Passover Movies

Posted on March 24, 2013 at 8:00 am

Hag Sameach! Passover is not just about remembering the story of the Exodus from Egypt. It is about telling the story.

Thousands of years before people talked about “learning styles,” the Seder included many different ways of telling the story, so that everyone would be included, and everyone would feel the power of the journey toward freedom. The Haggadah makes the story come alive through taste, smell, and touch as well as sight and hearing, and through the example of the four sons it presents the story to the wise, the simple, the skeptic, and most especially to the young — one of the highlights of each Seder is when the youngest person present asks the traditional four questions, beginning with “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

If they had known about movies back in the time of Moses, they would have included that form of story-telling, too. For younger children, The Prince of Egypt and Joseph – King of Dreams are a very good introduction to the story of how the Jews came to live in Egypt and how Moses led them out of slavery. Shalom Sesame: It’s Passover, Grover! is a great introduction to the holiday for preschoolers. Children may also enjoy Chanuka & Passover at Bubbe’s, Out of Egypt – The Passover Story and The Passover, which explains all of the elements of the seder.

Older children and adults will appreciate Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments and the more recent versions of the story, starring Burt Lancaster, and Ben Kingsley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKEp7WYrMmY

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Iconic Movie Posters

Posted on March 23, 2013 at 3:51 pm

Trailers are so accessible these days that we sometimes overlook the power of a really great movie poster. I like this list of the greatest movie posters of all time because it is a great reminder of some iconic images and because it includes commentary from designers on what makes those posters so good. Not surprisingly, most of the film posters are horror/sci-fi/fantasy, as that provides the greatest opportunities for imagination, but there are also strong images for crime movies like “Pulp Fiction” and “The Usual Suspects.” Without looking, can you guess what they picked as the all-time best? You might also want to compare it to the list of best-selling movie posters.

Contest! Charlie: A Toy Story

Posted on March 23, 2013 at 11:31 am

Charlie: A Toy Story will be out next week, but I have an early copy to give away. It’s the story of 10 year-old Caden and his best friend Charlie, a golden retriever. They visit Caden’s father Jack at his Wonder Toy Store where they discover his newest and greatest invention Wondermation, a little science mixed with a little imagination that’s the most amazing toy in the world. Unfortunately Caden’s rivals, the bumbling town bullies, want to steal Wondermation and keep it for themselves. There is a wild escapade with a lot of humor for families to enjoy together. To enter, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Charlie in the subject line and tell me your favorite pet. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only). I’ll pick a winner at random on April 1. Good luck!

Admission

Posted on March 21, 2013 at 6:01 pm

Tina Fey and Paul Rudd seem perfect for each other. The characters they play in this movie are not as persuasive. Fey is so much better than the adorkable rom-com role assigned to her here and Rudd is capable of so much more than the earnest do-gooder relegated to him. But what really hurts this film is the senseless complications the characters have to try to navigate and the uncertain hold on developments that are are disorientingly off-key. You can see the studio’s lack of confidence in the movie in the bait-and-switch ad campaign. The commercials make it look like a standard romantic comedy (and it may have been re-edited to try to fit those rhythms), but the plot line about reuniting with a child put up for adoption feels awkward, cluttered, and intrusive.

Fey is Portia, a tightly-wrapped admissions officer at Princeton, always buried in orange file folders brimming with the hopes and dreams of 17-year-olds and their parents. They all have excellent grades, community service credentials, positions in student government, athletic achievements, and some sort of artistic streak. Portia knows how to maintain her composure even when confronted with prospects who are certain that asking just the right penetrating question of the student tour guide will somehow cause the (for the purposes of this film) toughest school in the country to get into to see them as the shining star of perfection their parents always told them they were. She is less composed when it comes to her own ambitions. The head of the office (Wallace Shawn) is retiring and Portia is competing with a colleague (“Lincoln’s” Gloria Reuben) who is much smoother at ingratiating herself at Portia’s expense.

Portia is constantly under assault from applicants, parents, and high school college counselors. Despite the avalanche of applications Princeton receives every year, she has to go out to high schools to encourage seniors to apply. Princeton is competitive, too. It wants to make sure that it gets to choose from the the most promising applicants. And it wants to keep its rejection ratio high so it will top the annual US News rankings. She gets a call from John Pressman (Rudd) the head of an alternative school. Like all the other high school administrators, he has a student he wants her to accept. Like many of them, he wants to make the case that the kid’s file does not reflect his true potential. But there is one more thing. John is sure, on the flimsiest of evidence, that an autodidactic polymath named Jeremiah (a likable Nat Wolff of “The Naked Brothers”) is the son Portia gave up for adoption. The one she never told anyone about. Jeremiah wants to go to Princeton and Portia’s vestigial maternal instinct jumps to life. All of a sudden, she finds herself on the other side of the admissions process.

And there’s a lot of other stuff happening with Portia’s professor boyfriend (Michael Sheen), her free-spirited mother (a mis-used Lily Tomlin), and John’s adopted son (Travaris Spears), and John’s parents. And most of these people at some point in the last third of the film do something so inexplicably inconsistent with what we know about them and what we want for them that it almost seems that we’ve wandered into a different movie.

It would be impossible for Fey and Rudd to be anything other than entertaining and highly watchable. But I hope their next time on screen does not test that proposition so insistently.

Parents should know that this movie includes references to infidelity and putting an out-of-wedlock infant up for adoption, drinking, and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: How did Portia’s mother influence her ideas about parenting? How would you decide who to admit?

If you like this, try: “Clueless” and “Date Night”

The Croods

Posted on March 21, 2013 at 6:00 pm

I think we can all agree that at least in some respects all children are Neanderthals. It is the grand challenge of parenthood to civilize these sometimes savage little creatures by teaching them language, manners, and keeping safe. And some of the most difficult choices parents must make come when we try to encourage children to be strong, brave, independent, and adventuresome when it comes to accomplishing goals in school, sports, and chores while protecting them from mistakes that could be hurtful or even devastating.

That’s the idea behind sweet new animated film about a prehistoric cave family. Familiar family dynamics are amusingly exaggerated in the Paleolithic setting, where the most basic necessities require everyone’s full-time attention. The heavy-boned characters designed by the brilliantly witty Carter Goodrich (“Despicable Me,” “Hotel Transylvania”) may argue with each other, but they demonstrate the strength of their bond on the hunting/gathering expedition. When this family goes out to get breakfast, they really go out to get breakfast. In a joyously-choreographed race to get food, parents Grug (Nicolas Cage) and Ugga (Catherine Keener), Ugga’s mother Gran (Cloris Leachman), and their three children work seamlessly together somewhere between extreme dodgeball, an obstacle course, and a rugby game. Even the happily feral baby joins in for a crucial maneuver.

Other than that, they stay inside the cold, dark, cave. None of the other families of their community have survived, and Grug is terrified of anything that he cannot control. So he tells his family that “curiosity is bad and anything that is new is bad” and insists that they all stay inside together. Keeping everyone alive is his full-time job. “Never not be afraid,” he warns them. “Fear keeps us alive.” “I will never do anything new or different,” promises his son Thunk (Clark Duke). But rebellious teenagers go back as far as protective fathers, and Eep wants to explore the world outside the cave. What Grug sees as safe and under control, Eep sees as boring and old-fashioned.

That bigger world Eep wants to see includes a stranger, a guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds). He has a lot of new ideas like tools, shoes, a “belt” (a monkey with a theatrical flair for flourish), and “baby suns” — fire. Eep wants to learn more. And soon Grug has to make changes because the tectonic plates start to shift beneath him. Staying the same is no longer safe. The family must leave the cave to find a new place to live. Grug has to learn that sometimes new is not bad. And Eep has to learn the value of what she already has.

Kids will enjoy outsmarting the Neanderthals, whose experience of the world is so limited that they think fire can be extinguished by dry grass and they will marvel at the notion that there had to be a first-ever hug. They will get a kick out of Guy as a proto-MacGyver who shows his traveling companions how to use rocks, vines, leaves — and strategy — to trap food and protect themselves from predators. As Grug and his family leave their rocky home they find new environments that are increasingly dazzling, with spectacularly imagined vistas and gorgeous vegetation. Those images nicely parallel the opening minds and spirits of Grug and his family. Despite a few too many mother-in-law jokes, “The Croods” nicely makes it clear that even before they had fire, families understood how important it was to cherish and protect each other. And Eep reminds us that what may feel like teenage obstinacy and foolhardiness may just be the next step in our evolution.

Parents should know that this movie has some scary animals and children and adults in peril, with references to sad off-screen deaths. There is brief crude humor and there are repeated jokes about Grug wishing that his mother-in-law would die.

Family discussion: How can you tell when it is time to try new things and time to stick with what you know? What did Guy and Grug learn from each other?

If you like this, try: Visit a museum or do some research in books to look at prehistoric fossils and bones and watch “The Land Before Time,” the “Ice Age” series, and “The Flintstones”