point where we’ll no longer have children under the age of 13. Don’t be put off by the PG rating. With apologies to Animal, it’s a pretty tame film, and families with young children should find this just as rewarding for a family movie night.   More

THE OTHER WOMAN (Blu-ray)

July 30, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, PG-13 rated Leave a comment

OtherWomancoverGrade: B
Entire family: No (not for younger children)
2014, 109 min., Color
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual references, and language
20th Century Fox
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: D
Trailer

Rare is the sex comedy that lives up to its PG-13 rating. Most of them push those boundaries like a teen testing curfew. But The Other Woman is pretty accurately PG-13 rated, with the most questionable scene coming conveniently in the opening, when concerned parents can tell their ‘tweens to make themselves a snack. But even that scene doesn’t show anything. There’s no nudity, only sexual references, and they’re all comic. And the language is tame compared to most PG-13 movies these days.

First-time screenwriter Melissa Stack and director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) offer a variation of the 1980 light comedy Nine to Five, in which three women got revenge on their lying, cheating, sexist pig of a boss—only now, rather than being co-workers, the women are strangers to each other who have unknowingly slept with the same man. The filmmakers also cast by two established actresses—Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann—alongside a relative newcomer who’s better known for a different field of entertainment. In this case it’s model Kate Upton, who graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for the past two years.

Though Nine to Five played out as an ensemble film, The Other Woman is totally taken over by Mann, who swipes every scene with her hilariously sympathetic portrayal of a needy, ditzy, and slightly manic wife who’s surprised one day at her front door by someone who turns out to be “the other woman” (Diaz), dressed as a naughty plumber and asking for her husband by name. That he’s having an affair is nearly as shocking to her as it is for lawyer Kate to discover he’s married.   More

SOPHIA GRACE & ROSIE’S ROYAL ADVENTURE (Blu-ray combo)

May 16, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Children's, Comedy, Entire Family, G rated 1 Comment

SophiaGracecoverGrade: C
Entire family: Theoretically, but . . .
2014, 75 min., Color
Warner Bros.
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.0
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features: C+/B-
Trailer

There are three types of people who will go for Sophia Grace & Rosie’s Royal Adventure: people who are charmed by the duo’s YouTube videos, fans of Toddlers & Tiaras, and Ellen DeGeneres. And if only some members of your family fall into any of those categories, you can be sure that the rest will groan or complain all the way through this film.

I was thinking about why Sophia Grace & Rosie’s Royal Adventure has more limited appeal than the old Shirley Temple movies, and maybe it’s as simple as the difference between watching Shirley Temple perform “On the Good Ship Lollipop” or watching another little girl imitate Shirley Temple. It’s the difference between being cute and acting cute, and television is famous for giving us way too many of the latter. Then too, even when Temple was being cute, she was sweet. And there will always be a broader audience for sweetness than there is for attitude, even if we describe it euphemistically as “precociousness.”

Sophia Grace and Rosie first appeared on Ellen in 2011 when they were eight and five years old, respectively, and the older girl performed Niki Minaj’s “Super Bass” while her younger cousin went through the motions alongside her because it made her less nervous. More appearances (and many more YouTube videos) followed, with the pair acting as mini-journalists and doing Red Carpet interviews—always in their trademark pink princessy dresses and tiaras. Then they were recruited for two episodes of the Nickelodeon sitcom Sam & Cat, in which teen stars Jennette McCurdy and Ariana Grande’s characters had to babysit two two-faced “BritBrats” and later had to deal with the “Revenge of the BritBrats.” Even without watching those episodes you can see how the girls’ onscreen personas have been shaped.

Now they’re on their own with no Ellen and no teen stars. Can they carry a movie? Yes indeed, if you happen to like them. If not, it’s like being trapped in an elevator with a valley girl who’s a nonstop chatterer intent on giving you a play by play as she scales Mount Inanity.

SophiaGracescreenIn their Royal Adventure, Sophia Grace & Rosie are sent to Switzelvania as correspondents for Ellen in order to report on the coronation of a new queen, but when they arrive they find that three princesses are scheming to get that crown. And so these “journalists” decide to make the news instead of reporting it by plotting and coaching so that the best candidate wins. Of course the humor is played over-the-top and since the film is a showcase for Sophia Grace & Rosie they don’t have to steal each scene—it’s handed to them on a silver platter.

Though they overact in the manner of way too many child actors, Sophia Grace & Rosie still impress with their ability to memorize scenes and play to reaction shots. I mean, they’re still only 11 and eight years old, and they really do an amazing job of just being professionals. But over the past three years it seems that the older cousin has gotten more full of herself and therefore more annoying . . . unless you’re a fan of Toddlers & Tiaras or are big fans of Sophia Grace & Rosie because you like their act. Very little girls who are into pink and all things princess will enjoy this movie as well. But for everyone else? It’s like watching a Shirley Temple imitator at a talent contest who tries to act cute, rather than being cute and not knowing it. They’re great in small doses, but the girls make this 75-minute feature feel a lot longer.

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