Monster House

Posted on October 25, 2010 at 7:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language.
Profanity:	Some crude schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	References to stealing medication to drug the monster
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic peril, some characters injured or killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	October 30, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000IFRT2Y

My DVD pick this week is one of my favorites for Halloween. “Honey, I’m home” takes on a cheerfully creepy new meaning in “Monster House,” a fresh, fun, and deliciously scary animated film produced by Robert Zemeckis (“Back to the Future”) and Steven Spielberg (“Jurassic Park,” “Jaws”) and it is a great choice for a Halloween treat.
Every neighborhood has that house. You know, the one the little kids tiptoe past and the one where the bigger kids dare each other to touch the front door. In D.J’s neighborhood, it’s the house across the street, owned by mean Mr. Nebbercracker (voice of Steve Buscemi). He yells at any kids who come near the house or anyone who touches his lawn.

It’s just before Halloween, Mr. Nebbercracker is taken to the hospital, and D.J. (voice of Mitchel Musso) has been left with Zee (voice of Maggie Gyllenhaal), a teenage babysitter who pretends to be sweet and responsible in front of grown-ups, but who, once she knows D.J.’s parents have left, tells him to stay out of her way so she can hang out with her slacker boyfriend Bones (voice of Jason Lee).

D.J.’s best friend Chowder (voice of Sam Lerner) comes over, and they begin to observe the increasingly scary things happening at the Nebbercracker house. When Jenny (voice of Spencer Locke) comes to their neighborhood selling cookies and starts up the front walk to Mr. Nebbercracker’s house, D.J. and Chowder try to stop her. (She crisply informs them that if they are mentally challenged she is certified to teach them baseball.) But she discovers that the house is as dangerous as they say, and they decide to investigate.

This follows in the grand tradition of adventure stories with middle-school-aged heroes (and heroines), the big, scary world of the story standing in as a metaphor for the big, scary world of adolescence and adulthood. Jenny, D.J., and Chowder get no help from parents or the babysitter, not even from the police (voices of Kevin James and Nick Cannon). They have to learn to rely on skills they did not know they had. They show themselves and each other that they have the wisdom, curiosity, determination, loyalty, and courage to take on whatever lies beyond home, family, and all that is familiar.

The clever and involving script, the fluid and realistic movement of the characters (using the same rotoscope-style techniques developed for The Polar Express), and the unaffected and appealing voice talents of the young actors keep us on the side of the young adventurers. The house itself is imaginatively anthropomorphic. And the mystery is solved with a satisfying resolution that is sad and even a little scary but less spooky and more reassuring than the usual thriller.

Parents should know that this movie is intense, especially in its 3-D format, and may be overwhelming for young kids or those who are easily scared. Even though most of the frightening stuff is in the “boo!” or fun-scary category, it still may be overpowering for some audience members, even though by the end of the story almost everyone comes out of it as well as possible. There are some graphic images and some jump-out-at-you shocks. A character steals medication to sedate the monster. The resolution of the mystery may be reassuring to many in the audience but may be disturbing to others. Spoiler alert: the source of the house’s destructive power comes from an overweight woman whose cruel treatment led to madness and death. Parents should also know there is brief crude humor and potty jokes that should appeal to kids and a sweet kiss.
Families who see this movie should talk about how bullying and teasing can have profoundly damaging consequences. They should also talk about things that they once found scary and then discovered not to be so scary after all.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy scary comedies like “The Cat and the Canary” and “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.” More mature fans of scary movies will enjoy “Poltergeist.” Classic movies that beautifully evoke a child’s point of view on creepy neighborhood houses include “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Meet Me in St. Louis.” Older audience members might appreciate the way producer Zemeckis made the same house look both inviting and terrifying in the otherwise unimpressive thriller “What Lies Beneath.”

Special DC Screening: ‘Family Affair’

Posted on October 20, 2010 at 10:46 pm

A Family Affair is a documentary about the unforgivable. And the power of forgiveness. Film-maker Chico Colvard has made a powerful film about his own family’s tragedy and their journey toward reconciliation and understanding. Those in the Washington, D.C. area can see it on November 8 at the Johnson Center Cinema at George Mason University. Colvard will be there for a Q&A following the film.

Interview: Charles Ferguson of ‘Inside Job’

Posted on October 20, 2010 at 8:00 am

The scariest — and most infuriating — movie of the year is “Inside Job,” the documentary about the financial meltdown from Charles Ferguson, the director of “No End in Sight.” With just two films, Ferguson, a PhD in political science who made a fortune in software, has become an extraordinarily accomplished director and journalist and an important participant in the conversation about definitional issues of policy. His films are exceptionally well-crafted. He has a true story-teller’s understanding of the material and, as his interviews of the friendly and not-so-friendly subjects of this film demonstrate, a fearless intellect and a gift for getting to the point — all of which made interviewing him a rare treat.

I have done a great deal of research myself on the subprime portion of the financial meltdown and I believe a core problem was that everyone at every stage of the Wall Street conveyor belt, had incentive compensation that was all upside and no downside — they all got paid for success with no risk of loss for failure. Is that what you discovered as well?

These people were rewarded enormously for doing the dangerous things they did and even on a net basis, despite the losses they suffered when their firms collapsed, they made more money then they would have if they behaved ethically. Harvard Law School professor Lucien Bebchuk’s study on executive compensation at Bear Stearns showed that it created incentives for excess risk.

I think it’s unquestionably correct at several different stages and several different levels in the system, beginning with the yield-spread premiums that lenders paid to mortgage brokers which incented mortgage brokers to put people in more expensive and more dangerous loans than they should have going all the way up to the structure of trader and sales and CEO compensation in investment banking, which are all exceptionally dangerous and give people huge incentives to take risks and/or commit fraud, both of which occurred on a gigantic scale. Even the nature of director compensation and corporate governance — the directors are essentially paid to be passive and to not challenge entrenched management.

How would you describe what went wrong?

Large-scale fraud became a core part of the financial system — a combination of deregulation and lack of enforcement of the law.

One of the big differences between the financial crises of the Enron/WorldCom era and the more recent one is that no one seems to be going to jail. Why is that?

The reason that they’re not going to jail is not that they didn’t commit crimes. It’s because there’s been no effort to enforce the law, an even more disturbing phenomenon.

What’s the solution?

The American people have to get angry enough and organized enough to force our political leaders to change. At the moment it doesn’t seem at all likely that it’s going to come from the current administration. It’s been a great disappointment that it’s turned out to be more of the same. And so far the American people have been remarkably quiescent in the face of this, given what’s occurred. I hope that that’s changing. There are good guys but they’re not organized. There’s no Chamber of Commerce for the good guys. That’s what we need, whether it’s a political party or some non-profit/lobbying organization that coordinates — there are a number of organizations but they are very scattered and divided.

How can Washington stand up to Wall Street, given the amount of money they spend on lobbying and campaign contributions?

Wall Street has certainly become very powerful. It’s depressingly the case that politicians are inexpensive to purchase. Three things are critical — changing the role that money plays in elections, paying regulators very well, which some countries do, like Singapore, which gives them no financial incentive to move to or give favors to the private sector, and third is law enforcement. One of the least well covered in media terms developments related to this is the politicization of law enforcement for white collar crimes.

As they say, if you rob a bank with a gun, you go to jail; if you rob a bank with a pen, you get to keep your job and your bonus.

And that’s a change. After the S&L crisis, many people went to jail. Now no one goes to jail.

Who should have gone to jail?

All of the major investment banks artificially concealed their liabilities, most of them inflated the value of their assets for quite a long period of time. We also know all the major investment banks were heavily involved in selling securities they knew to be defective and in many cases designing them to fail so they could bet against them or allow their clients to bet against them. In principle it’s possible to do those things without violating the law but as a practical matter it’s hard to sell hundreds of billions of dollars of those securities without committing fraud. If you’re honest and you don’t lie and you don’t commit fraud, it’s a tough sell. We know that Goldman Sachs executives were referring to these as “s***y deals” at the same time that they were selling them as very safe securities. I suspect that a very high fraction of the senior sales forces, the senior people on the mortgage tests, the senior mortgage traders, the senior management of the investment banking industry should be prosecuted.

What is the hardest part of explaining all of this to frustrated and angry Americans, where so many people feel that the system is unfair but whose eyes glaze over when they hear “credit default swaps?” How do you reach the people you want to get angry?

Keeping the jargon out and getting to the essence of things, not letting the jargon overwhelm you. We wanted to make the film interesting and accessible for the average person. We used good cinematography, cool images, great music, pacing, to make it appeal to the audience. I hope that many, many people will see this film.

You were a serious film fan before you became a film-maker. What are some of your favorites?

There are serious ones and silly ones. I love film noir, “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Big Sleep,” the newer incarnations like “LA Confidential.” I love heist movies. “Inside Man” I thought was great. And serious things, too: “Kagimusha,” “Ran.” My friend Jason Kohn’s movie “Manda Bala” about corruption in Brazil is beautiful, amazing. It’s about crime and corruption in Brazil and it’s gorgeous, really extraordinary. It’s so unusual in the way that it is visually gorgeous. It was made in anamorphic Super 16, 2.7 to 1 so a standard DVD will not do it justice. It’s really breathtaking.

Are documentaries the agent for social change the way Dickens was in the late 19th century and journalists like Upton Sinclair and Rachel Carson were in the 20th century?

It’s not the only place investigative journalism gets done these days but journalism is shrinking, and under a lot of pressure. Documentary film is taking up some of that slack and I hope it will become increasingly prominent.

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Oceans

Posted on October 19, 2010 at 8:00 am

Forget about “Star Wars” and “Aliens” — there are creatures living beneath the waves on this very planet that are far weirder and more exotic than anything Hollywood has conjured up.
Huge, swooping creatures with bright speckles; shape transforming beasts that pounce and gobble up crabs; gelatinous monsters that glow; all this and more is captured in “Oceans,” from Disneynature.
The documentary is accompanied by a narration by Pierce Brosnan which sometimes gets overly flowery, but at its best adds an element of poetry to help young audiences understand that there is a larger significance to the images they are seeing. “Oceans” also offers a message of concern about pollution and the environment (appropriate for its Earth Day release). But the star of “Oceans” is clearly not the words but the pictures, and they are worth the price of admission many times over.
Scenes of the predatory side of ocean life are kept to a minimum, and are usually shot from a tasteful distance. There are cute moments — a sea otter floating on it back in the sunshine at Monterey bay keeps a rock on its stomach, to use in cracking open the shellfish it gobbles up– and tender moments– an ugly mother walrus sweetly nuzzles her even uglier baby walrus, or a mother seal coaxing her baby into the water for the first time. The cameras of directors/writers Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud do a good job of conveying the vast range of the ocean, by contrasting the powerful crashing of immense waves in a storm with quiet glimpses of delicate life forms suspended in the tranquil depths; they contrast huge whales with tiny one celled creatures.

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Interview: Davis Guggenheim of ‘Waiting for Superman’

Posted on October 17, 2010 at 2:00 pm

“Waiting for Superman” is the stunning new documentary from Davis Guggenheim about the failures of our public school system and our failure as a society to support outstanding teachers. You can help by pledging to see the movie — if you buy tickets online you will get a free download of “Shine” from John Legend and the Roots album “Wake Up,” and the film-makers will donate five books to kids in need. Guggenheim is the son of pioneering documentarian Charles Guggenheim and the husband of Oscar-nominated actress Elisabeth Shue. I spoke to him about the public schools, what he recommends, and his own favorite teacher.

Did you have a favorite teacher?

My 10th grade history teacher, Harvey LeJure. There’s an animated film where I talk about how he changed my life. I was a terrible student, a C- student, and there were a couple of teachers who pulled me out of my funk and taught me that I had something to say. I would not be a film-maker without them.

A Conversation with Davis Guggenheim from TakePart on Vimeo.

Why is it that most of us have just one or two great teachers in our lives?

All it takes is a couple. That magic won’t happen with every teacher. But the movie is about how we have to have really great teachers in every classroom.

Do we put too many administrative burdens on teachers that interfere with their ability to teach?

What we need is a pipeline of great teachers. We need to recruit the very best, train them really well, develop the good ones, reward them really well, and the few that are ineffective, we have to find them another job. We don’t do any of those steps very well. We tend to treat teachers like widgets, just plug them in like they are all the same. Countries like Finland who are kicking our butts, number one in every category, they have a great program for great teachers. And that’s the exciting thing. It’s not some magic; it’s about having a commitment to making great teachers in this country.

What can we do to make teaching a more prestigious job?

We do have a prestige deficit. In Finland, teachers are held in the highest regard. We need to start treating teachers like a profession, holding them to the highest standard, rewarding the really good ones, we can make a difference. Teachers will feel better about themselves and we will feel better about them. Unfortunately now we have a factory mentality; anyone who wants to get a credential can. We have to hold them to a higher standard and then they will get more respect, more money, and more prestige.

Your film features Geoffrey Canada, whose extraordinary success is in part based on his ability to get the support of the parents. How important is that?

A big piece of the puzzle is parent involvement, and teachers will tell you they need parents to be good partners. But this new generation of reformers says, “We can no longer use parents as an excuse.” Yes, it’s a problem and we should give schools and neighborhoods more support. What you can see in these schools is that even in the toughest neighborhoods we can go in and send 90 percent of those kids to college. The exciting thing is that it is possible.

Do we ask too much of teachers by giving them students with such widely different levels of achievement and learning styles?

The problem of our system is that it is designed to educate a few. Even in the white suburban neighborhoods where you buy a million dollar house to get into the good school district, those schools are built for the top 10-15 percent. We now are in an economy where everyone needs the education and skills to be a good worker. The big truth is that our skills are built for a 1950’s model where you’re only going to educate a few.

How do you create a system with enough flexibility to be performance based in evaluating teachers but not too much to allow for abuse and favoritism?

We tend to swing from one extreme to the other. We’re in the extreme now where we don’t evaluate our teachers very well at all. The other extreme is just looking at scores and blind to the nuance and art of great teaching. But there is a big, thoughtful discussion on how to do that. Maybe 50 percent on test scores and another chunk of how the other teachers see you and another from a principal visit. But the other alternative is no evaluation at all and keeping everyone in the job. We have to have a thoughtful way of assessing our teachers with scores a piece of it but other observations another piece.

Your film features DC school head Michelle Rhee, who announced her resignation this week.

I’m worried about the kids in D.C. Just because the mayor and chancellor change doesn’t mean the kids change. I hope whoever replaces her continues to make the tough choices that put kids first.

Why are documentaries having such a flowering? There are several this year on education alone and many others that are attracting a lot of attention.

The other genres of movie-making seems to be stuck in a rut, but documentaries are exploding. They’re growing, they’re blossoming, many different types. People are turning to documentaries because they are not getting answers elsewhere. They’re frustrated with the mainstream press. They’re frustrated that these stories are not being told. These movies speak to them. They are inspired by the stories of the families in the movie, and by buying a ticket to become part of a movement that is changing our schools. They can disagree with some of what we say, but it is a catalyst for real change.

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