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TARZAN (1999) (Blu-ray combo)

August 6, 2014

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

TarzancoverGrade: A-/B+
Entire family: Yes
1999, 88 min., Color
Disney
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

I’ve seen just about every Tarzan movie made, and have to confess that I still have a soft spot for the Johnny Weismueller films. But Disney’s animated Tarzan represents one of the strongest narratives to tackle the legend of an orphaned baby raised by apes. Some of those early Tarzan movies now seem a little racist, and Disney solved that potential problem by not including any Africans at all. It’s apes vs. white hunters and a leopard in this animated feature, which begins by intercutting scenes of how baby Tarzan came to be orphaned and how one ape, Kala (Glenn Close), lost her baby.

Because we get talking animals, we also get a better appreciation for the relationships that young Tarzan forged, and because it’s animation we get a Tarzan who is more believably a combination of animal and human movement than would be humanly possible with actors.

It’s a jungle out there, and Disney makes no attempt to soft-peddle that part. There are plenty of Bambi’s mother moments. But the filmmakers do balance any naturalism and menace in the movie with humor, songs, cute characters, and the eye-popping animation that makes the jungle itself come alive. Tarzan was the first full-length Disney animated feature to spotlight a single performer (Phil Collins) for the entire soundtrack—something that DreamWorks would imitate a year later when they used Elton John for all the songs in The Road to El Dorado—and that continuity also added to the film’s uniqueness. One of Collins’ songs, “You’ll Be in My Heart,” won an Oscar for Best Original Song.   More

DISNEYNATURE: BEARS (Blu-ray combo)

August 6, 2014

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

DisneyNatureBearscoverGrade: B-
Entire family: Yes (but with a grain of salt)
2014, 78 min., Color
DisneyNature
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

DisneyNature: Bears is an accomplished bit of filmmaking that would have been an unqualified success were it not for narration that periodically insults the intelligence of viewers over the age of eight.

The screenplay and voiceovers are, as my teenage son said, simply “childish” in places—meaning that Bears is clearly aimed at very small children, the way an adult will make funny faces to try to make a toddler laugh. The question is, why? Why narrow your audience like that, when the subject matter has such broad appeal?

The Alaskan cinematography in Bears is breathtaking, and the sometimes extreme photography really adds both epic sweep and intimacy to our understanding of these beautiful creatures. Couple that with perfectly paced scenic construction that builds suspense as we follow a family of Alaskan brown bears from the birth of two cubs through their first year of survival and you have a nature film that’s every bit as good as what Disney produced in the past—or, for that matter, what other studios are producing now.

I suspect that director Alastair Fothergill (The Blue Planet, Earth) is still trying to find the right balance to give Disney what their audiences want: a nature film that’s not as austere as the BBC Earth productions and that has some life, some zest, some whimsy—to imbue the animals with personalities and tell their story in human terms, as the old True-Life Adventures did. So far, Fothergill has done that most successfully with Chimpanzee (2012).   More

NEED FOR SPEED (Blu-ray)

August 4, 2014

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

NeedforSpeedcoverGrade: B-
Entire family: No
2014, 132 min., Color
DreamWorks-Touchstone
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Rated PG-13 for intense racing scenes and some violence and language
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: B-
Trailer

Watching this 2014 action film from DreamWorks-Touchstone, I felt like a judge on The Voice, but with the chairs in reverse. I was facing the action and had my hand on the button a bunch of times to turn that chair around and give Need for Speed a bad review. But every time I got close to that imaginary button, I’d pull back. Though there’s more action than character development, though the plot has big chunks missing so that director Scott Waugh could get on with the action, and though there was no shortage of cheesy or predictable moments, I still got caught up in this film.

Racing is an adrenalin rush, and so, apparently, is vicariously riding along.

Bryan Cranston’s TV sidekick Aaron Paul breaks a little badder as Tobey Marshall, the main character in Need for Speed who makes more money driving in illegal street races than he does working on high performance cars in his garage. He uses a team that includes not just car people, but a pilot who advises him and others about traffic up ahead. And let’s not underestimate the importance of this pilot, who keeps wanting his pals to call him “Maverick.” The cars are traveling 130-150 miles per hour, driving on both sides of the street and through intersections. I’m no racing expert, but it all looked scarily real to me—which is what you’d expect when the director is a former stuntman.   More

Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers (Blu-ray combo)

August 3, 2014

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

ThreeMusketeerscoverGrade: C
Entire family: Yes . . . but?
2004, 68 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect Ratio:  1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

The Three Musketeers is that rare Disney animated feature that’s tough to recommend, even for youngsters in the family.

Made in 2004 as a direct-to-video offering, the Mickey, Donald and Goofy version of Alexandre Dumas’ timeless novel seems mechanical and uninspired, almost to the point of being tedious to watch. And it’s not just one thing. Many facets of the filmmaking process are disappointing.

There’s much more detail and heart in another Disney adaptation of classic literature, Mickey’s Christmas Carol. That 1983 animated film felt like a performance of Dickens’ story in which Mickey and the gang were cast as characters, and their “acting” was good enough to pull us into the story. Although that film was only 26 minutes long, it was so well done that every family and Disneyphile wanted to add it to their collections.

The Three Musketeers is 68 minutes long, and it feels longer. My family wasn’t drawn into the story at all, because it seemed more like those Warner Bros. and Disney cartoon shorts in which the characters are still the characters, but transposed to different settings. The scenes felt bloated to take up space, the animation seemed pedestrian, and the character locomotion was unimaginative. In short, there was nothing that brought a laugh or a smile of delight, as usually happens when we watch a Disney animated feature.   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

HERCULES (1997) (Blu-ray combo)

August 2, 2014

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

HerculescoverGrade: B+
Entire family: Yes
1997, 93 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.78.1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer

Hercules has always struck me as an underrated film—maybe because it has a little more attitude than your typical Disney animated feature. Like Avis Rent-a-Car or the City of Chicago, it tries a little harder to be hip, cool, or whatever the current vernacular is, and much of the sass comes from a lass. The lead female in this ancient adventure is Meg (Susan Egan), and she’s no maiden in distress. Like Katharine Hepburn in any movie, she’s the equal of her man, a film noir femme fatale sort of gal, and that’s kind of refreshing.

It’s energizing too that embedded in this revised story of Greek mythology are extended references to a number of films. Hercules is found on earth by mortal parents and raised as their own, just as Superman was—and the little guy does super boy stuff, like lifting Dad’s entire wagonload with one hand. Eventually Mom and Dad tell him that they adopted him and show him a medallion with his name on it. He came from Mt. Olympus, and though Hades tried to make the little guy mortal to ensure his own future power, baby Hercules fought off the last drop and so retained some of his super strength.

Like Rocky, he finds a trainer (Danny DeVito) who’s been itching to coach a champion. And every hero needs theme music. Herc gets his from five muses who act like vamps and come to life off of a Grecian urn to narrate through song—a gambit we saw in Little Shop of Horrors and There’s Something about Mary. Like Meg, they’ve also got a little attitude, and it adds another layer of fun.   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

AMERICAN GIRL: ISABELLE DANCES INTO THE SPOTLIGHT (Blu-ray combo)

July 24, 2014

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

IsabellecoverGrade: B
Entire family: No
2014, 100 min., Color
Not rated (would be G)
Universal
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Digital Copy
Bonus features: None
Trailer

With Isabelle Dances into the Spotlight, American Girl celebrates 10 years of being in the filmmaking business. What began as a way to add historical backstories to dolls that “came” from certain periods in history has evolved into the marketing of contemporary dramas. The former taught the target audience of 3-12 year old girls what it would be like to live during a different era, while the latter have focused on little girls’ dreams and desires and the things that can get in the way of success.

Kit Kitredge: An American Girl (2008) was the last film set in a historical period, with An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong tackling bullying as an issue the following year, An American Girl: McKenna Shoots for the Stars spotlighting a young gymnast and the trials of competition, and An American Girl: Saige Paints the Sky crafting a story about a girl with artistic aspirations who also goes to a ranch camp, where there’s plenty of horseback riding.

The historical dramas were better made, but the filmmakers are obviously chasing a market, and most girls love art and horses, right? That’s obviously what they were thinking, and they continue that two-for-one approach with Isabelle Dances into the Spotlight.

Isabellescreen1In this 2014 direct-to-video release, Erin Pitt (ironically, a Canadian actress) plays American Girl Isabelle Palmer, a young girl who dreams of studying ballet at a high level, but who also has an interest in and aptitude for fashion—though this aspect is really glossed over in the film. We’re told that the heroine is nine years old, but even young girls will notice that Pitt looks every bit of her 15 years. Is that a problem? Not really, but parents may wonder why the screenwriters couldn’t have made her 12, or speculate that if she were slightly older, maybe we wouldn’t have to endure so much cutesy Cosby Show banter and Barbie movie giggles.

The American Girl films present problems for the main characters to work through, and confidence and second/middle child syndrome are at issue here, with Isabelle trying to cope with the fact that her older sister, Jade (Grace Davidson, Radio Disney Music Awards), is a far better student and the more accomplished and assured dancer.

Since one theme is that siblings should be able to understand each other and get along, sibling rivalry doesn’t get out of hand or push the plot toward a crisis. The girls clearly love and support each other. Rather, the conflict comes at the hands of a mean girl named Renata (Genneya Walton), and it’s Isabelle’s own easily shattered confidence that threatens to derail the young dancer’s hopes and dreams.  For boys in the family and parents it will be something that’s watched out of courtesy, but it’s a well made film considering the target audience. More

RIO 2 (Blu-ray combo)

July 15, 2014

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

Rio2coverGrade: B+
Entire family: Yes
2014, 101 min., Color
Rated G
20th Century Fox Animation
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Digital Copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

I won’t beat around the rainforest. If your family enjoyed Rio, they’ll appreciate this sequel, which brings back all of the original voice talents and offers the same sort of smorgasbord of songs, richly textured animation, and a serviceable plot that combines humor with mild peril. Even when that plot hits an occasional speed bump, the animation is so darned captivating that you don’t really notice.

If Rio showed that 20th Century Fox Animation had finally moved into Disney’s neighborhood, with Rio 2 they’ve taken off their shoes and propped their feet up on the coffee table. This talented bunch is clearly comfortable with what they’re doing, and they strut their stuff at every opportunity, showcasing things like complicated big-cast song-and-dance sequences and the hyper-realistic water and fireworks that used to be the sole province of Disney animators. And the writing, while not on a par with the best of Disney, is certainly good enough to match second-tier Disney efforts.

Other things Fox apparently learned from Disney animators are the importance of character personalities and the impact that small details and quirky comedic moments can have on a film. Rio 2 is loaded with little surprises that catch you off-guard and make you smile or laugh out loud. What’s interesting is that it’s often not the same sight gag or verbal gibe that tickles everyone’s fancy. I watched this with three family members, and it seemed as if each of us blurted out an expression of delight at least once when the rest of the room was silent.

A feast for the senses, Rio 2 picks up where Rio left off. You don’t have to know the whole backstory because there are hints embedded in the narrative. But it certainly helps—especially to appreciate the evil cockatoo Nigel’s current predicament. In Rio, Linda (Leslie Mann) had brought her blue macaw Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) to Rio to mate him with Jewel (Anne Hathaway), after she learned from ornithologist Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) that those two are the last of their species. By film’s end, she had married Tulio and set up a blue macaw sanctuary. In Rio 2 their love-birds have three spirited offspring—Carla, Bia, and Tiago—and on an expedition to release a rehabilitated bird, Tulio and Linda glimpse another rare blue macaw. So the whole group sets off on an expedition deep into the Amazon to discover if there are more.   More

HOW THE WEST WAS WON: SEASON 2 (DVD)

July 9, 2014

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

HowtheWestwasWoncoverGrade: B-
Entire family: No
1978-79, 900 min. (14 episodes), Color
Not rated; would be PG for some violence and adult situations
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: None

What does the star of an iconic TV Western do after the series ends its 20-year run? If that star is James Arness, he goes right from Gunsmoke to How the West Was Won, turning in his marshal’s badge to hobble around bowlegged as cagey frontier scout Zeb Macahan.

Gunsmoke left the small screen after the 1974-75 season, and the following year Arness donned fringed buckskins to play Zeb Macahan in a TV movie. That realistic, location-shot film was so popular that it led to a mini-series in 1977, and a bona fide TV series in 1978. But Westerns were on their way out. Gunsmoke was the #1 TV show in America from 1957 to 1960, but How the West Was Won only managed to place 11th its first season, four places behind Little House on the Prairie—the only other Western to crack the Top 30 shows. After that, it dropped out of the Nielsen elite, leaving Little House on the Prairie as the only popularly watched Western. It was clearly the end of an era.

Partly, though, it was because the blend of realism and melodrama that sustained How the West Was Won its first two outings started to tip more toward melodrama by the second season. And Arness, who was so genially believable as the crusty Zeb Macahan, develops a slight case of John Wayne syndrome this season, with his performance at times resembling a caricature of his character.

That said, Season 2 is still a cut above the average TV Western.  More

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