Posted on June 22, 2015 at 8:00 am
Ever wonder what your pets get up to while you’re away? Jenny Slate, Steve Coogan, Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Bobby Moynihan, Lake Bell, Ellie Kemper and Louis C.K. will tell you all about it!
Posted on June 21, 2015 at 10:40 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | Not rated |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | None |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 2015 |
| Date Released to DVD: | June 22, 2015 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00TPL8DWW |
“Grace Stirs Up Success” is the latest in the excellent “American Girl” series, all featuring spirited young heroines confronting real-life problems, and learning some important lessons. They always include a lot of fun and a loving family, too.
In this especially delicious entry, Grace (the darling Olivia Rodrigo) is a talented and hard-working young chef who loves to help out in her grandparents’ bakery. When her mother’s pregnant sister needs help, Grace and her mother go to Paris to stay with them and Grace gets to work in a real French pastry shop. She makes some big mistakes in the kitchen and outside, but she learns a lot about cooking and about being careful and following directions.
There is a wild and very funny food fight in the kitchen as well, and learns how to make friends with her cousin, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_TAxtc714MBack at home, there is trouble at the bakery, which may have to close. Grace enters the Master Chef Junior competition, hoping to win enough money to keep the bakery going. It is a lot of fun to see the fictional Grace on the real-life reality show.
This terrific series is one of the few that really delivers top quality for elementary schoolers, with thoughtful, interesting stories and outstanding production values. Virginia Madsen is warm and winning as Grace’s mother and the Parisian settings and costume design are colorful and appealing. The films are always frank about the problems the girls face, both external and growing-up challenges, and show how friends and family can work together to make things better.
Parents should know that there are some difficult family issues, including financial problems.
Family discussion: What would you like to learn how to cook? What was the most important thing Grace had to learn?
If you like this, try: the other American Girls films
Posted on June 21, 2015 at 9:51 pm
I loved every film I saw at AFI Docs this year, with a wide variety in subject matter and tone. There were intimate, personal stories, and movies about major global figures and forces. And I also saw an eye-popping demonstration of new technology, VIZIO’s Ultra HD supporting Dolby Vision. With samples from computer animation to live action, the Reference Series TV, which will be available later this year, showed stunningly dynamic, clear, and accurate images. They will also be using their systems in movie theaters, including five AMC theaters this year.
The films I saw were:
“The Best of Enemies” The legendary William F. Buckley/Gore Vidal debates following the Republican and Democratic conventions of 1968 are, according to this film, the origin of today’s partisan, combative television news programming.
“The Wolfpack” Like a Wes Anderson movie come to life, this is the story of seven children, six of them boys, growing up in New York, home schooled and not allowed to leave the apartment, completely isolated from the world except for movies, which they watch and re-create.
“From This Day Forward” As a filmmaker prepares for her own wedding, she explores the very unusual but deeply committed relationship of her parents, who remain married despite her father’s transition to being a woman.
“Hot Type: 150 Years of the Nation” The country’s oldest continuously operating publication faces unprecedented challenges in an era of new media and impatient readers.
“How to Dance in Ohio” A group of teenagers and adults with autism prepare for a prom to work on their social skills.
“Very Semi-Serious” New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff and the quirky and engaging people who create cartoons tell us how they find what is strange about the familiar and familiar about the strange.
“Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” Alex Gibney, whose award-winning documentaries have covered Enron, Scientology, torture, Eliot Spitzer, and more, turns his camera on one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.
Posted on June 20, 2015 at 3:49 pm
The first-ever animated feature from StoryCorps celebrates the transformative power of listening. Listening Is an Act of Love: A StoryCorps Special presents six stories from 10 years of the innovative oral history project, where everyday people sit down together to ask life’s important questions. Framing these intimate conversations from across the country is an interview between StoryCorps founder Dave Isay and his nine-year-old nephew, Benji, animated in the inimitable style of The Rauch Brothers. “If you pay just a little attention, you’ll find wisdom and poetry in their words.”
StoryCorps has a wonderful archive, a podcast, an app for you to create your own interviews, and a great list of questions. Whether you want to record the answers or not, these questions will let you start some unforgettable conversations with your family.
Posted on June 20, 2015 at 8:00 am
This animated film is inspired by the life of Bilal Ibn Rabah, one of Muhammad’s most trusted companions and known for his beautiful voice with which he called people to their prayers.
