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ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE . . . DAY (Blu-ray)

February 4, 2015

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

AlexandercoverGrade: B-/B
Entire family:  Yes
2014, 81 min., Color
Rated PG for rude humor, including some reckless behavior and language
Disney
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD Copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer

Ever have the feeling that when your day starts off on the wrong foot, it’s going to be one stumble after the next, until you can go to bed and get a fresh start the following morning?

That’s what happens to 11-year-old Alexander, a doom-and-gloom youngster who tries to warn his family that anything they attempt is bound to turn out badly—all because his own day begins with a wad of gum stuck in his hair and then slides quickly into a vat of bubbling disasters, both small and large. What’s worse, it’s the day before his 12th birthday.

The rule of thumb for most movies told from the point of view of a child is that they tend to appeal to audiences who are the same age or younger than the star. That would make Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day aimed at elementary schoolers. But because Walt Disney Studios tried to broaden the appeal by bringing in more extreme situations and having the bad luck extend to every single family member, my guess is that it may also appeal to families with pre-teen children. It features an unlikely Date Night sequence of events and a motor vehicle that ultimately, as with the family from Little Miss Sunshine, brings them closer together.   More

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

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

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

COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG: SEASON 2 (DVD)

November 14, 2014

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

Courage2coverGrade: B
Entire family: No (age 7 and older)
2000, 286 min. (13 episodes), Color
Unrated (would be PG for rude humor and frightful situations played for laughs)
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features:  none

Cartoon Network has a reputation for edgy, “out there,” and slightly manic animated shows aimed at kids ages 7-17. The characters are often anime-influenced and drawn with severe angularity, while the style of backgrounds would have to be called minimalist. Coming out of CN in the early years were Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and I Am Weasel, followed by The Powerpuff Girls and this popular entry, Courage the Cowardly Dog.

CN is part of Ted Turner’s broadcasting empire, and their shows have always tickled some children and rubbed others and parents the wrong way. They can be a little in your face, a little loud, a little shrill at times. But as CN series go, Courage the Cowardly Dog is actually one of the more traditionally animated. The backgrounds have more detail, and there are more props than we get in other shows, which makes for a richer-looking appearance. The concept, meanwhile, is actually as familiar as it gets: a dog is adopted by an older lady named Murial Bagge, a farm wife who lives with her crotchety husband, Eustace, “in the middle of nowhere”—quite literally in the town of Nowhere, Kansas.

But you know you’re not in Kansas anymore when the first episode is a riff on the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale, with a Magic Tree of Nowhere granting wishes . . . and gaining power as it goes.

Many of the plots from this 13-episode season are fantastic, with the bulk of them drawing inspiration from the horror genre. One of the best is a take-off on the old Mummy films, but revolving around a special kind of cookie. And in a spoof of The Fly, Courage gets turned into a fly by a villain named Di Lung. Such episodes are constructed in thriller fashion but played for laughs, starting with a dog who’s deathly afraid of just about anything and REACTS IN A BIG WAY. Each outing, Courage has to confront all manner of fantastic villains and threats in order to save his often clueless owners.

Courage2screenThe humor in Courage isn’t as rude as in other CN shows, with the worst of it coming out of the mouth of Eustace, who is perpetually annoyed by Courage and shouts “STUPID DOG” every chance he gets. But the extreme exaggeration of old-people stereotypes proves to be a necessary ingredient for a show about a cowardly dog who rises to the occasion despite his fears. Children will respond to the wild leaps of imagination and the ways in which this series, like Disney’s Phineas and Ferb, creates fantastic adventures for everyday characters and situations.   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

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