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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

A LITTLE GAME (DVD)

January 21, 2015

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

LittleGamecoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes
2014, 91 min., Color
Rated PG for mild language and thematic elements
Arc Entertainment
Aspect ratio: 16×9 widescreen
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

There’s always something a little hokey about movies made for children to watch with their parents—kind of like Norman Rockwell paintings that depict life, but also simplify and idealize it. There’s a cheery afterschool special tone to them that resists any comparison to reality as we know it.

Then again, when something in that facile genre gets an infusion of talent and its heart is in the right place, it’s tough to find fault.

That’s how I felt watching A Little Game, which struck me as Karate Kid plays chess instead of learning martial arts. It struck co-star Ralph Macchio the same way, only in this 2014 film from Arc Entertainment he plays the dad rather than the kid in this coming-of-age story. In a bonus feature that mixes interview clips with behind-the-scenes NYC shooting footage, Macchio admits it’s just like the Karate Kid. And playing the Mister Miyagi role brilliantly is F. Murray Abraham as an irascible chess master who spends his time in Washington Park playing pick-up chess games for money. He has a background that we assume is impressive, though it’s never really stated. Like Pat Morita in Karate Kid, he also has a roundabout way of instruction that teaches his pupil as much about life as about the game itself. And as in Karate Kid, his pupil is bullied and feeling lonely and ostracized. Chess becomes a focal point that changes everything.

I know what you’re thinking. Chess??? That slow-moving Rook-to-A-3 strategy game of intellectuals that’s been around since the 6th century? Yep. Part of the fascination comes from the way that chess master Norman Wallach teaches—insisting, in true “wax on, wax off” fashion, that his pupil learn step by step and discover things in the city that will help her to understand the moves on the chess board, and part of the fun comes from Norman’s cranky personality and feisty exchanges with a precocious 10 year old whose parents let her ride the subway by herself.

I wouldn’t say that newcomer Makenna Ballard carries the film, but she co-carries it with Abraham. Without them, there’s really no interest, despite a smarter-than-usual screenplay. Without them, the minor characters stand out as stock types who function in ways we’ve seen at least a thousand times. But Ballard and Abraham’s characters are both so darned likeable and their relationship so deliciously testy that you really don’t need much else.   More

THE PIRATES (2014) (Blu-ray)

January 17, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Foreign (subtitles), PG-13 rated Leave a comment

PiratescoverGrade: B
Entire family: No
2014, 130 min., Color
Not rated (would be PG-13 for some violence and language)
Well Go USA
Aspect ratio: 16×9 widescreen
Featured audio: Korean 5.1 HD Surround/DTS-HD
Bonus features: None
Trailer

The real test of a movie in our household is whether one or all of us want to add that film to our collection so we can watch it again. And 15 minutes into The Pirates, my teenage son was cracking up and saying, “This is a keeper.” I second the notion.

But I’ll tell you right now, your children have to be good and confident readers to enjoy this South Korean comedy-adventure, because it’s presented in Korean with English subtitles, and there’s plenty of fast-talking action.

Director Lee Seok-hoon pays obvious homage to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise with a slick comedy-adventure that features a Johnny Depp-like bandit leader known as Crazy Tiger (Jang Sa-jung) and a female pirate chief-turned-captain (Son Ye-jin). There are funnily harrowing escapes and even a giant water wheel that rolls through a marketplace, all of which will remind you of Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swan.

There’s a thin line between “homage” and “rip-off,” but The Pirates also features plenty of quirky originality. How else to describe a plot that turns on a whale that happens to swallow the royal seal and gold that was en route to validate a new dynasty? Though the film is set in 1388 and on the surface seems to tell the epic tale behind the founding of the Joseon Dynasty, there’s more comedy and magical realism in The Pirates than there is actual history. If it were an American film we’d be calling it a blockbuster or a popcorn movie, because it’s all about big special effects, a high-concept Hollywood formula, and plenty of action and laughs.   More

THE MAZE RUNNER (Blu-ray combo)

December 31, 2014

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

MazeRunnercoverGrade: B+
Entire family: No
2014, 113 min., Color
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and intense sequences of sci-fi violence
20th Century Fox
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

The Maze Runner is the latest young adult post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel series to make it to the big screen. Directed by relative newcomer Wes Ball (Beginners), the film follows the journey of 16-year-old Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), who awakens in an elevator shaft that dumps him in the middle of a grassy field, surrounded by a gigantic stone maze. He’s not the only one, because other teenage boys have been deposited here, and none of them have any memory of who they were before the Maze—they only remember their names.

Like the boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, they establish a society in which some people have authority and the rest function according to jobs that need to be done. They call their society the Glade, and what sets this film apart from others based on young adult sci-fi novels is that there isn’t a romantic interest. It’s all about the boys trying to explore and map The Maze with designated “runners” without jeopardizing their existence by angering whoever or whatever controls the ever-shifting, ever-changing maze.   More

DRAWING WITH MARK: TAKE FLIGHT, AS THE WHEELS TURN, A DAY AT THE FIRE STATION (DVD)

December 17, 2014

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

DrawingwithMarkcoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes, but . . .
2014, 90 min., Color
Unrated (would be G)
Shelter Island/Big City
Aspect ratio: 16×9
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features: C

If you have a small child who loves to draw and wants to get better at representational art, the Drawing with Mark DVDs might be just the ticket. While there are scores of learn-to-draw books out there, let’s face it: this up-and-coming generation is motivated by electronic and interactive learning situations, and nothing can take the place of actually seeing an artist draw so you can imitate the strokes. Maybe that’s why this series has earned the Seal of Approval from The National Parenting Center.

Mark Marderosian worked as an illustrator for Disney books and Golden Books during the ‘90s and in 2007 he created and marketed a collection of children’s stuffed animals called Angels from the Attic, with each character coming with a related storybook. In 2010 he and designer-animator Robert Palmer Jr. developed a TV show called Drawing with Mark, which was provided free of charge to public-access cable TV stations. That first year more than 105 channels came onboard, and in 2013 the Boston/New England Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nominated the show for a Regional Emmy Award in the Children’s/Youth category.

It didn’t win, and I can see why. Though Mark’s heart is in the right place, the show combines “visits” to see the real thing plus drawing lessons, and the latter is definitely stronger than those field trips. Children are savvy and Mark comes across as not quite exuberant enough and the writing such that you wonder what ages are being targeted. Since his animated “angels” hover in many of the field-trip scenes, you have to think that he’s going for the seven-and-under crowd, but the drawing lessons themselves are such that the whole family can participate.

Pictionary is popular, and I can see families with children too young to play that game starting off with this. Pop in a DVD and have everyone draw, then compare and see how people did. Since family members will draw at different speeds, you’ll want to be able to pause the DVD frequently to give everyone a chance to catch up.

DrawingwithMarkscreenDrawing with Mark: Take Flight, As the Wheels Turn & Fire Station was released on December 2, and so was Let’s Go to the Zoo & Zoo Stories. At the risk of perpetuating gender stereotypes, it’s still been my experience that cars and planes and fire engines are of more interest to boys, but there’s an advantage to starting with this disc: there’s more angularity in vehicles, and they therefore seem easier to draw than the animals.

As the press release for this title notes, “In addition to its Parent’s Choice and Creative Child Magazine awards, Drawing with Mark is a Dr. Toy winner for “best vacation” product and was approved by Kids FIRST!, a voluntary collaboration consisting of more than 100,000 members whose mandate is to teach children critical viewing skills and to increase the visibility and availability of quality children’s media.”

And I will say this: My children can attest that I’m the worst drawer when it comes to a game like Pictionary, but I was able to draw the airplane and cars right along with Mark. The secret is in the steps, and while Mark won’t be there forever to follow, you have to believe that learning the logic of sequence in a number of examples will make enough of an impact so young would-be artists can begin to guess sequences on other objects as well.

HAPPY DAYS: SEASON 6 (DVD)

December 11, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, TV Comedy Leave a comment

HappyDays6coverGrade: C-
Entire family: Yes
1978-79, 661 min., Color
Unrated (would be G)
CBS/Paramount
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: C-

Some sitcoms are born fully formed, but that wasn’t the case with Happy Days. Though it debuted as a mid-season replacement in January 1974 and finished in the #16 spot that season, it took a second year before the series really hit its stride. By Season 4, Happy Days had become a pop phenomenon, in part because the ‘70s were a time of turmoil and this show transported everyone back to the happier, simpler 1950s. But a “greaser” named Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) quickly became the show’s most popular, and his catch phrase “Heyyyy!” caught on just as much as the show’s “Sit on it!” insult.

During its fourth season Happy Days became the #1 show in America, then dropped to #2 its fifth season and #3 its sixth. But truthfully, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. The early shows were driven by ‘50s nostalgia and ‘50s situations and phrases, like “You got it made in the shade.” Then the show’s success changed everything. Fans loved Fonzie, so, as it happened with Mister Ed and other TV sitcoms where a character took over, more episodes were written to showcase him. And when fans responded well to the crooning of Potsie Weber (Anson Williams), he got more songs—way too many, given the generic quality of his voice. Before you knew it, the plots bore little resemblance to the 1950s and were instead character-driven. That also meant the plots became more generic, because, no longer tied to the ‘50s, they could have happened to anyone.

In Season 5 Fonzie “jumped the shark,” literally, on water skis. But figuratively the phrase has come to mean when a TV show starts to go downhill. You don’t have to look any farther in Season 6 than the first three episodes, in which the whole cast packs up and moves west to help Marion’s uncle save his dude ranch. It’s clear that the writers thought the characters were so popular that they could put just about anything down on paper and it would work. But with such character-driven plots, ‘50s nostalgia was the first casualty . . . and that’s what had made the show popular in the first place. This season, the characters—including Ralph Malph (Donnie Most), Mrs. C. (Marion Ross), Mr. C. (Tom Bosley), and Al from the drive-in (Al Delvecchio) seem like caricatures of themselves.

HappyDays6screenA full 25 out of 27 Season 6 episodes are inferior, with the only exceptions being one in which Potsie drops out of school, and another in which Joanie (Erin Moran) falls for the high school quarterback but sees him with another girl and ends up facing her Sweet Sixteenth birthday party without a date—and even that episode is marred by Potsie’s singing. The other shows involve an incredible amount of silliness and hard-to-believe situations, whether its Fonzie becoming blind after being hit by a serving tray, the gang dressing up for Thanksgiving, or Richie falsely accused of being the Kissing Bandit. These “post-shark” episodes seem mostly contrived, and if families want to give Happy Days a chance, your best bet is to go with Seasons 2, 3 and 4. Those are truly family-friendly seasons that hold up, still.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Blu-ray)

December 10, 2014

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

GuardianscoverGrade: A-
Entire family: No, but . . .
2014, 121 min., Color
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action and for some language
Disney-Marvel
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Bonus features: C
Trailer

Who could have predicted that a Han Solo type, a talking raccoon, a walking tree, an ill-tempered green-skinned woman, and a shirtless tattooed convict would make such an entertaining group to watch? Almost as surprising—at least for the parents who thought they were turning their kids on to another Star Wars—is that Disney-Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is about a group of intergalactic escaped convicts who band together despite great differences and decide to do something unselfish for a change. And it’s a doozy: they try to save the universe, starting with a planet that the villain intends to destroy.

The main characters are different from the group that appeared in the 1969 Marvel comic book, but credit Disney for finding a way to assemble them from other Marvel comics and insert them into a cohesive, slam-bang sci-fi/fantasy adventure that takes the original Guardians concept and runs with it, while also generating a comic-book vibe built on non-stop action. And the best part? Humor rides along in a sidecar.

The film’s gags and jokes will make all that sci-fi violence palatable for parents who worry about their children being exposed to such things. Guardians feels like a visual comic book, and tone is largely responsible. It’s fun, it’s funny, it features a strangely likable group of characters and terrific action sequences and special effects, and the screenplay and direction keep things moving along—another surprise, really, if you consider that the film is directed by James Gunn, the fellow who gave us the clunky live-action Scooby-Doo movie.

GuardiansscreenChris Pratt really anchors the cast. He’s infectiously likable as Peter Quill, an Earthling who’s snatched as a boy by a blue-skinned interplanetary rogue (played rather menacingly in Woody Harrelson Natural Born Killers fashion by Michael Rooker). Like Jim Hawkins and Oliver before him, he’s adopted and taught the ways of thievery, thuggery, and skullduggery. But a brief stint in prison puts him in contact with Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a mutation that’s intelligent enough to know he’s the product of wild experimentation, and Rocket’s sidekick, the talking, walking tree named Groot (Vin Diesel). There he also meets Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the green-skinned woman who, like him, was adopted and trained for a life that goes against her nature, and Drax (WWE star Dave Bautista), a tattooed shirtless hulk who’s bent on avenging his family’s death. Together they figure out how to break out of prison, and when responsibility for saving the universe falls their way, they all stand tall. Well, except for that little raccoon.   More

DOLPHIN TALE 2 (Blu-ray combo)

November 29, 2014

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

DolphinTale2coverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes
2014, 107 min., Color
Rated PG for some mild thematic elements
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Bonus features: C+
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Copy
Trailer

When you do the right thing, you don’t have to do it perfectly in order to make a difference. So I’m going to pick up a pocketknife and cut this film some slack, the way that its main characters have had to cut fishing line and nets off of trapped and disabled marine life.

Dolphin Tale was based on a true story and used a combination of CGI, animatronics, and real dolphins to tell the tale of Winter, a rescued animal that was fitted with a prosthetic tail and became a beacon of inspiration for physically challenged people everywhere. So many of them came to the Clearwater Marine Hospital to see her that the place not only survived its own bout with possible extinction, but also expanded to a full-blown aquarium to accommodate all the new interest. People who made this film thought it was a one-and-done, with no plans for a sequel. But when they realized that the story about the subsequent acquisition of a very young dolphin named Hope was just as interesting and actually intersected with Winter’s story, Dolphin Tale 2 was born.

The same cast returns, with singer Harry Connick, Jr. playing Dr. Clay Haskett, the amiable head of Clearwater Marine Hospital. Kris Kristofferson is his retired father who lives in a houseboat next to the hospital, while Morgan Freeman reprises his role as prosthetics expert Dr. Cameron McCarthy, and Ashley Judd returns as the mother of Sawyer, a young boy who formed a bond with Winter in the first film.

In the sequel, the boy and Dr. Haskett’s daughter, Hazel, have risen to positions of importance at the aquarium, and the three-year gap between the 2011 original and this film is especially evident when you look at the young actors. Nathan Gamble (Marley & Me) was 13 when Dolphin Tale was released, and his co-star Cozi Zuehlsdorff was younger still. Now they’re more poised and self-assured teens, and if the rule of thumb holds true for young actors—that they tend to appeal to an audience younger, not older than they are—it only means that the audience for Dolphin Tale 2 has grown right along with them.   More

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