Home

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

MILLION DOLLAR ARM (Blu-ray)

October 7, 2014

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

MillionDollarArmcoverGrade: B+
Entire family: Yes
2014, 124 min., Color
Disney
Rated PG for mild language and some suggestive content
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

My family liked Million Dollar Arm as much as any Disney sports movie. It has a Jerry Maguire structure, a Bollywood vibe, a likable cast, laugh-out-loud moments, and a lead actor who shows us the vulnerable flip side of his Mad Men character.

Million Dollar Arm is the eighth based-on-a-real-story sports film that Disney has made this millennium, following in the footsteps (or hoof tracks) of Secretariat (2010), Invincible (2006), Glory Road (2006), Miracle (2004), The Rookie (2002), Snow Dogs (2002), and Remember the Titans (2000). And it’s a worthy successor to those films.

Jon Hamm is cast against type as sports agent J.B. Bernstein, who quit his job at a large agency to form a partnership with Ash Vasudevan (Aasif Mandvi). But they’re running out of time and the future of their struggling, fledgling business, as in Jerry Maguire, seems to rest with one player. In this case it’s an NFL star named Popo (Rey Maualuga) whom Bernstein is wooing, big-time.

But at the same time, to buy time with an impatient investor named Chang (Tzi Ma), they come up with the gimmick of having a contest in India to find the two best, hardest throwing cricket players to bring to America and convert into baseball pitchers.

That really happened to Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, who appeared on a 2008 reality TV show called Million Dollar Arm and became the first Indians to play baseball in America. Only Patel made it to the majors, though, and he only lasted a short while. None of that makes it into the film. Million Dollar Arm is all about the relationship that forms between the agent and his prospects.  More

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (Blu-ray combo)

September 20, 2014

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

FaultinOurStarscoverGrade: A-
Entire family: No
2014, 126 min., Color
Twentieth Century Fox
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some sexuality, and brief strong language
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features: B
Trailer

Augustus “Gus” Waters wants what most teens do: to make a mark on the world, to be famous, to be somebody the world will mourn when he’s gone. That’s ridiculous, 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster says. The world will end and no one will be around to remember even its most famous people, much less the billions who, despite grand aspirations, never fulfilled their dreams. But both of them fear oblivion, and in a cancer support group they find in each other an unexpected love.

Entertainment Weekly called it “The greatest romance story of this decade,” and I can see why. It’s this generation’s Titanic—only cancer is the iceberg that sinks their boat. Though it’s about teens, narrated by a 16 year old, and based on a young adult novel by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars has a much wider appeal because cancer is not age- or audience-selective. It affects the lives of so many, and this film reassures people that it doesn’t matter if you’re not famous enough to make history (or reality TV, for that matter). In the end, what matters is that your passing is remembered by ONE person—which reinforces that relationships of any kind are more important than accomplishments.   More

OUT OF THE PAST (Blu-ray)

August 16, 2014

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

OutofthePastcoverGrade: B
Entire family: No
1947, 97 min., black and white
Warner Bros.
Not rated (would be PG-13 for some violence, drinking and smoking)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA Mono
Bonus features: C-
Clip

Like many parents, my wife and I have tried to help our children to develop an appreciation for a broad range of things, whether it’s expanding their palette at home or their sense of the world via travel. It would be nice, too, if that appreciation extended to film—though this generation seems more resistant to black-and-white movies made in the old Academy ratio (1.33:1) instead of widescreen, and put off by films that are dialogue and plot rich, rather than action-filled visual blockbusters.

So this was an experiment. I told them the 20-minute rule was in effect—give Out of the Past a chance, and if they hated it after 20 minutes I’d put on something else. Film noir is so important a style that I wanted them at least to be able to recognize the traits: the emphasis on shady characters with shady pasts, the frequent flashbacks, the manipulation of shadow and light to create stylized effects, the rough-talking hero who often narrates his own story, and the femme fatale he’s drawn to, even though she’s bad for him and could get him killed.

Film noir is most often associated with crime dramas from the ‘40s and ‘50s, and I knew that Out of the Past was considered among the top 10 on just about everybody’s list. Warner Bros. released it on Blu-ray this week, available only through their archive program, so why not give it a try? As it turned out, both of our kids said they’d keep watching after 20 minutes.   More

DIVERGENT (Blu-ray combo)

August 2, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Drama, PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

DivergentcoverGrade:  B
Entire family: No
2014, 139 min., Color
Rated PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements and some sensuality
Summit Entertainment
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

These days, the money seems to be in young adult novels—especially if they’re made into movies. I suppose you could say J.K. Rowling started the trend with a Harry Potter series that began in 1997, and then in 2003 Stephenie Meyer hit pay dirt with the first of her Twilight vampire-werewolf romance novels. The next big score came from Suzanne Collins, whose futuristic Hunger Games novels first emerged in 2008. Now to film comes Divergent, based on a popular young adult trilogy from Veronica Roth that began in 2011 with Divergent, followed by Insurgent (2012), and Allegiant (2013).

In our family of four, my daughter is the target audience for all of these books, while my wife reads them with her. They’re fans of the films as well, and they thought, as I did, that the film version of Divergent is pretty comparable to the The Hunger Games, only instead of Jennifer Lawrence as an archer playing a futuristic survival game in the world’s largest arena we get Shailene Woodley as a free running initiate into a faction of a futuristic society that’s charged with the task of protecting it from outside—and inside—dangers.   More

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS: SEASON 4 (DVD)

May 27, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Drama, TV-14 Leave a comment

PrettyLittleLiars4coverGrade: B-
Entire family: No (way)
2013-14, 1046 min. (24 episodes), Color
Not Rated (would be TV-14 at least)
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Bonus features: B-
Season 4 preview

“All of my friends watch it.”

Every parent gets that at some point, and Pretty Little Liars is exactly the type of show that will draw such comments, because its central characters are teens—though they look, dress, and act more like twenty somethings. And they’re all beautiful people . . . even the corpses.

I haven’t watched the entire series, only Season 4, but Warner Bros. makes it possible for people to jump right in and get up to speed by screening a full recap episode that takes you through the first three seasons. It automatically kicks in if you select “Play All.” And from what I’ve seen in recap and this season, the writers treat the girls as if they are twenty somethings.

We don’t see any parents or family life to speak of, except for brief turns involving Alison’s mom, another “skanky” mom who sleeps with a cop to get her delinquent daughter off the hook, and few more siblings. The emphasis is all on these four girls and their little individual dramas that interweave with one very large one. Meanwhile, for high school students, this group of teens sure has a light schedule. The only scenes involving school or classes come from one girl’s illicit relationship with her English teacher. Yeah, not a lot of role modeling going on in this show.

Still, Pretty Little Liars, now in its fifth season, is a popular series that inspired the spinoff Ravenswood. As with The Hunger Games, this ABC Family show is loosely based on a series of young-adult novels (in this case, by author Sara Shepard), and there’s plenty of killing—though not as graphic as in The Hunger Games films. Part murder mystery and part soap opera, it’s what you’d get if you created a teen version of Desperate Housewives and concentrated less on relationships and sex than on the mystery of the group’s “frenemy”—in this case, Alison, the clique’s leader, who disappeared in Season 1.

Alison (Sasha Pieterse) knew all of their secrets and had been using that information to get artsy Aria (Lucy Hale), brainy Spencer (Troian Bellisario), athletic Emily (Shay Mitchell), and loser-turned-popular girl Hanna (Ashley Benson) to do whatever she wanted. And after she’s gone, the girls start receiving text messages from someone who seems to know all of those same secrets and signs each note “A.” Is it Alison? Someone Alison knew? Someone who killed Alison?   More

FALLING SKIES: SEASON 3 (Blu-ray)

May 21, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Drama, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, TV-14 Leave a comment

FallingSkiescoverGrade: B+
Entire family: No
2013, 440 min. (10 episodes), Color
Rated TV-14 for some violence and peril
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Included: Blu-ray discs (2), UV copy
Bonus features: B+
Season 3 preview

Falling Skies is as out-of-the-question for younger children as any monster or war movie would be, because it’s essentially a combination of the two. But families with older children will find it easy to get hooked on this series about a group of humans who’ve survived an alien invasion and are now fighting as an underground unit to reclaim the planet and perpetuate the species.

My ‘tween daughter isn’t a big fan of sci-fi and she’s definitely squeamish about violence. Yet, like my teenage son, she loves Falling Skies, which is produced by Steven Spielberg. Maybe one reason is that there are certain “shooter” games on the X-Box that she’ll agree to play with my son, and the sci-fi violence on this series tends to resemble what they see as they’re blasting away in the basement.  More

Older Entries Newer Entries