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THE CROODS (Blu-ray combo)

October 11, 2013

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

CroodscoverGrade:  B+
Entire family:  Yes
Rated PG for “some scary action”
Dreamsworks Animation
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV copy
Trailer

Dreamworks Animation has really been pushing Pixar lately, and they’ve done it again with “The Croods.” There are eye-popping allusions to “Avatar” and jaw-dropping sequences of cataclysmic clouds of rubble that rival any of the animation we’ve seen recently. Watching in HD especially, you come away from this caveman comedy feeling slightly awestruck by the visuals.

Pixar still leads in the department of narrative invention, though, as “The Croods” tells a familiar story of a teenage girl who wants to “break out” and lead a life apart from the cocoon-like existence her father has designed. When a boy her age comes into the picture, Dad responds to the threat with all the warmth of a saber-toothed tiger who has a thorn in his paw. His little girl is HIS little girl, and he’s not about to let that change.

But change is on the menu in “The Croods,” which is set in a fictional Pliocene era known as the “Croodaceous” period—a transitional time in the history of the earth when flaming asteroid showers, erupting volcanoes, and shifting geological planes tear the earth apart and thrust mountain ranges high above what used to be an ocean floor. And humans are ready to take a big (comic) step forward in the evolutionary chain.  More

THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) (3D Blu-ray combo)

October 1, 2013

James Plath, Family Home Theater 3D, Animation, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

LittleMermaidcoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
1989, 83 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Bonus features:  B+
Includes: 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy, 10-song download
Trailer

Though the Disney’s acknowledged Golden Age of animation began in 1938 with Snow White, seven dwarfs, and Nine Old Men—the original team of animators—the studio’s 1989 production of The Little Mermaid launched what could only be called a second Golden Age.

Disney’s 28th animated feature broke new ground by infusing the narrative with Broadway-style songs from composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, whose music theater work included Little Shop of Horrors. The two brought a new energy to Disney animation—it was Ashman’s idea to turn the crab in the screenplay from an English butler type to a Jamaican Rastafarian—and directors Ron Clements and John Musker had a budget to work with that was larger than it had been in decades.  But it’s all in the details, and Disney really ramped up the animation and backgrounds to create an undersea world that was nothing short of spectacular. That successful formula would also be used in Beauty and the Beast two years later, and in The Lion King (1994).

Broadway actress Jodi Benson was chosen to play Ariel, and she brings a wide-eyed innocence and passion to the role—and to Ariel’s signature song, “Part of Your World.” Each song moves the narrative and character development forward, with several big production numbers so rousing (and with characters assuming “Ta da!” poses at the end) that many theater audiences burst into applause.

Viewers could identify with Ariel, too. She was a flawed Disney “princess” who was all the more endearing because of her humanness (uh, fish tail notwithstanding). She disobeyed her father to follow her passion, she was talented but easily distracted and perhaps too trusting—and most importantly, she aspired to a life that was different from the one her father envisioned.  More

HIS MAJESTY O’KEEFE (DVD)

September 5, 2013

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

HisMajestyO'KeefecoverGrade:  C+
Entire family:  Yes, but . . .
1954, 90 min., Color
Not rated (would be PG for some violence)
Warner Bros. Archive Collection
Aspect ratio:  1.37:1
Featured audio:  Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: D
Trailer

South Seas. Romance. Those words are almost synonymous, and in His Majesty O’Keefe, a 1954 semi-swashbuckler starring the acrobatic Burt Lancaster, all the color of the islands bursts onto the screen.

Narrated in voiceover by the main character, a 19th-century Yankee sea captain who is determined to get his share of the lucrative copra (dried coconut) market, His Majesty O’Keefe will remind literature students a little bit of Conrad’s Lord Jim or Melville’s heroes from Typee or Omoo. It’s the story of an adventurer’s exploits in an exotic land where beautiful native girls are as plentiful as the islands’ other resources, and dangers lurk not with the elements, but with potentially hostile indigenous people. In the ‘50s, or even a generation ago, that would have been enough to hold the interest of most families. After all, here was a chance to see Fiji (it was filmed mostly on the island of Vitu Levu), and producer Harold Hecht and director Byron Haskin featured real islanders in the film.

But today’s families can just go to Google Earth if they want to see Fiji, and they’re so used to seeing violence and dazzling special effects in action movies that the clashes in this film will seem not-so-adventurous—especially the one-on-one fights where punches that look like glancing blows send a man toppling in a series of backward somersaults. His Majesty O’Keefe has an old-fashioned movie vibe, and the “native” dress and dances suggest more than a touch of Hollywood. So how your family will respond to this depends on how they respond to old-time Hollywood films.   More

THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH (Blu-ray combo)

August 28, 2013

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, G rated 2 Comments

WinniethePoohcoverGrade:  B+
Entire family:  Yes (but mostly for young ones)
1977, 74 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio:  1.66:1
Featured audio:  DEHT 5.1
Bonus features:  C-
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer

Watching The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is kind of like riding on “It’s a Small World” at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. It’s a ride obviously designed for families with small children, but many adults seem to enjoy it as well. However, if you position yourself atop the bridge and watch the little boats return, you’ll see by the faces of the older children that they’re reluctant passengers. So it will be with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Though Milne said he wrote not for children but for the child within us all, Disney’s “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” is clearly designed for very young viewers, as the bonus features (get up and march along or bounce along) attest. And Pooh is a kinder, gentler cartoon than anything older children are accustomed to seeing on television.   More

RETURN TO NEVER LAND (Blu-ray combo)

August 25, 2013

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

ReturntoNeverLandcoverGrade:  B-
Entire family:  Yes (but mostly for young ones)
2002, 72 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio:  16×9
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features:  D
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer

Return to Never Land played in theaters in 2002 rather than going direct-to-video—an indication that Disney thought more highly of this sequel than some of their others. But it’s so similar in structure that if you’ve recently seen the original 1953 animated Peter Pan, you may wonder why this film was even made.

Instead of Wendy being the skeptic, it’s her teenage daughter, Jane, who finds Mother’s stories of Never Land juvenile and utterly inappropriate, given historical events. It’s around 1940, the men have gone off to war, and the young children are being shipped to the country to protect England’s investment in the future. Jane’s siblings are already out of the picture when she is swept away to Never Land, where she discovers it’s all real and learns a lesson about belief.

But there’s one important difference:  Return to Never Land is a much lighter, brighter film.  Instead of a ticking crocodile in pursuit of Captain Hook, it’s an octopus that’s rendered more comically. Hook is up to his hostage-taking ways again, trying to lure Pan to his demise, and once again he’s foiled. But there’s not the same dramatic intensity here. There’s also less emphasis on the Lost Boys being orphans and needing a mother, so there’s correspondingly less potential trauma for young viewers susceptible to separation anxiety. Pan’s resistance to growing up is hardly an issue. Likewise, Tinker Bell is less jealous and malevolent this time around, a much softer character—as if the studio was laying the groundwork for the Tinker Bell Pixie Hollow series that would be launched six years later. And thankfully missing from Never Land this time around are the less-than-politically-correct (“Uggh”?) Indians.  More

EPIC (Blu-ray combo)

August 22, 2013

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

EpiccoverGrade:  B
Entire family:  Yes
2013, 102 min., Color
Rated PG for mild action, some scary images and brief rude language
Twentieth Century Fox Animation
Aspect ratio:  2.40:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 7.1
Bonus features:  C-
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, DigitalHD Copy
Trailer

The plot of Epic will strike older family members as yet another mythic kingdom structure, where a world (like Narnia, for example) is dependent upon the balance between good and evil, or at least evil being kept in check. When evil surges and suddenly poses a more urgent threat to the future of all life, hope lies in a chosen one or a youngling or budding new emblem of goodness that needs to be protected until such time as the Good One can assume his/her/its rightful position, and balance (or at least the illusion of it) can be restored.

After her mother passes away, teen Mary-Kate (Amanda Seyfried) comes to live with her eccentric and estranged father, Prof. Bomba (Jason Sudeikis), whose singleminded drive to prove the existence of miniature forest warriors created a distance between him and his family. But after M.K., as she prefers to be called, is magically miniaturized, she learns her father was right all along—that the Leaf Men he sought really do exist, and they ride hummingbirds as they battle the forces of evil in a forest nearby the professor’s Victorian house.

Epic was inspired by a children’s book intended for ages 3-8—The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, by William Joyce—but many scenes also evoke Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The plot is just good enough to get by, and the energy level and forward movement are sufficient to hold even the most easily distracted child’s attention. But the film’s chief strength lies in its depiction of a new and exotic world and appreciating how Fox animators envisioned and created such a world.

Epic is epically gorgeous in its art design and animation.   More

STANDING UP (Blu-ray combo)

August 17, 2013

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

StandingUpwebcoverGrade:  C+
Entire family:  Yes (but it’s slow)
2013, 93 min., Color
Rated PG for thematic elements including bullying and for brief smoking and language
Arc Entertainment
Aspect ratio:  16×9
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features:  D
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, Vudu digital copy
Trailer

Standing Up is D.J. Caruso’s film adaptation of The Goats, a popular juvenile novel by Brock Cole that’s been among the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, according to the American Library Association. I can see why.

Standing Up tells the story of a cruel tradition at a summer camp that has boys luring the weakest among them to an island, then stripping him naked and leaving him there for a while. The girls at camp do the same thing to one of their own—or rather, the one who fits in the least. Marooned most often are the geeks, the nerds, the misfits, the kids who would be made fun, bullied, or shunned during the school year by a different group of insensitive “cool” kids. Camp counselors look the other way so this “tradition” can continue, but this year’s “goats” feel so humiliated and hurt by their experience that they go on the run instead of waiting to be picked up again and taken back to camp.

“Standing up” implies standing up to bullies, which is a brave but not always healthy thing to do. Running is more practical, but not terribly empowering. Also, there’s a single incident when the pre-teen boy comes to the rescue of his companion, yet that involves a blindsided leg sweep like the bad guys did to The Karate Kid. It’s not terribly noble, and in fact strikes me as something a bully might do.

The two kids become to an extent, outlaws on the run, and they model behavior that isn’t exactly what you’d want your kids to do:  they lie, they steal, they scam their way into a motel, and they tell other kids they meet along the way that their names are Bonnie and Clyde—so their lawlessness didn’t escape the author. Yet, curiously, Standing Up proudly bears the Dove Family Seal of Approval. Maybe that’s because of a tone that more closely resembles an indie film than a crime drama, and because Grace (Annalise Basso) and Howie (Chandler Canterbury) are more desperate than they are desperadoes.  More

THE MUPPET MOVIE (Blu-ray combo)

August 2, 2013

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

MuppetMoviecoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
1979, 95 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio:  1.85:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features:  C+
Includes:  Blu-ray, Digital Copy
Trailer

I watched The Muppet Movie with my ‘tween daughter last night and we both were apprehensive. We had gone to Disney’s Hollywood Studios earlier in the summer and were totally unimpressed with “The Muppets 3D” attraction—a 3D movie that frankly wasn’t worth the long wait. The jokes were bad, the puppetry was only so-so, and the script was as ordinary as a called strike in baseball.

But it’s hard not to warm to a film that begins with Kermit the Frog strumming a banjo on a log in the swamp and singing “Rainbow Connection,” the Oscar-nominated song from Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher (who wrote the other seven songs in this film as well). And when Kermit decides to leave the bayou and we see his long, fuzzy green legs pedaling a bicycle down the road, we both laughed out loud. We were hooked.  More

ROBIN HOOD (1973) (Blu-ray combo)

July 30, 2013

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

robinhoodcoverGrade:  C+
Entire family:  Yes (though it might bore older ones)
1973, 83 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio:  1.66:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features:  C+
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Trailer

Of all the animated Disney movies from the ‘70s, Robin Hood had perhaps the most potential, but suffers from a mild case of “averageitis.” For me it just didn’t hold up as well as some of the other Disney entries—though the kids thought it comparable to other Disney features.

Although Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Disney’s fabled Nine Old Men, directed Disney’s 1973 animated adaptation of the Robin Hood legend—one which hovers close in plot to the Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood classic—the music isn’t as well integrated, and the story seems flat in spots.

There’s a hint of limitation in the title sequence, which simply features a parade of characters marching across the screen to a folk-pop song by Roger Miller, then running back the other direction, chased by another group of uniformed animals. At times, the animators seemed satisfied to be going for “cute” instead of clever, and there just isn’t the same give-and-take robust energy to the characters of Robin Hood (a fox, voiced by Brian Bedford) and Little John (a bear, voiced by Phil Harris) as there was with Flynn and his partner in live-action convivial crime, Alan Hale. Other characters also seem too nice, or too nondescript.

The most memorable ones are Prince John (Peter Ustinov), whose demeanor vacillates between delusions of grandeur and infantile withdrawal, and his advisor, Sir Hiss (Terry-Thomas), a snake whose schtick comes closest to what passes for snappy patter in this film.  More

SHANE (Blu-ray)

July 30, 2013

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, PG rated, Western 2 Comments

ShanecoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes (with an asterisk)
1953, 118 min., Color
Unrated (would be PG)
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio:  1.37:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 2.0
Bonus features:  C+
Trailer 

Jack Schaefer’s 1949 novel has been credited for helping the Western make the leap from pulp fiction aimed at youngsters to serious adult fiction. It also established the formula for countless movies and TV series, and I can’t think of a better “starter” Western to introduce youngsters to the genre.

That’s because in Shane (1953), as in the book, we see the action through the eyes of a young boy  (Brandon De Wilde), and the lad’s hero worship is nicely balanced by underlying issues that families can use for discussion. That point of view also creates a gap between Joey’s understanding of the situation and the audience’s. To Joey (Bob, in the book), whose father has taught him that guns and violence are to be avoided, Shane and his pearl-handled .45 seem heroic. The audience realizes that one reason Shane decides to stay and work as a hired hand is that he’s weary of the gunslinger’s life and wishes he could have what that family has—a point that’s driven home when it’s made clear  the farmer’s wife has her own attraction for the handsome stranger. But when he gets caught up in a simmering range war, any hopes of settling down are threatened.

I’m giving it an asterisk for family viewing because of the violence—tame by Western standards, but violent nonetheless. There are two main fistfights that establish the character of homesteader Joe Starrett (Van Hefflin) and Shane (Alan Ladd), a mysterious stranger who’s awfully jumpy and good with a gun. There’s also a close-range shooting by a hired gun (Jack Palance) and a climactic gun battle in a darkened saloon. For the most part, though, it’s a case of rising tensions between cattlemen and farmers.   More

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