The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Posted on August 14, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief language
Profanity:	Brief mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some sad losses and references to loss of parents
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 20, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	December 3, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIIKS

I have one copy to give away to the first person who sends me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Timothy” in the subject line! Don’t forget your address!

One of the biggest surprises — and greatest pleasures — of being a parent is learning how different your child is from the one you dreamed of, and finding out that the reality is so much better than you could have imagined. That is the theme of the endearing fable, “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.” Jim (Joel Edgerton) and Cindy (Jennifer Garner) meet with an official from an adoption agency to explain why they are fit parents, and it turns out to be the story of Timothy, who came to be their son after they had given up.

“You couldn’t have tried harder or done more,” they are told as the movie begins. All of their time, money, and energy has been focused on trying to become pregnant, but nothing has worked and they are devastated. They decide to mourn their loss by writing down a list of qualities and talents they would have wanted in a child. Honesty, of course. Musical and artistic talent would be good and he should have a good sense of humor. He does not have to be a star athlete, but it would be nice if just once he made the winning goal. They bury the list in the garden and prepare to move on.

But then, he is there, a 10 year old boy covered with dirt. He says his name is Timothy (CJ Adams). He calls them by the words they had hungered for: “Mom” and “Dad.” And he has leaves growing out of his legs, leaves that can’t be snipped off, even with gardening shears. They decide not to question it, just to enroll him in school and be a family. They agree that it puts him under too much pressure to say, “Have a great day!” before school, so Jim just says encouragingly, “Have the day that you have.”

Jim works in the town’s struggling pencil factory. Cindy works for the pencil company’s imperious owner (Dianne Weist) at the local museum devoted to the company’s founder. As they cope with problems at work and with their extended families (an ailing relative, a competitive sibling, a distant and judgmental father), Timothy inspires many people because he seems to understand and appreciate the world around him. He forms a friendship with an artistic older girl. And he manages to fit every item on the buried list, but in his own way.

As someone once said, “I used to have four theories about children. Now I have four children and no theories.” And as someone else once said, “Adults don’t make children. Children make adults.” The great gift of parenthood is the way it makes you jettison so many assumptions — about who you are and who your children are. When you meet your children, you begin to meet yourself as well. This whimsical, bittersweet tale is one of the summer’s nicest surprises.

Parents should know that this film deals with infertility issues, sad losses and references to death of parents, bullies, and includes some brief schoolyard language.

Family discussion: Where do you think Timothy came from? What would have been different if he turned out the way Jim and Cindy expected? How did they learn to be better parents?

If you like this, try: “The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Posted on August 2, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor

This is the third movie based on the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. With each movie, the franchise becomes better at milking the formula that causes 4th graders to cringe with delight. The story is always the same: Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) suffers through the traumas and indignities of a young boy growing up. Tormented by his older brother, hounded by his younger brother, misunderstood by his parents and teachers, and haunted by Holly ( Peyton List), the unattainable pretty girl in his class, Greg muddles through one humiliating mishap after another, accompanied by his well-intentioned best friend Rowley (Robert Capron).

This episode, which is based on the fourth book in the Wimpy Kid series, begins at the close of the school year. The last day is of course excruciating (Greg’s father accidentally gave the school a humiliating baby picture of Greg for the yearbook) but Greg is looking forward to a long and happy summer of computer games and time with Holly. Alas, it is not to be. Greg’s father insists that Greg get out of the house and do something worthwhile. From this premise follows a summer full of catastrophes. Greg’s parents think he might become more responsible if he takes care of a dog. Then they try signing him up to learn outdoorsmanship with Wilderness Troop 133. They consider enrolling him at a disciplinary prep school for irresponsible children. Finally, Greg’s parents leave him alone when he tells them that he has found a summer job. In reality, Greg has no job; he spends the summer sneaking into a country club where he tries to impress Holly. This lie will not end well for Greg, yet like all of the Wimpy Kid movies, everything ends on a warm and upbeat note.

Greg describes his baby brother’s security blanket as “a couple of pieces of yarn held together by raisins and boogers.” One could describe the plot of this movie the same way. There is very little plot to hold together a string of contrived and embarrassing anecdotes. When Greg jumps off the high dive board in front of everyone at the country club, his swim trunks improbably catch on the diving board and come off. He is trapped in the pool naked until an even more embarrassing alternative presents itself: Greg slips on a girl’s bathing suit labeled “princess” across the butt, and hurries out of the pool while people laugh at him and call him “loser.” These episodes are all painful but consistent with the brand of Wimpy Kids, the film always turns away just before the situation becomes truly awful.
The children in the theater all seemed to enjoy being grossed out by Greg’s misadventures. They simultaneously laughed out loud and yelled “Eeewwwwwww.” But those who are old enough to have come to terms with normal bodily functions may be less intrigued.

(more…)

Ice Age: Continental Drift

Posted on July 12, 2012 at 6:00 pm

The “Ice Age” folks have the formula down very well, and this fourth entry is one of their strongest, with enough of the familiar to be satisfying and enough that is new to keep things interesting. The real expertise is the mixture of heart, humor, and adventure, in what is now one of the most reliably entertaining series for families.

It begins, as “Ice Age” must, with Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel who is the Sisyphus of the pre-historic era. Scrat (voiced, or, I should say, squeaked and squealed, by director Chris Wedge) wants an acorn, but it is his destiny to have it always just beyond his reach or to create chaos when he tries to bury it. Both happen right off the bat as inserting the tip of the acorn into the ice has results that are literally earth-shattering. Yes, it turns out that the reason the continents separated and moved to opposite sides of the oceans was because of a squirrel.

Meanwhile, our old friends Diego the cranky saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary), Manny the anxious Mammoth (Ray Romano), and Sid the silly sloth (John Leguizamo) are on the wrong side of the dividing tectonic plates and become separated from Manny’s mate Ellie (Queen Latifah) and his tween daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer). Just as Manny and Peaches are in conflict because she wants to hang out with her friends and he thinks she is too young, the ground buckles and cracks underneath them. Diego, Manny, and Sid are adrift on an ice floe along with Sid’s dotty grandmother (Wanda Sykes). Like Daniel Day-Lewis in “Last of the Mohicans,” Manny promises, “I will find you.” But they have no cell phones or GPS or even maps.

And then things get worse, as they run into a pirate crew on a ship made from ice led by the piratical Captain Gutt (a sensational Peter Dinklage of “Game of Thrones”). His first make is a female saber-toothed tiger named Shira (Jennifer Lopez). Our heroes must battle Gutt’s gang and find their way back home. Gutt and Sid’s granny are welcome additions to the cast, adding vitality and flavor to a cast whose conflicts have subsided in the previous chapters. The animation is exceptionally well executed, especially the roiling water and a very funny reaction to a paralyzing plant. The action scenes continue to be crisply executed and the happy ending includes lessons on loyalty for friends and family. If it merrily ignores any historical or scientific legitimacy, it shows its value with wit and heart.

(more…)

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Posted on July 5, 2012 at 6:00 pm

A prize-winner at Cannes and Sundance, this near post-apocalyptic story of a father and daughter in a condemned part of Southern Louisiana is a stunningly assured debut by first-time feature director and co-writer Benh Zeitlen and extraordinary performances by a cast of non-professionals.

Six-year-old Hushpuppy (the mesmerizing Quvenzhané Wallis) and her father Wink (Dwight Henry, who owns a bakery in New Orleans) live in homes made from trash in a fictional community called The Bathtub. They do not have electricity, running water, or telephones, but Hushpuppy is happy and feels lucky to be there.

Zeitlen, the 29-year-old son of folklorists, makes this story exquisitely lyrical. It is poetic in tone and epic in scope. Seeing through Hushpuppy’s eyes makes it feel like a fairy tale because of the freshness of her conception of what is real and what is fantasy, what is strange and what is ordinary, what is scary and what is comfortable. Like Margaret O’Brien in the beginning of “Meet Me in St. Louis,” she introduces us to the community she loves. Like Alice, she brings us into a strange and enchanted world.

‘The Bathtub has more holidays than the whole rest of the world,” she tells us; while ordinary people in other places only have one or two holidays, they celebrate all the time. She is a part of a fiercely devoted community. We hear her repeat what she has been told and we see the contrast between what she is telling us and what we are able to understand. Her father’s hospital gown and the precariousness of their shelter signify nothing special to her, but we can tell it means that her father is very sick and the next big storm will flood The Bathtub. What we see as peril and deprivation, she sees as a place of myth and plenty. And she sees it as her home. For her, it is “the prettiest place on earth.” That is what she has been told and that is how it seems.

Later, when they are taken to a shelter, we see that through her eyes, too. For Hushpuppy, it is not a place of rescue and protection but a place of strangeness and sterility. Buses parked outside, ready to take displaced people from the exotic but familiar world of The Bathtub to strange-sounding far-away places like Des Moines seem institutional and predatory. Later, another possible rescue takes her to a part of the “civilized” world that again, we understand when Hushpuppy does not see how very dangerous it is.

Hushpuppy’s teacher points to the tattoo on her thigh to illustrate her stories about the aurochs, boar-like prehistoric beasts. The fable-like timelessness of the setting makes the era of the aurochs feel very close. When they appear, in a scene of breathtaking synthesis of myth and metaphor, Hushpuppy’s spirit seems to expand to fill all of the courage, resolve, and vision of the human spirit.

Zeitlen achieves a naturalness and state of wonder that is breathtaking to experience and one of the most impressive films of the year.

(more…)

Brave

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some scary action and rude humor
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence including scary animals with big teeth
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	November 12, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAII08

“Brave” is not just one of the best movies of the year for any age; it is one of the best movies ever made from a female point of view.

It has been a long time coming. Pixar’s unprecedented series of outstanding critical and audience successes has been justifiably criticized because its leading characters have almost always been white and male. While “The Incredibles,” “Finding Nemo,” and “A Bug’s Life” had important female characters (you might also include “Wall•E”), it was the male characters who were at the center of the story. With its 13th film, Pixar has given not one but two female characters center stage. As we expect from Pixar (well, as we hope, following “Cars 2”), “Brave” is smart, fun, funny, and exciting, with gorgeous settings and endearing characters. But this is something more. It gives us a teenage girl in the leading role who is not pretending to be a boy (“Mulan”), unsure of herself, or trying to attract a boy (just about every movie ever made). She is strong, independent, and completely comfortable with who she is. It’s the rest of the world she thinks needs some change.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald of “Boardwalk Empire” and “Gosford Park”) is a Scottish princess and by tradition, she will marry whichever of the sons of the local lairds bests the others in an athletic competition. But she has no interest in marrying any of them. Her mother (Emma Thompson) makes her dress up in a confining outfit that barely lets her breathe and hides her wild , unmanageable hair. But Merida splits the seams of the dress, takes out her bow, and wins her own hand. In some other movies, that would be the end. Here, it is the beginning. To split the seams of tradition the way she burst through the confines of her regal attire, Merida asks for help from a witch (Julie Walters, Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter movies). She says she wants to change her fate. She should have been more specific.

Things go terribly wrong, and soon Merida finds her relationship with her mother turned upside down. Merida learns what it like to have to take care of someone. Her mother has to learn something, too. Their new situation (I am trying not to give too much away here) gives the queen a chance to take a new look at Merida and see how capable and trustworthy she is, while the queen herself begins to lose her connection to civilization. And all of this is in the midst of antics from Merida’s mischievous triplet little brothers, the struggles between the clans, the witch’s travels (her voicemail equivalent is hilarious), and a very scary bear who once took part of Merida’s father’s leg and may be back for more.

Action, comedy, and heart are expertly balanced and the mother-daughter dynamic gives the story a powerful appeal. For me, it felt like a rare chance to hear a story in my native language. There was no need to translate. The wild beauty of the crags and tors of the Scottish landscape provide a bracing environment for Merida’s real and psychological journey with her mother. Merida is a winning heroine who does not define herself by getting or being a boy and it is a pleasure to share her story.

(more…)