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SOPHIA GRACE & ROSIE’S ROYAL ADVENTURE (Blu-ray combo)

May 16, 2014

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

SophiaGracecoverGrade: C
Entire family: Theoretically, but . . .
2014, 75 min., Color
Warner Bros.
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.0
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features: C+/B-
Trailer

There are three types of people who will go for Sophia Grace & Rosie’s Royal Adventure: people who are charmed by the duo’s YouTube videos, fans of Toddlers & Tiaras, and Ellen DeGeneres. And if only some members of your family fall into any of those categories, you can be sure that the rest will groan or complain all the way through this film.

I was thinking about why Sophia Grace & Rosie’s Royal Adventure has more limited appeal than the old Shirley Temple movies, and maybe it’s as simple as the difference between watching Shirley Temple perform “On the Good Ship Lollipop” or watching another little girl imitate Shirley Temple. It’s the difference between being cute and acting cute, and television is famous for giving us way too many of the latter. Then too, even when Temple was being cute, she was sweet. And there will always be a broader audience for sweetness than there is for attitude, even if we describe it euphemistically as “precociousness.”

Sophia Grace and Rosie first appeared on Ellen in 2011 when they were eight and five years old, respectively, and the older girl performed Niki Minaj’s “Super Bass” while her younger cousin went through the motions alongside her because it made her less nervous. More appearances (and many more YouTube videos) followed, with the pair acting as mini-journalists and doing Red Carpet interviews—always in their trademark pink princessy dresses and tiaras. Then they were recruited for two episodes of the Nickelodeon sitcom Sam & Cat, in which teen stars Jennette McCurdy and Ariana Grande’s characters had to babysit two two-faced “BritBrats” and later had to deal with the “Revenge of the BritBrats.” Even without watching those episodes you can see how the girls’ onscreen personas have been shaped.

Now they’re on their own with no Ellen and no teen stars. Can they carry a movie? Yes indeed, if you happen to like them. If not, it’s like being trapped in an elevator with a valley girl who’s a nonstop chatterer intent on giving you a play by play as she scales Mount Inanity.

SophiaGracescreenIn their Royal Adventure, Sophia Grace & Rosie are sent to Switzelvania as correspondents for Ellen in order to report on the coronation of a new queen, but when they arrive they find that three princesses are scheming to get that crown. And so these “journalists” decide to make the news instead of reporting it by plotting and coaching so that the best candidate wins. Of course the humor is played over-the-top and since the film is a showcase for Sophia Grace & Rosie they don’t have to steal each scene—it’s handed to them on a silver platter.

Though they overact in the manner of way too many child actors, Sophia Grace & Rosie still impress with their ability to memorize scenes and play to reaction shots. I mean, they’re still only 11 and eight years old, and they really do an amazing job of just being professionals. But over the past three years it seems that the older cousin has gotten more full of herself and therefore more annoying . . . unless you’re a fan of Toddlers & Tiaras or are big fans of Sophia Grace & Rosie because you like their act. Very little girls who are into pink and all things princess will enjoy this movie as well. But for everyone else? It’s like watching a Shirley Temple imitator at a talent contest who tries to act cute, rather than being cute and not knowing it. They’re great in small doses, but the girls make this 75-minute feature feel a lot longer.

THE RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN COLLECTION (Blu-ray)

May 15, 2014

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

R&HcoverGrade: B/B-
Entire family: Yes (well, two-thirds, at least)
1945-1965, 838 min. (6 films), Color
20th Century Fox
Rated G
Aspect ratios: 1.37:1, 2.55:1, 2.20:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1, DTS-HD MA 5.1, DTS-HD MA 4.0, DTS-HD MA Mono
Bonus features: B-

Rodgers & Hammerstein are Broadway legends, having won a total of 34 Tony Awards for their work. They’ve done all right with film adaptations, too, earning 15 Academy Awards. So if you’re a fan of old musicals and want to share that with your children, it might be tempting to pick up this collection. But don’t do it because you think it will be a good resource should your children get a part in a future high school musical. According to The Broadway Scoop, not one Rodgers & Hammerstein musical ranks among the Top 10 Musicals currently being performed by high schools.

Does that mean they’re dated, or as corny as Kansas in August? Some of them, yes. For that reason, it might be better to wait (right now four out of six are only available through this collection) to buy these titles individually, rather than as an eight-disc, six-film collection, because while two of the films are surefire winners and two are entertaining-enough slices of rural Americana to where they will be of marginal interest to younger viewers, the remaining two musicals feature topics that won’t engage children much.

The King and I and The Sound of Music, with 10 Oscars between them, are the most likely to have wide family appeal. They’re colorful spectacles, and both of them have a large cast of children that will interest young ones.

Set in the 1860s, The King and I features Yul Brynner as the King of Siam, who, in his desire to become a more “scientific” ruler, has decided to educate himself and to hire a teacher to instruct his many children. Deborah Kerr is the English widow who arrives with her son and falls in love with the children (as we do). Audiences also love the give-and-take sparring between her and the KingandIscreenking, while everyone around him is so fearful of his authority. She helps him put on a state dinner for visiting western dignitaries to prove he’s no barbarian, and he charms her with his own grace and gratitude. The costumes are lavish, the songs are wonderfully catchy—like “Getting to Know You,” “Shall We Dance,” and “I Whistle a Happy Tune”—and they have core messages that will resonate, even with children. The ending is sad and it might take some discussion to frame it for your youngest, but The King and I still has wide appeal. Unfortunately, the film isn’t out on Blu-ray except in this collection.

The Sound of Music is already available as a stand-alone Blu-ray title, and in fact if your family likes bonus features the stand-alone is the better buy. That’s because the second disc of bonus features on the stand-alone is not included in this set—an unfortunate omission. But the film is a triumph. It overwhelmed audiences from the start with its story of the von Trapp family singers, who fled Austria for Switzerland during the Nazi occupation.

SoundofMusicscreenExteriors were shot on location, so there’s a beautiful authenticity to complement a storyline that’s classic: a woman studying to be a nun (Julie Andrews) doesn’t seem particularly suited to the convent and is sent to serve as governess to the children of a widowed Austrian captain (Christopher Plummer). There, she reintroduces song into the household, becomes beloved to the children, and falls in love with her employer. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Especially when she becomes part of a romantic triangle in this blended family tale set against the backdrop of war? The songs are some of the best that Rodgers & Hammerstein ever produced, including “Maria,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “The Lonely Goatherd,” “Climb Every Mountain,” and a song written especially for the film that’s so convincing as a national anthem that it almost brings tears to your eyes when Capt. von Trapp leads the crowd at the Salzburg music festival in a chorus, right in front of Nazi officials. It’s as stirring a moment as those dueling national anthems in Casablanca.   More

HAPPY DAYS: SEASON 5 (DVD)

May 9, 2014

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

HappyDays5coverGrade: C+/B-
Entire family: Yes
1977-78, 662 min. (26 episodes), Color
CBS Home Entertainment
Not rated (would be G)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: C (4th Anniv. Special)
Theme song

Entertainment is one thing, but there are times when, if something out of Hollywood has become part of our vocabulary or is frequently alluded to, you need to see a film or TV show just to be culturally literate.

That’s the case with Happy Days: Season 5. Maybe you’ve heard of the expression “jumped the shark”—the precise moment when a TV series gets a little too wonky and begins to go downhill? That phrase comes from a triple episode that launched the fifth season of Happy Days, a popular series created by Garry Marshall and set in Milwaukee, circa the 1950s and early ‘60s. This season in California, Fonzie (Henry Winkler)—whose trademark catchphrase “Heyyyyyy” had already become a part of pop culture—is faced with a water skiing challenge and must jump over a man-eating shark that’s penned in an enclosure near the beach.

For most of America, Happy Days felt like the TV version of American Graffiti, especially because Ron Howard also starred in that coming-of-age film about teenagers cruising around on the eve of their separate departures for college. This series from Garry Marshall is a fun, wholesome one that hit its stride in Season 2 and, as many believe, started to decline in Season 5 when Fonzie paraded around the beach in his leather jacket, shorts, and motorcycle boots.  More

THE HONEYMOONERS: CLASSIC 39 EPISODES (Blu-ray)

May 3, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater G rated, TV Comedy Leave a comment

HoneymoonerscoverGrade: B+/A- for adults; C+/B-  for kids
Entire family: Yes, but . . .
1955, 1017 min. (39 episodes), black-and-white
CBS Home Entertainment
Not rated (would be G)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: PCM 2.0 Mono
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

The Honeymooners began in 1950 as a comedy sketch on Cavalcade of Stars, a variety show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and continued with The Jackie Gleason Show. The Honeymooner sketches became so popular that five years later they aired for a season as a half-hour situation comedy, and it’s these “39 classic episodes” broadcast on CBS that are featured on this Blu-ray.

Shot for the most part on a single set depicting the shabby New York City apartment of bus driver Ralph Kramden (Gleason) and his longsuffering wife, Alice (Audrey Meadows), The Honeymooners had the feel of a stage play, with character entrances sparking plenty of applause—especially when tenement neighbors and good friends Ed Norton (Art Carney) and his wife Trixie (Joyce Randolph) walked in.

So here’s the puzzler. The basic set-up—two couples living in apartments above and below each other, with one gender getting into mischief—is the same as I Love Lucy, and yet our kids don’t find The Honeymooners nearly as entertaining, despite being #3 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, right behind Lucy.

Maybe part of it is the look. Black-and-white can seem ancient enough for young people, but at least Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were visionary enough to shoot each episode with more permanent 35mm film than the throwaway kinescope process being used by other television series prior to the introduction of videotape in 1956. I Love Lucy also used three cameras, compared to the one or two that were standard for other sitcoms. Kinescopes were subject to banding, and we see evidence of such vertical white lines on some of these episodes, even though the Blu-ray is a vast improvement over the DVD.   More

CROCODILE DUNDEE / CROCODILE DUNDEE 2 (Blu-ray)

May 2, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Comedy, PG-13 rated 1 Comment

CrocodileDundeecoverGrade: B, C+
Entire family: No
1986, 1988; 97 min., 111 min,; Color
Paramount
PG-13 for adult situations, mild language, violence; PG for violence, language
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1 widescreen
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0, DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features: N/A, D
Trailer / trailer

The ‘80s were big on a lot of things—like big hair, big shoulder pads, and big techno beats driving the music. In Hollywood, filmmakers were big on fish-out-of-water stories. You saw Eddie Murphy as a streetwise cop who shakes Beverly Hills up while on vacation, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cop out of his element as a kindergarten teacher, working undercover to catch a bad guy. But the most surprising fish-out-of-water—make that croc-out-of-water—success story was a 1986 Australian comedy-adventure starring Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee. The relatively low-budget film became the second highest grossing movie in the U.S. that year, and also worldwide.

The likable Hogan co-wrote the screenplay and starred as Mick Dundee, an outback guide who draws the attention of a New York journalist on assignment in Sydney. Dressed to the nines in ‘80s style, she heads for the outback to see where this Dundee fellow was when he was attacked by a monster crocodile, but managed to drag himself out of the bush to seek medical help. So the two of them have a little outback adventure all their own as she tries to get him to retrace his steps for her magazine story. Predictably, this Jane starts to fall for her rugged Tarzan, who doesn’t skip a beat in conversation as he picks up a snake near their campfire, breaks its neck, and tosses it aside. There’s mild violence here that’s mostly played for laughs, but there is one moment of peril Sue has with a crocodile that will briefly scare younger children.  More

THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW: SEASON 1 (Blu-ray)

April 28, 2014

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

AndyGriffithShow1coverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family: Yes
1960-61, 820 min. (33 episodes), black and white
CBS Home Entertainment
Not rated (would be PG for adult drinking and smoking)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby digital Mono
Bonus features: B
CBS restoration trailer

It’s no secret. Kids today are turned off by black-and-white movies and television shows. They’re so BORING, is the common refrain. But there are exceptions, and The Andy Griffith Show is one of them. This series, which ran on CBS from 1960-68, was ranked #9 on TV Guide’s list of 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. Now Season 1 is out on Blu-ray, and that’s good news for fans and families wanting to watch a wholesome, timeless, homespun comedy together.

How wholesome is it? Well, the Town of Mayberry, North Carolina is a sleepy little backwater where folksy sheriff and justice of the peace Andy Taylor (Griffith) doesn’t wear a sidearm, doesn’t drink, doesn’t use harsh language, and seldom raises his voice. With an aw-shucks demeanor, a bushel full of aphorisms, and a smile that could disarm all but the most hardened criminals, Andy spends most of his time dispensing common-sense advice to family, friends, and residents of Mayberry, and also proving to “big city” law enforcement officers and visitors that small town residents have a wisdom all their own. Heck, they were smart enough to choose that pace and lifestyle, weren’t they?

Our kids’ favorite black-and-white TV series is still I Love Lucy, but The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show run a close second and third. The source of the appeal is pretty easy to pin down, starting with the situation. Andy is a widower who lives with his precocious young son, Opie (Ronnie Howard) and the aunt who raised him—Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier). Those two appealing characters get into enough “pickles” that the entire show could have been based on their mishaps and Andy’s always gentle intervention.

But when you add Andy’s job, with comic genius Don Knotts playing over-eager and bumbling Deputy Barney Fife, you create a whole other range of possibilities for humorous problems that Andy can solve. Mayberry isn’t just a backdrop, either. The citizens get a lot of air time, and their stubborn, provincial ways constitute yet another group of patients in need of Sheriff Taylor’s magic tonic—always a blend of common sense, insights into human nature, and Solomon-like judgment. And Andy’s morals are within easy grasp of youngsters, too.   More

I LOVE LUCY: ULTIMATE SEASON 1 (Blu-ray)

April 26, 2014

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

ILoveLucy1coverGrade: B+/A-
Entire family: Yes
1951-52, 908 min., black and white
CBS Home Entertainment
Not rated (would be PG for adult drinking and smoking)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: B-
CBS restoration trailer

In 2002, TV Guide named the 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. On May 6, CBS Home Entertainment will bring three of the Top 10—at least the first seasons—to Blu-ray. Soon we’ll post reviews of The Andy Griffith Show and The Honeymooners: Classic 39 Episodes, but since I Love Lucy ranks 2nd behind Seinfeld on the list, it seems like the logical place to begin—though logic and Lucy have little in common.

Lucille Ball set the gold standard for physical comedy and character comedy playing opposite real-life husband and band leader Desi Arnaz in a sitcom that revolved around only four characters: Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz), his wife Lucy, and their neighbors, Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance). That is, two housewives prone to get into trouble, one fuddy-duddy who wore his pants up to his chin, and a Latin lover whose love for Lucy was sorely tested in just about every episode.

This past school year my ‘tween daughter would start her morning with an episode of I Love Lucy, which, remarkably, is still in syndication more than 60 years after Season 1 was first broadcast. Even more remarkable is that she enjoys the show as much as I did when I watched it on days I was home from school, “sick.” What makes it so timelessly appealing? The slapstick and the situations. Things that happened to Lucy on a quiz show are still happening to unsuspecting kids on a Nickelodeon game show, for example, and while the writing was decent, it was really the four stars that made the show work.

I Love Lucy was one of the early TV series that made the leap from vaudeville and radio to television. It began as My Favorite Husband, a radio program starring Ball and Dick Denning. But Lucy suggested that her TV husband be played by her real husband, who was then appearing as a panelist on the game show What’s My Line? The rest is TV history. I Love Lucy was an immediate fan favorite, finishing #3 in the Nielsen ratings its first year, and #1 seasons two through four, #2 their fifth season, then back to #1 again for the sixth.

Season 1 includes one of the all-time greatest I Love Lucy episodes, “Lucy Does a TV Commercial,” in which she plugs a tonic called Vitameatevegamin. The only trouble is, the commercial requires multiple takes, and the product is 23 percent alcohol. Other memorable episodes include ones in which Lucy gets locked in a walk-in freezer, goes to great lengths to convince Ricky that growing bald isn’t so bad, and, with Ethel, tries to make it as “Pioneer Women” by not using any modern conveniences.   More

COWGIRLS ‘N ANGELS 2: DAKOTA’S SUMMER (Blu-ray)

April 20, 2014

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

CowgirlsnAngels2coverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes, though some boys might resist
2014, 91 min., Color
20th Century Fox
Rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief language
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 widescreen
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features: D
Trailer

Competition TV series are popular now, but they’re mostly dance-, song-, or pageant-related. I can’t think of a single series or film that uses the rodeo as a backdrop for light family drama, and there is something mesmerizing about watching horses move—especially the mini-horses that appear in this sequel, ones that scamper rather than gallop, and that are not much taller than an adult’s waist. They’re just so darned CUTE.

Cowgirls ‘n Angels 2: Dakota’s Summer is a Dove-approved sequel that features an all-new cast and is aimed mostly at girls ages six through 16. But the acting is solid, the trick riding captivating, and the situation interesting enough to where it might appeal to the whole family.

Dakota’s Summer stars Haley Ramm (X-Men: The Last Stand) as a teen who’s teamed with her more talented sister in a trick-riding duo for Sweethearts of the Rodeo. Early in the film she wonders aloud why the granddaughter of a famed rodeo trick rider would have such a hard time with it, compared to her sister. It’s like we’re totally different, she says. “You don’t know the half of it,” her sister remarks, and that leads to Dakota’s discovery that she is really adopted.

Now, everywhere across America there are adopted children who wonder who their birth parents are, and it’s never as easy as leaving your family to go to stay with Rodeo Grandpa, who was behind the adoption, and finding the names of the parents in a clearly marked file in his desk drawer. And finding birth parents is never as easy as just going to the address on the form, and there they are.

When Rodeo Grandpa (Keith Carradine) uses his mini-horse ranch for a program to benefit troubled children in foster care, not one of those children appears genuinely troubled. No one tests the boundaries of authority or pushes to see whether an adult will reject him/her again, and when one of them leaves with a mini-horse and buggy and Dakota arrives on the scene where there are flashing lights and an ambulance, the cart is trashed but neither the runaway girl (Jade Pettyjohn, American Girl: McKenna Shoots for the Stars) nor the little horse are in any way harmed. The whole foster care/adoption cycle is also less than realistic.

But realism isn’t the goal here. Dakota’s Summer is a feel-good family film that doesn’t pretend to be anything more—and it’s tough to walk away with a good feeling when the same old garbage that happens in real life happens as well in the movies. My daughter likes happy films, and she liked this one. I did too, and so did my wife.  But I am perplexed as to why this earned a PG rating. It’s as wholesome as can be. More

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (Blu-ray combo)

April 19, 2014

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

WalterMittycoverGrade: B
Entire family: Yes, but . . . .
2013, 114 min., Color
20th Century Fox
Rated PG for some crude comments, language, and action violence
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features: B
Trailer

Literary purists won’t like it that director-star Ben Stiller strayed so far from the plot of James Thurber’s original short story, or the 1947 film adaptation starring Danny Kaye. Meanwhile, fans of action comedies may think Thurber’s fantasy elements the weakest part of this film. But somehow, out of a no-win situation, Stiller manages to make a likable movie that entertains while also providing a little get-out-of-the-basement inspiration.

Thurber’s Walter Mitty was a meek and mild-mannered proofreader who lived a life so dull that he was prone to daydream elaborate scenarios in which he would always emerge the hero—the guy who gets the girl. As a child, I remember liking the film in spite of those fantasy sequences, and apparently some things never change. Even though Stiller severely dialed back on the number and length of the daydreaming episodes, inventively passing them off as Mitty’s propensity for “spacing out,” my teen and pre-teen still hated those parts, as I once did. What’s more, our world has become so much more aggressive that they also didn’t care much for the Mitty character—even though he isn’t nearly as bumbling or hapless as Kaye once played him.

Stiller’s Mitty is more of a work-a-day schlepper who toils in the negative archives of Life magazine and really has no life outside of that. In fact, a dating site he joined recently keeps checking up on him to see if he’s actually done something to add to his blank and not terribly appealing or effective profile.

Adam Scott is entertaining as the “terminator” who bluntly tells Life staffers that this next issue will be the magazine’s last, and that most of them will be let go as they downsize to an online-only format. It’s a nice situational updating that lends new credence to Thurber’s story, actually.   More

MAYBERRY R.F.D.: SEASON 1 (DVD)

April 17, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater G rated, TV Comedy Leave a comment

MayberryRFD1coverGrade: C+
Entire family: Yes, but most kids will think it dull
1968-69, 667 min. (26 episodes), Color
Warner Bros.
Not Rated (would be G)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: none
1968 fall preview 

The Andy Griffith Show ranks #9 on TV Guide’s List of 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and it’s easy to see why. Like I Love Lucy, another Top 10 series and perennial favorite of parents AND children, it featured comic situations and characters that were as endearing as they were funny. Plus, the show had the added attraction of a Norman Rockwell, small-town wholesomeness and Griffith’s folksy manner as Sheriff Andy Taylor.

But the series changed when it went from black-and-white to color. New writers took over and the emphasis shifted from laugh-out-loud comedy to gentler humor and small-town folksiness—an emphasis that continued with Mayberry, R.F.D., which aired from 1968-71.

The first episode of Season 1 will be of interest to fans of The Andy Griffith Show because it provides closure. Andy and longtime sweetheart Helen Crump (Aneta Corset) finally get married, and Barney is at his goofy best as Best Man. While they’re on their honeymoon (yes, Barney too), back in Mayberry widowed farmer-turned-councilman Sam Jones (Ken Berry) and his son Mike (Buddy Foster) manage to convince Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) to move in with them and cook and clean and mother them, as she had done for Andy and his son Opie (Ron Howard) in The Andy Griffith Show.

The structure and tone are the same, with Millie Swanson (Arlene Golonka) providing the romantic interest for Sam, but Mayberry just isn’t the same without Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts). Despite a carryover of minor characters like Goober (George Lindsey), who inexplicably rises from grease monkey to lawman, and handyman Emmett (Paul Hartman) or perennial shy-guy Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson), the show just doesn’t have the same personality and pizazz of the original. There are no mountain folk like Ernest T. Bass, no town drunk like Otis Campbell, and no gossiping Floyd the Barber to liven things up and give Andy something a little more extreme than the mundane to react to.   More

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