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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

THE LITTLE RASCALS SAVE THE DAY (Blu-ray combo)

April 1, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Children's, Comedy, PG rated 5 Comments

LittleRascalsSavecover

Grade: C
Entire family: No (only small children will like it)
2014, 98 min., Color
Universal
Rated PG for some mild rude humor
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer

The original Little Rascals movies were comedy shorts created during the ‘20s and ‘30s. Like The Three Stooges shorts, The Little Rascals installments from Hal Roach Studios were driven by character interaction and antics, with the kind of exaggerated effects and outcomes that would drive TV comedies for many years to come.

You’ve seen them on countless shows: oven doors that pry open with monstrous, Blob-like balls of dough after the Rascals added too much yeast; suds that also grow out of control when too much soap is added to the laundry or bath; or the Rascals’ Rube Goldberg contraptions that almost always misfired—like a dog-washing machine that went loco. The plots were simple cases of misunderstanding, attempts to raise money, attempts to impress or behave, challenges to one of them, visiting relatives, or various family mini-crises.

When the original short comedies were made and shown in theaters, the Rascals appealed because these were Depression-era kids trying to make it as best they could, whether improvising with play or attempting to do the same thing with work. Often they tried to help the adults, and just as often things got messed up. People whose lives seemed to run the same gamut could identify, and the cute factor made viewers smile. It was the transposition of the adult world onto children’s.

Two decades later, when the Rascals were a fixture on American television, that connection of identification was gone, but kids from the ‘50s found it interesting to go back in time and see what it took to live through the Depression. The Rascals’ inventions were ingenious, and they were cute as the Dickens.

But the Rascals can’t seem to make the leap into the contemporary era. A 1994 attempt failed, and this one from Alex Zamm, whose previous films are mostly sequels, doesn’t fare any better. Small children might find their antics funny, but those who remember the Rascals will see hit-or-miss moments that either capture the spirit and characters or miss the mark entirely.   More

WALKING WITH DINOSASURS (Blu-ray combo)

March 30, 2014

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

Walking with Dinosaurs (FHT)Grade: C
Entire family: No (only small children will like it)
2013, 87 minutes, Color
BBC Earth/Evergreen Films/Fox
Rated PG  for creature action, peril, and mild rude humor
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer

When Fox got back into the animation game in 1994, I and probably half the world envisioned the kind of spirited competition the studio gave Disney during the Golden Age of cartoon shorts. But that hasn’t materialized. After the promising theatrical debut of Anastasia, only the Ice Age films and Rio could be called hits.

The problem isn’t the animation, which has been accomplished and, at times, jaw-dropping. It’s the concepts and the writing, and there isn’t a better illustration of that than the film version of Walking with Dinosaurs, which was released in theaters as Walking with Dinosaurs 3D. Produced by BBC Earth and Evergreen films, this animated feature has gorgeous CGI artwork and effects and tells an interesting-enough story, even if it does lumber a little too close to Disney’s Dinosaur (2000). But Fox bought the distribution rights and decided that instead of a voiceover narration like the TV series that spawned it, they would make the dinosaurs talk in order to better connect with audiences.

Bad move. So bad, in fact, that BBC Earth must have balked, since the 3D combo pack includes a “Cretaceous Cut” that allows you to watch the film without the unnecessary live-action frame story that the Fox brass tacked on, and without the talking characters.

The addition of wise-guy narration, a goofy tone, and juvenile humor (sometimes the scatological sort) turns this animated feature into something only small children will enjoy. And that’s a shame, given how accomplished the CGI work is. Gradations of color within dinosaur skins really give them a believable complexity, and representations of fire and water are every bit as accomplished as what we get from Disney. BBC Earth cranked it up a notch in producing dinosaurs that look real as can be and move even more fluidly than they did in the TV series. The mammals and birds aren’t as accomplished—more animatronic looking, really—but they don’t surface in the narrative that often. I wish I could say the same about dumb writing.   More

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE: SEASON 1 (Blu-ray)

March 25, 2014

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

LittleHouse1coverGrade: B+
1974-75, 1,260 min. (24 episodes), Color
Lionsgate
Not rated: Would be PG for moments of peril and some drinking
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0
Includes: Blu-ray (5 discs), UV Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

If your children like historical dramas and love imagining what life would have been like during pioneer times, there’s no better place to start than the Little House on the Prairie TV series. So many ‘70s shows feel dated or corny now, but this series—loosely based on the children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder—still plays well. It’s a deftly written, convincingly acted series that’s not afraid to tug at your heartstrings, but also tosses in a dose or two of reality. Not everyone rides a horse or drives a buggy, for example. There is a sizable population that walks everywhere—even great distances—because they aren’t affluent enough to do anything else. And when a hailstorm wipes out all the wheat, farmers everywhere have to leave their families and look for work in faraway places, or they’ll lose the farm and the family will starve.

Little House on the Prairie stars Michael Landon in his post-Bonanza and pre-Highway to Heaven role as the patriarch of a family of females who move from Wisconsin to Kansas and finally end up in Minnesota. The emphasis in this series is on family and family values before such a term came into existence. It’s wholesome, heart-warming, and full of life lessons.

The two-hour pilot, included here, is the most potentially traumatic, so if your family has small or sensitive children I’d start with Episode 1 instead and watch the whole season before suggesting, “Hey, would anyone like to see how the Ingalls came to Plum Creek?” after the children already know that everyone’s okay. There’s a time in the pilot when a family member is thought drowned, as well as several moments of menace that come as a result of wolves and Caroline Ingalls (Karen Grasse) and the girls’ encounter with Indians while Charles is off hunting.

More

FROZEN (Blu-ray combo)

March 10, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, PG rated 1 Comment

FrozencoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  Yes
2013, 102 min., Color
Rated PG for some action and mild rude humor
Disney
Aspect ratio:  2.24:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, UV DigitalHD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Disney’s latest animated adventure is a Frozen delight. You children will want to watch this over and over again, and the good news is that the film is creative enough, clever enough, and with solid enough animation and music that you won’t suffer one bit from the repetition. In fact, you’ll come away from it appreciating the Disney magic more with every viewing.

That’s because Frozen is a princess movie that doesn’t feel like a princess movie—even though there are two of them in it, as well as a handsome prince. It feels more like an adventure, and a fun one at that. Given the strength of animation, the memorable characters, and a killer soundtrack that’s collectively the most impressive I’ve seen from Disney since Beauty and the Beast, it may well be one of Disney’s most accomplished animated features from the past 20 years.

Frozen is loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, but makes more sense than the tale that inspired it, and it’s full of great visual effects, memorable music, and heart-warming moments—check that. Small moments that make you smile, laugh, or marvel at how clever the scene is.   More

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (Blu-ray combo)

January 26, 2014

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

Cloudy2coverGrade:  B-
Entire family:  Yes
2013, 95 min., Color
Rated PG for mild rude humor
Sony Pictures Animation
Aspect ratio:  2.40:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, UV DigitalHD copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

The book by Judi and Ron Barrett that inspired the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a folksy story that began, “We were all sitting around the big kitchen table,” and as Grandpa flipped pancakes while he was making breakfast, the narrator, her mother, and brother Henry started thinking what it would be like if food “dropped like rain from the sky.” It was the only cue Grandpa needed to tell a tall tale about a town named Chewandswallow that was normal in every respect except for the weather. There, it rained soup, it rained fried eggs, it rained mashed potatoes . . . you never knew what was going to come down. But it was all a tall tale, and a testimony to Grandpa’s storytelling powers.

For the 2009 movie, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller got rid of Grandpa and the family and turned his tall tale into a story about a boy genius named Flint who grows up to be the crackpot inventor of a machine that turns water into food. And the town is relocated to an island, where the only thing they’ve had to eat is sardines, so of course they welcome a change of menu. That film ended with the machine going out of control and Flint needing to stop it to save the world.

This 2013 sequel from Cody Cameron (Shrek) and Kris Pearn (Surf’s Up) is even more fantastic and farther removed from the original book.  Bill Hader returns as the voice of Flint, who in this film is relocated with the rest of the citizens of Swallow Falls to California, so Live Corp can clean up the mess on the island. The CEO, Chester, is a big inventor himself, and he invites Flint to work at Live Corp.

Eventually he gives Flint the task of finding his machine, which had survived, and destroying it once and for all. Rather than going alone, as ordered, Flint takes along his meteorologist girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), her cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt), their friend, Officer Devereaux (Terry Crews), a monkey named Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), and a goofball named Brent (Andy Samberg). And Flint’s father (James Caan) tags along. It’s a Land of the Lost adventure for them, because somehow the machine has been making food creatures like tacodiles and cheeseburger spiders.

Cloudy2screenThere’s more to it, of course, but the fantastic and (pun intended) hard-to-swallow plot isn’t the main selling point for a film like this. Rather, it’s the creatures themselves and the insanely colorful and frenetic world that the Sony Pictures Animation crew brings to life. Kids will be drawn to the striking visuals and constant action and emotion. But the mood and pacing will seem a little too frantic for some viewers, and parents and older children may wish for a little more logic.

My family didn’t think this sequel was as good as the first film, which made more sense and was easier to follow. But it might be more imaginative. To enjoy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 you’ll need to relax and just enjoy the colors and creative visuals. The animation is eye-popping and the menagerie of food critters is truly inventive . . . but it only makes me wonder what Sony artists could do with as really meaty screenplay.

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS (Blu-ray combo)

December 21, 2013

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

PercyJacksonSeaofMonsterscoverGrade:  B
Entire family:  Yes
2013, 106 min., Color
Rated PG for fantasy action violence, some scary images and mild language
20th Century Fox
Aspect ratio:  2.35:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, DigitalHD
Bonus features:  D+
Trailer

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters is a good special effects family movie that’s every bit as accomplished as The Lightning Thief and possibly better—even if it doesn’t follow the Rick Riordan juvenile fantasy novels like a road map.

My teenage son has read every one of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, and as our family watched Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel to the 2010 fantasy-adventure Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, he couldn’t contain himself. He offered a running commentary:

“It’s like they compressed the next three books into one movie.”
“None of this was in the books.”
“This WAS in the books, and it’s actually handled pretty well.”
“I like the way the manticore moves. It’s really realistic.”
“The CGI in this movie is much better than the first one.”

And so on.

His final assessment surprised me, partly because he had seen the trailer and pronounced it “dumb,” and partly because many fans of the books had pretty much washed their hands of the movies because of how much they strayed from the texts. But my son decided it was “better than the first one, with better special effects.” Even though it wasn’t exactly faithful to the books, he felt it was “still good.” If he had give it a grade, he said he’d award it a B+ or A-, because it was action-packed, the CGI effects were great, and the pacing was good. My pre-teen daughter agreed, even though she hadn’t read the books. So did my wife.

So who needs a movie critic? I came to the same conclusions, though I did find fault with some of the CGI effects. For me, the visual shortcomings were the forehead and eye design of Percy’s half-brother, the cyclops Tyson (Douglas Smith)—which looked smeared with Vaseline in medium shots—and Percy (Logan Lerman) and his friends’ descent into the toothy vortex of a sea monster, which also was less than realistic. Everything else—and that includes some pretty fantastic creatures and water effects—looks convincing, and in truth it’s the visual effects that propel the film.  More

BIG (25th Anniv. Blu-ray combo)

December 13, 2013

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

BigcoverGrade:  A-
Entire family:  No, unless you send them for snacks during two scenes
1988, 104/129 min., Color
Rated PG for language and adult situations
20th Century Fox
Aspect ratio:  1.85:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, sound-chip packaging
Bonus features:  B
Trailer

The Big 25th Anniversary Blu-ray offers two ways to watch the film—the original 104-minute theatrical version, and a 129-minute “extended edition.” And so what if that extended edition was available previously on a two-disc DVD that was released six years ago? It’s the first time that the material is available on Blu-ray, and this combo pack should be a welcome addition to the libraries of film fans.

If Splash was the film that gave the Bosom Buddies TV star his first big movie role, Big was the one that showed the industry and audiences that this guy Hanks can act. He earned his first of five Best Actor Oscar nominations for his performance, and it’s great to have both the theatrical release and extended version on Blu-ray finally.

The idea for Big came during a lunch conversation and the first draft flowed in just four months. One day later, it was a quick sell to producer James L. Brooks, who told his friend Penny Marshall that she had to sign on as director. But the second draft took writers Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg (Steven’s little sister) a full year. During that time, they learned that three other films about body transformations were coming out. Their choice was, hold out for Tom Hanks, whom they had in mind when they wrote the script, or rush to be first with whomever they could cast.

What were the other three movies? It’s hard for most people to recall, because Big became a huge hit and remains memorable because of Hanks’ virtuoso performance. You have no trouble whatsoever believing he’s a 12-year-old boy who gets his wish from an unplugged carnival fortune-telling machine and is transformed into a near-30-year-old man. Driven from his home by his mother (Mercedes Ruehl), who thinks he’s a pervert or kidnapper, the suddenly adult and adrift Josh Baskin goes to New York City and finds work at a toy company—all the while hoping to track down the carnival so he can reverse his wish.

Whether playing opposite his 12-year-old best friend (Jared Rushton), a cubicle co-worker (Jon Lovitz), an arrogant idea man (John Heard), or a sexually active career woman (Elizabeth Perkins), Hanks, as a stranger in a strange land, gives us equal portions of laughs and insights into the worlds of both adults and adolescents. Big also offers up a very funny satire of corporate ladder climbing, as we see how quickly Josh rises in the toy company because of his common-sense kid insights.  More

THE SMURFS 2 (Blu-ray combo)

December 3, 2013

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, Comedy, PG rated Leave a comment

Smurfs2coverGrade:  C+
Entire family:  No
2013, 105 min., Color
Rated PG for some rude humor and action
Sony Pictures Animation
Aspect ratio:  1.85:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, UV Digital HD copy
Bonus features:  C-
Trailer

I don’t know how much Hank Azaria is getting paid to play Gargamel in the live-action/animated Smurf movies, but it’s not enough.

If it wasn’t for Azaria’s scrumptious,villainous dramatic monologues directed at his cat accomplice, Azrael, The Smurfs 2 would be one big animated yawn. The scenes that feature Azaria and his cat salvage this 2013 sequel—for older audiences, that is. Younger ones will probably be blissfully captivated by the blue Smurfs too, and all things Smurfy.

It’s ‘tweens, teens, and adults who will find the plot and the animation sequences pitched way too low to be of much interest, and the other on-camera stars—Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Jayma Mayes (Glee)—seem so caught up in the dumbing-down that their performances don’t have the same wink-wink quality of Azaria’s. So yeah, this guy and his CGI-enhanced cat save the day . . . sort of.

They can’t rescue the plot, which is straight out of the repetitive old Saturday morning cartoons about little blue creatures who live an idyllic existence except for an evil wizard who wants to eliminate them. And they aren’t enough to compensate for humor that sometimes stoops, or rather crouches, to potty-level (“Every time a smurf toots, someone smiles”?).  More

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