My Policy on Conflicts

Posted on February 24, 2009 at 11:04 pm

Per the FTC’s guidelines on blog disclosures, here is my policy:

I sometimes receive DVDs or other items for review or to give away in contests. All opinions are my own and as readers of the site know, I have no hesitation in expressing my negative views on any movie or DVD I do not like. But you should always question the bias of anyone expressing an opinion online or anywhere else.

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog accepts no forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

Any compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. If I decide to accept advertising, all advertising will be identified as paid advertisements.

I am paid to provide information and opinions. I am not paid or compensated by the producers of the content I write about. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely mine. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest. Most of the DVDs or other promotional items I receive are used for giveaways or contests. If you ever have any questions or comments about this policy or anything else, I’d be glad to hear from you.

Gustafer Yellowgold’s Mellow Fever

Posted on February 24, 2009 at 11:23 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to DVD:	February 4, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001RJXBDQ

The third in the award-winning series of Gustafer Yellowgold is coming out on DVD March 17, featuring guest artists Lisa Loeb and Wilco’s John Stirratt and Pat Sansone.

These tuneful treats from artist/songwriter Morgan Taylor are family favorites, with singable songs and colorful visuals. Gustafer is a yellow guy from the sun who comes to Earth to make some friends, giving him a chance to explore and enjoy a wide range of characters and locations. It is a lot of fun for kids ages 3-8 and their families, gentle and charming without being sugary.

I have one DVD to give away to the first person who sends me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Gustafer” in the subject line. Good luck!

More on Scary Movies — from Christianity Today

Posted on February 24, 2009 at 8:00 am

Christianity Today asked parents what scary movies have “worked” with their kids — scared them enough to be entertaining and instructive but not too much to be truly upsetting.
I found the comments very insightful. Here are some excerpts:
I recently heard Tony Campolo speak, and he was trying to communicate to parents that “safe” is not what we are raising kids to be. Safe kids will not change the world. Instead, we want them to be wise, powerful, courageous, tenacious, furious at injustice, unprotected from reality, totally dedicated to serving Christ and his beloved people.
Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz, Spirited Away, Mirrormask, even The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe are all fine examples of scary movies for children. Because they are all steeped in the classic fairy tale tradition. These types of well-written, well-made films can provide integral lessons to youth as they journey on the scariest trip of all: the road to adulthood…”Family-friendly” need not mean “intellectually stunted.” These types of films, watched with a discerning eye, teach deep lessons.
Being scared in the moment can produce a teachable moment, but if the kid is prone to nightmares then nothing is being learned.
A little over a year ago, I wrote about why (and how) we like to be scared, and just this month we’ve had a spirited discussion about whether “Coraline” is too scary. I agree with this comment in the Christianity Today story:
Every single child is different, and the parents should know their child best. If your child is 12 and scared of things, I don’t care if a movie is rated G–if it’s going to scare your child, don’t take them. If you aren’t sure, read your child a thoughtful review of the movie and see if they even want to go. Some children of 6 aren’t scared by anything. Some children love the feeling of feeling scared; they’re aware that it’s “just” a movie.

Coraline’s Special Effects

Posted on February 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Wired Magazine has a fascinating story about the breathtaking special effects in “Coraline.” In an era when we are used to astonishingly “true” images generated by computers, the old-school charms of this stop-motion movie, where everything you see was actually there being photographed, enhanced with ground-breaking 3D technology, is entrancingly tactile. A painstaking process meant that no more than 2-4 seconds a day were completed, with thousands of tiny adjustments in each scene. The title character’s 200,000 facial expressions, required 350 top plates for her eyebrows and forehead and 700 bottom plates for her mouth.

It’s the stunningly inventive DIY visual effects that director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) used to bring the story to life. A quarter-million pieces of popcorn are transformed into cherry blossoms, superglue and baking soda are whipped into snow, and black fishing line becomes creepy chest hair.

coraline garden.jpg

In all, the crew hand-built 150 sets and 250 jointed puppets, as well as plants and toys with countless moving parts. “What makes this film different,” says Tom Proost, one of the art directors, “is that everything is real and everything moves.”

Every detail is brilliantly imagined and brilliantly executed. I love the way they created the steam from a tea kettle: cotton spritzed with hair spray. I’ve seen the film twice and plan to go back again just to see the extraordinary garden and theater scenes and to catch some of the many details I know I have missed.

Oscar Thoughts from Three Top Critics

Posted on February 22, 2009 at 9:27 am

Jeannette Catsoulis tells us the Oscars should embrace the lowbrow in Las Vegas CityLife:
tudios spend all year milking dollars from young people only to turn around at Oscar time, overcome with shame and a newly minted commitment to quality, and nominate a bunch of old-lady favorites. (Only one of this year’s nominees is even set in this century.) Am I — gasp! — arguing for award by populism? Damn right I am: If Hollywood wants support for its sickeningly expensive, annual display of onanism, it needs to be proud of what it does best. Leave the recognition of Art to the Independent Spirit Awards and the Director’s Guild and give Oscar back to the people who keep him in business: average Americans.
She makes a compelling argument that the movies overlooked by Oscar like “Dark Knight” and “Quantum of Solace” are not just bigger at the box office — they are better.
In the future, the organizers should give Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin co-hosting duties (with no restrictions on the jokes), have Matt Stone and Trey Parker write the intros, give Stan Lee as many awards as possible and invite Miley Cyrus and the Jonas clones to sing the nominated songs.
Christopher Orr also objects to stuffiness of the nominees at The New Republic, which he describes as “the mushy middle, a showcase of high-toned, politically palatable films meticulously engineered to approximate art.”
“WALL-E,” for my money the best film of the year, was relegated to the animated-film ghetto from which only “Beauty and the Beast” has ever emerged. “The Dark Knight”–which, for all its flaws, was an ambitious, fascinating work of pop mythology–will have to content itself with whatever technical awards it can scrape up. (Best Visual Effects! In your face, “Iron Man!”) And even as the Academy ignored the summer’s big mass-cultural phenomena, it simultaneously managed to skip over the fall and early winter’s quieter, more thoughtful indies–“The Wrestler,” “Rachel Getting Married,” and the bleak, bewildering “Synecdoche, New York.”
Dana Stevens in Slate finds the “aestheticization of Indian poverty unsettling” in “Slumdog Millionare” and is bothered by the “icky premise” of “The Reader.” She wistfully hopes for more “weirdness,” not just in the movies but from the actors, to make it more fun to watch.

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