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SCOOBY-DOO! 13 SPOOKY TALES: SURF’S UP SCOOBY-DOO! (DVD)

May 6, 2015

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

ScoobyDooSurfsUpcoverGrade: B+
Entire family: Yes
1969-2015, 272 min. (13 cartoons), Color
Not rated (would be G, easily)
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: Varies (see below)
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0
Bonus features: N/A
Trailer/Amazon link

“Scooby-Doo! and the Beach Beastie” is a brand-new 22-minute cartoon and the sixth direct-to-DVD offering of its kind. But when you compare this latest effort with the “filler” added to flesh out the two-disc Scooby-Doo! 13 Spooky Tales: Surf’s Up, Scooby-Doo!, you almost wish that Warner Bros. had substituted a few more older episodes instead. “Beach Beastie” is by far the weakest, a going-through-the-motions affair that relies too much on Fred’s paranoia over nets and Scooby’s new love interest. It also offers too little in the way of mystery and phony monster moments—the two driving forces behind the popular franchise. What we get this time is a water monster that we’ve seen too many times before in other films.

Though a few voiceover actors and the style of drawing and animation changed over the years, the formula remains mostly the same: the Mystery, Inc. gang (timid Great Dane Scooby-Doo, always hungry Shaggy, bookish Velma, stylish Daphne, and All-American guy Fred) rambled onto the scene where a monster or ghost was terrifying people. Sometimes they were hired to get to the bottom of things, while other times they helped out a friend or simply “fell into” a mystery while trying to take a vacation—often to some exotic location. And always the unmasking revealed a phony monster with someone inside or with a remote control manipulating it for revenge or personal gain.

I don’t know if Warner Bros. deliberately chose “filler” episodes from a full range of Saturday-morning Scooby-Doo! cartoon shows, but to me that variety is the chief bonus. You really get a sense of the whole arc of this franchise. If only Warner Bros. had arranged the episodes in order, so viewers could better see how the characters and the series developed over 40 years. As is, the episodes are arranged either thematically (if you’re a glass half-full person) or randomly (if half-empty).  More

TINKER BELL AND THE LEGEND OF THE NEVERBEAST (Blu-ray combo)

March 3, 2015

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

neverbeastcoverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family:  Yes, but older boys may resist
2015, 76 min., Color
DisneyToon Studios
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: C
Extended Sneak Peek

Disney has always gone after broad audiences, so it’s no surprise that their Pixie Hollow Fairies movies have moved steadily in the direction of more action in an attempt to attract boys to this little girls-only club.

In 2014, Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy folded the usual fairy fare into a rousing prequel to Peter Pan—a recipe for adventure that included more extended scenes of peril via pirates, swashbuckling, and that famous crocodile. Now, Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast introduces a “monster” to Pixie Hollow in what can best be described as a fairy misadventure that borrows liberally from Aesop’s fable of “Androcles and the Lion” and Disney’s own Beauty and the Beast— with a third act that reminds you a little of Ghostbusters.

“Not enough,” my teenage son says, explaining that as long as nobody gets destroyed it won’t appeal to boys, because boys don’t think the same way that girls do. They don’t want stories about following your heart versus following the rules of the community, or about a monster that’s really just misunderstood. They want real monsters and real battles. Body counts.

I’m not so sure. I think if we had put on NeverBeast when our son was younger, it would have held his interest. He was into animals at the time, and there are plenty of them in NeverBeast. One of the Blu-ray bonus features even highlights animal wrangler Jeff Corwin. Although the characters are all female fairies, Tinker Bell takes a back seat this time and animal fairy Fawn (Ginnifer Goodwin) gets the spotlight. She’s frankly easier for boys to like, if not identify with. If boys liked the slightly spacy younger sister from Frozen, they should like Fawn, who is animated, full of excuses, and determined to confront dangerous animals just to help them.   More

THE BEGINNERS BIBLE (DVD)

February 25, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, G rated Leave a comment

BeginnersBiblecoverGrade: B+
Entire family: No (ages 6 and under only)
1995, 90 min. (3 stories), Color
Time Life/StarVista
Not rated (would be G)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (full screen)
Featured audio: English Mono
Bonus features: None
Trailer

The DVD notes indicate that this video is copyrighted 1995, which is two years before the Karyn Henley and Dennas Davis version of The Beginners Bible and well before the 2005 update from Kelly Pulley. Don’t look for a similar style, because the rendering and animation in this Sony Wonder production seem more closely related to what we saw in the old For Better or For Worse comic strips by Lynn Johnston. The name “The Beginners Bible” is trademarked and has probably gone through many transmutations. This DVD, a rerelease of a Sony Wonder production, will be available on March 3, 2015.

The Beginners (no apostrophe) Bible DVD contains three 25-30 minute stories that are clearly designed for pre-school age children, because all the angst and negativity of the stories are omitted. Some parents will argue that it’s wrong to sanitize the stories and gloss over the crucifixion or Herod’s killing of babies, while others will be perfectly happy to introduce their wee ones to the basic stories of The Nativity (Jesus’ Christmas birth), The Story of Easter (Jesus’ resurrection), and The Story of Moses (the Exodus from Egypt). You’d be hard pressed to find three cheerier versions of those Bible stories than the ones children encounter here.

BeginnersBiblescreenColors tend toward the sunny, and the characters do a lot of smiling with warm, smiley eyes. The language is contemporary as well. When Moses tells Pharaoh to “Let my people go,” Pharaoh responds, “Don’t try and tell me what to do. I’m the Pharaoh.” Later, when the Nile turns to blood, that gruesome fact is deemphasized by a fish that flops onto Pharaoh’s lap. And when the Israelites are given manna from heaven, it’s quite literally depicted as bread flakes falling from the sky like snow. But while the story ends with the Ten Commandments, there’s no Golden Calf or pagan behavior to muddy the waters. It’s a pretty simple trajectory from Moses following God’s command to “And this is how Moses led the people back to the promised land.”

I wondered what a series like this would do with the crucifixion, but it’s minimized by having three crosses in silhouette, no human shapes immediately recognizable, and a voiceover that tells us “Jesus died on the cross with a thief on either side of him.” The emphasis in this episode is on the positive, as it is with the other two. Peter doesn’t deny Christ, Judas doesn’t hang himself, and Jesus isn’t flogged or have his side pierced as he’s hanging from the cross. Roman soldiers don’t gamble for his cloak. The focus is on Jesus’ teachings, his acceptance of his lot, his prayers to God, and his resurrection—with Peter diving into the water to swim to him when he first reappears. It’s a joyous celebration of the Bible stories that, however sanitized, are certainly likely to be more entertaining to young children and less traumatizing or confusing.

Will it meet with parents’ approval? That depends on how traditional they are or how much of a stickler they are for details and tone. The Bible keeps evolving, and these stories are rendered in a style that could only be described as “cute.” Some may want more austerity or “seriousness,” but in the past, if such stories hadn’t come from the Bible, I’m guessing that more than a few parents and educator groups would have deemed them not age-appropriate. The Bible actually has a lot of violence and “begatting.” These three episodes are more age-appropriate, and they do seem like a good way to introduce youngsters to three big stories from the Bible. The kids may even want to watch them over and over, like other cartoons.

BIG HERO 6 (Blu-ray combo)

February 15, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Animation, Entire Family, PG rated 1 Comment

BigHero6coverGrade: A
Entire family: Yes
2014, 102 min., Color
Disney
Rated PG for action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 widescreen
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: B
Trailer

“Different, but as good as Frozen,” my wife pronounced it. “Four stars,” both teens said. And Big Hero 6 was easily my pick for Best Animated Feature of 2014. We all loved it, though I have to admit the poster didn’t sell me, nor did my hearing that the story was about a main character named Hiro (Hero?) and his brother Tadashi. How in the world would Disney be able to deliver a robotics story involving Japanese-named characters without being locked into an anime style?

Well, if you’re Disney, you confidently (and I might add, audaciously) create a future city named San Fransokyo, which, we learn in one of the bonus features, combines a geological mapping of San Francisco with the visual and cultural look of Tokyo—a hybrid that allows them to do pretty much anything, visually. That invented city, which was rendered using a new method called “Hyperion,” is so infused with vibrancy that you’re almost blown away by some of the cityscape scenes.

That’s not surprising, given the fact that it’s Disney and they’re all about originality and heart. Both of those traits drive Big Hero 6, which takes its name and spirit (and a few characters) from an obscure Marvel comic book.

Big Hero 6 tells the story of a 14-year-old robotics prodigy named Hiro (Ryan Potter) who’s already graduated from high school and hopes to be accepted into the nerdy robotics school his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) attends. He visits the school and meets some of the other students, a quirky group that includes a tough bicycle-loving woman named GoGo (Jamie Chung), the neurotic and overly self-protective Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), and a fast-talking hyperexuberant chemistry wiz named Honey Lemon (Génesis Rodríguez).

It’s an origin story, really, about how this group of brainy misfits comes together to form a superhero group called Big Hero 6, but it’s also every bit as much of a relationship story between a boy and robot as a film like The Iron Giant. The plot is set in motion when Hiro’s project on microrobotics blows away the competition at a big school science fair, and Professor Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell) hands Hiro a letter of acceptance after warning him not to sell his idea to billionaire businessman Alistair Krei (Alan Tudyk).

BigHero6screen1As one of the animators says in a bonus feature, Disney has never shied away from the issue of loss, having traumatized one generation with Bambi and Old Yeller and another with The Lion King. A new generation will vicariously learn to deal with loss through this film, which begins with two already orphaned boys living with their aunt (Maya Rudolph) and introduces three situations where a loved one may have been killed. That’s as much as I can say without getting into spoiler territory, except to add that Big Hero 6 is full of emotion. It’s also full of humor, with the soft vinyl robot Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit) sharing the comedic duties with all the nerdy characters and a rich wannabe superhero friend named Fred (T. J. Miller).

More

101 DALMATIANS (Blu-ray combo)

January 31, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Animation, Entire Family, G rated 1 Comment

101DalmatianscoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
1961, 79 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (with a border option)
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

Kids who love Frozen owe a big thank-you to the Disney staffers who made 101 Dalmatians. Animation had grown to be such an expensive proposition that it took 600 people to bring the previous film, Sleeping Beauty, to the big screen in 1959. And so the folks who worked on 101 Dalmatians were told that they had to find a way to make an animated picture that didn’t cost so much, or Walt Disney would reluctantly pull the plug on all future animated projects. The animation staff had already been trimmed to 300, but that still wasn’t enough. What saved animation for Disney was the discovery that you could eliminate the step of “inking” the drawings by Xeroxing them directly onto acetate sheets and save one tedious and expensive step in the animation process.

That’s the backstory, but what everyone knew in 1961 was that Disney had come up with another winning animated feature that included one of the most memorable Disney villains to date: Cruella De Vil, a devil of a woman who even had her own catchy theme song. She couldn’t change herself into a dragon, like Maleficent, but her driving was frightful and her obsession—to turn cute little Dalmatian puppies into a fur coat—was as evil and monstrous as any scheme that young viewers could comprehend. Even her henchmen were memorable because they combined comic relief and true menace.

101 Dalmatians turned out to be the ninth highest grossing film of 1961, and while it didn’t do as well as two Disney live-action features (The Absent-Minded Professor and The Parent Trap), it kept Disney animation alive for future projects and future generations of viewers.

101Dalmatiansscreen1The late Roger Ebert called it “an uneven film, with moments of inspiration in a fairly conventional tale of kidnapping and rescue,” and it’s hard to dispute that. But I do take exception with Ebert’s assessment that it’s only “passable fun.” 101 Dalmatians is more than that, especially for dog lovers and families with pets—and according to the Humane Society, that’s 47 percent of all American households. The puppies are cute as the Dickens and drawn, in typical Disney fashion, from live models so that they’re incredibly realistic in their movement.   More

ARTHUR’S FOUNTAIN ABBEY (DVD)

January 28, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

ArthursFountainAbbeycoverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family:  No
2014, 56 min., Color
Not rated (would be G)
PBS Kids
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (full screen)
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features: C
Teaser

Arthur will probably never catch its PBS cousin Sesame Street, which, at 44 seasons, is the longest running children’s show in America. But at 18 seasons it still holds the distinction of being the longest running animated children’s show in America.

Based on the books by Marc Brown, the series star is Arthur Read (the last name is deliberate, since the series encourages reading), an eight-year-old anthropomorphic aardvark who lives in a world of animals that walk, talk, dress, and face the same problems as their human counterparts. He’s a responsible kid who comes from a good family, and the series shifts back and forth between friends and family life with parents David (a chef/caterer) and Jane (an accountant who also works at home), and Arthur’s two younger sisters—the often annoying preschooler D.W. (short for Dora Winifred) and the infant Kate.

Arthur is a third-grade student at Lakewood Elementary, a likable brainy kid who isn’t marginalized the way some studious or brilliant kids are, and is made more “average” here because one of his friends is called “Brain.” He’s also friends with an exuberant rabbit named Buster and a not-so-bright burly dog named Binky. The emphasis is often on problem-solving, and reading sometimes provides a means of getting to that end. But Arthur is also good about addressing serious issues in a soft-but-firm way, or crafting episodes that are rooted in the headlines and popular culture.

Maybe that’s why the show has become popular with young adults who connect now via nostalgia but also those satirical episodes. Call it a kinder, gentler version of The Simpsons, because the writers have taken to incorporating parodies of movies and other TV shows, including the title episode on this four-episode DVD, “Fountain Abbey.”   More

PORCO ROSSO (Blu-ray combo)

January 24, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Animation, PG rated Leave a comment

PorcoRossocoverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family: No
1992, 93 min., Color
Rated PG for violence and some mild language
Disney/Studio Ghibli
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: Japanese and English 2.0 DTS-HDMA
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD
Bonus features: C
Trailer

Disney is high on Studio Ghibli—otherwise they wouldn’t have contracted to release all of the Japanese animation studio’s titles on Blu-ray for U.S. audiences. While anime won’t appeal to everyone because of the distinctive-but-strange style and storylines that meander a bit more than American audiences are used to, Porco Rocco might be the exception to win over families . . . at least those with older children.

When I say “older,” I mean teenagers who have some sense of history and can appreciate the film’s basic premise.

The title of this feature alludes to The Red Baron, and Porco Rosso (1992) is as heavily atmospheric as it is quirky. It plays out like a post-WWI movie about fighter pilots or an ill-fated love story like Casablanca, and there are tropes here that we recognize—like the jaded, 1920’s hero who carries the weight of being the only pilot to survive the biggest dogfight of all during WWI, and who resembles a trenchcoat-wearing Sam Spade or any other tough-talking, drinking and smoking private eye.

Aside from a knock-down, drag-out fistfight, there’s not nearly as much violence (or drinking or smoking or swearing) as you’d expect for a film of this sort. That’s because director Hayao Miyazaki loves magic almost as much as he loves airplanes and realism, and Porco Rosso has elements that would qualify it as a magical realist work of art.

If you cross Casablanca with The Sun Also Rises, The Dawn Patrol, and Beauty and the Beast,” you’ll get something close to Porco Rosso, which means “Crimson Pig” in English.   More

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

COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG: SEASON 2 (DVD)

November 14, 2014

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

Courage2coverGrade: B
Entire family: No (age 7 and older)
2000, 286 min. (13 episodes), Color
Unrated (would be PG for rude humor and frightful situations played for laughs)
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features:  none

Cartoon Network has a reputation for edgy, “out there,” and slightly manic animated shows aimed at kids ages 7-17. The characters are often anime-influenced and drawn with severe angularity, while the style of backgrounds would have to be called minimalist. Coming out of CN in the early years were Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and I Am Weasel, followed by The Powerpuff Girls and this popular entry, Courage the Cowardly Dog.

CN is part of Ted Turner’s broadcasting empire, and their shows have always tickled some children and rubbed others and parents the wrong way. They can be a little in your face, a little loud, a little shrill at times. But as CN series go, Courage the Cowardly Dog is actually one of the more traditionally animated. The backgrounds have more detail, and there are more props than we get in other shows, which makes for a richer-looking appearance. The concept, meanwhile, is actually as familiar as it gets: a dog is adopted by an older lady named Murial Bagge, a farm wife who lives with her crotchety husband, Eustace, “in the middle of nowhere”—quite literally in the town of Nowhere, Kansas.

But you know you’re not in Kansas anymore when the first episode is a riff on the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale, with a Magic Tree of Nowhere granting wishes . . . and gaining power as it goes.

Many of the plots from this 13-episode season are fantastic, with the bulk of them drawing inspiration from the horror genre. One of the best is a take-off on the old Mummy films, but revolving around a special kind of cookie. And in a spoof of The Fly, Courage gets turned into a fly by a villain named Di Lung. Such episodes are constructed in thriller fashion but played for laughs, starting with a dog who’s deathly afraid of just about anything and REACTS IN A BIG WAY. Each outing, Courage has to confront all manner of fantastic villains and threats in order to save his often clueless owners.

Courage2screenThe humor in Courage isn’t as rude as in other CN shows, with the worst of it coming out of the mouth of Eustace, who is perpetually annoyed by Courage and shouts “STUPID DOG” every chance he gets. But the extreme exaggeration of old-people stereotypes proves to be a necessary ingredient for a show about a cowardly dog who rises to the occasion despite his fears. Children will respond to the wild leaps of imagination and the ways in which this series, like Disney’s Phineas and Ferb, creates fantastic adventures for everyday characters and situations.   More

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