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The Worst Witch

Posted on October 17, 2011 at 8:34 am

B
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating: NR
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Spooky Halloween themes
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: 1986
Date Released to DVD: October 16, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B0002JP5EK

Thanks to my godson, Theo Leiss, for reminding me of this Halloween treat! The Worst Witch is based on a pre-Harry Potter series of books by Jill Murphy about a school for young witches.  Fairuza Balk, who would later play a teenaged witch in “The Craft” (and who was already a gifted young actress) plays Mildred Hubble, who can’t seem to get anything right until only she can save the day before an evil witch destroys the school.  Diana Rigg plays the school’s headmistress and her evil twin sister and Tim Curry provides one of the highlights as the Grand Wizard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmG80v473AI

 

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Based on a book DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Elementary School Fantasy For Your Netflix Queue Holidays

The Way

Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:59 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements, drug use, and smoking
Profanity: Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and drunkenness, a lot of smoking, drug use
Violence/ Scariness: Sad off-screen death, some scuffles
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: October 7, 2011
Date Released to DVD: February 21, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN: B0062VL4QA

In honor of this DVD Pick of the Week, I have three copies to give away.  Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “The Way” in the subject line and tell me your favorite Martin Sheen movie.  Don’t forget your address!  US addresses only.

A story about a father and is son comes to us from a father and his son.  Emilio Estavez wrote and directed his father Martin Sheen in a touching and uplifting movie about a doctor who completes the pilgrimage he told his estranged son not to make after the son is killed in a storm.

Sheen plays Tom, an affluent ophthalmologist living in Las Angeles, playing golf with his friends and worried about his son Daniel (Estavez).  In his late 30’s, Daniel has dropped out of his PhD program to roam the world.  Tom gets a call from a French policeman telling him that Daniel is dead.  He flies to France, identifies the body, and then impulsively decides to finish what Daniel had started, to walk the Way of St. James from  St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela, 780 km/484 miles as pilgrims have done since the middle ages.  He will bring Daniel along with him, leaving his ashes along the path so that he can complete his journey.

Tom has no interest in the other pilgrims or in sharing with anyone what he is doing.  But there is no way to avoid the people who are walking along the same road and staying at the same inns and soon he finds himself sharing the journey with an affable Dutchman named Joost (Yorick van Wageningen), a bitter Canadian named Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), and a frantic Irish writer named Jack (James Nesbitt).  People on The Way tend to leave their last names behind.  Everyone is just a first name and a nationality — and everyone but Tom gives a reason for being there.  Joost wants to lose weight before his brother’s wedding.  Sarah wants to quit smoking, but only after she completes the pilgrimage.  Jack is there to write a book about it and his editor is impatient.  But pilgrims are not always honest with themselves or each other and part of what they will learn on the road is what they are really doing there.

At times it has the feel of a television movie but the scenery is spectacular and benefits from the big screen and Estavez as writer and director has a good sense of timing and a gift for cinematic storytelling.  It is funny and heartfelt and inspiring and it will make you think more deeply about your own journey.

 

(more…)

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Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Family Issues Spiritual films

Real Steel

Posted on October 6, 2011 at 6:57 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some violence, intense action, and brief language
Profanity: Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking
Violence/ Scariness: Human and robot violence, character badly beaten
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: October 7, 2011
Date Released to DVD: January 24, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN: B004A8ZWW4

The robot has the heart and the human has to learn to feel again in this unabashedly cheesy but irresistible fairy tale about a father, a son, and robots who bash the heck out of each other in a boxing ring.

Charlie (Hugh Jackman) was a boxer until human boxing was abandoned some time in the near future.  Now enormous rock ’em sock ’em robots get in a ring and fight to total mechanical destruction.  It is  like something between trial by combat, a computer game, a cockfight, and a demolition derby.  Now Charlie drives around from one skeezy venue to another, promoting whatever bucket of bolts he can get to stand up and throw a punch.  When his robot loses a match because Charlie was distracted by a pretty blond, he loses everything.  He actually loses more than everything because he bet more than he had.

He gets an opportunity to try again when a former girlfriend dies and he is left with their son Max (Dakota Goyo), with whom he has had no relationship.  The boy’s wealthy aunt on his mother’s side (Hope Davis) wants to adopt him.  Charlie agrees to sign over the boy in exchange for enough money to buy a new robot.  It means keeping Max for the summer, so the aunt’s husband can take the child-free vacation trip he has been planning.  Charlie planned to dump Max on another old girlfriend, Bailey (Evangeline Lilly of “Lost”), the daughter of the man who trained him as a boxer.  But Max insists on going along and when the robot Charlie bought with the money he got is destroyed, Max finds an old sparring robot in the junkyard.  He was never intended to be a boxer.  He was not designed to throw punches, just to take them.  But he has a “shadow” function that enables him to learn moves by imitating a human.  And Charlie is the human who knows how to hook, jab, and uppercut.

Two things work surprisingly well in this movie.  The first is the robots, magnificently designed and brilliantly executed.  Real-life boxing champ Sugar Ray Leonard provided the boxing moves and gave each one of them a distinct style and personality in their approach to fighting.  They are outrageously fun to watch.  The second is the storyline.  Part “The Champ” (made twice, both among the greatest sports weepies of all time) and part (of course) “Rocky,” the script is co-written by Dan Gilroy (the stunning fantasy “The Fall” and the uneven but intriguing and provocative “Freejack”).  It may be cheesy but it embraces the cheese with enthusiasm and awareness.  Jackman and Goyo bring a lot to their roles as well.  We might lose interest in Charlie but Jackman makes us see that he is wounded, not selfish.  And Goyo has just the right mix of determination and faith to show us that he has the best of Charlie in him and to show that to Charlie as well.

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Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Family Issues Fantasy Science-Fiction Sports

The Lion King

Posted on October 3, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating: G
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Characters in peril, murder, scary stampede and hyenas, sad death of a parent
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: 1994
Date Released to DVD: October 3, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B0036TGT3E

“The Lion King” finishes its record-breaking theatrical re-release in 3D with its first Blu-Ray in a superpack and I have five to give away!  Details below.

One of Disney’s most popular animated features (and the inspiration for one of Broadway’s biggest blockbuster) is ”The Lion King,” a sort of cross between “Richard III,” “Henry IV,” and “Hamlet.” It is the story of Simba (voice of Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a child, Matthew Broderick as an adult), the cub of Mufasa (James Earl Jones), the king of the jungle.  Simba “just can’t wait to be king.” But his evil Uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons), bitterly jealous of Mufasa, wants to be king, so he arranges for Mufasa to be killed in a stampede and to have Simba think he is responsible.

Simba runs away, and finds friends in Pumbaa the warthog (Ernie Sabella) and Timon the meerkat (Nathan Lane), who advise him that the best philosophy is “hakuna matata” (no worries). Simba grows up thinking he has escaped from his past, but his childhood friend, Nala finds him, and tells him that under Scar’s leadership, the tribe has suffered badly. She persuades him to return to take on his responsibilities as King of the Pridelands. He learns that it was Scar who caused Mufasa’s death, and he vanquishes Scar to become King.

Not just a movie, but a marketing phenomenon, this blockbuster was the highest grossing film of 1994. Amazingly, it made even more money in merchandise than it did at the box office, a fact for which audiences have been paying ever since, as each subsequent Disney animated movie seems to be designed primarily as a commercial for teeshirts, lunch boxes and action figures. The score, and the song “Circle of Life,” with authentic African rhythms and instruments, won Oscars for Elton John and Tim Rice.

Parents should know that the death of Mufasa is genuinely scary and young and sensitive children may be frightened of the stampede, the hyenas, and the family betrayal.  More troubling is the arrogance of the “Circle of Life” explanation, which is mighty reassuring as long as you are the one on top of the food chain. And worse than that is the whole “hakuna matata” idea, which is genuinely irresponsible.  Make sure that kids realize that even Simba finds out that he cannot run away from his problems.

Family discussion:  How was being king different from what Simba thought?  What does your family do to welcome new babies?

If you like this, try: the stage production, with its extraordinary puppets, “The Lion King 1 1/2,” a much better-than-average sequel, and other Disney animated classics like “Aladdin” and “The Little Mermaid.”

To enter the contest for the Blu-Ray/DVD Combo: send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Lion King” in the subject line and tell me your favorite song from this movie.  Don’t forget your address!  Good luck, and I will pick a winner a week from today.

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Action/Adventure Animation Classic DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Musical Talking animals

Citizen Kane

Posted on September 25, 2011 at 7:51 pm

A+
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: NR
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking, smoking, sometimes to excess
Violence/ Scariness: Tense confrontations, sad death
Diversity Issues: Character makes an anti-Semitic remark
Date Released to Theaters: 1941
Date Released to DVD: September 26, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B0050G3NWG

“Citizen Kane” has topped more “all-time best” lists than any other movie and this 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition is a treat for passionate fans and those who still have the thrill of seeing it for the first time ahead of them.

Orson Welles was only 26 but already an accomplished writer/director with a distinguished body of work on stage and radio.  He and writer Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the script, inspired by the life of publishing titan William Randolph Hearst.  Welles directed and starred in the title role of a wealthy young man who turns from idealistic newspaper owner to political candidate to bitter recluse.  It is worthy of every accolade it has received and more.

This magnificent film influenced and inspired everything that came after.  And the sumptuous extras that come with this anniversary edition are treasures, especially the scene-by-scene commentary by Roger Ebert, almost as entertaining and illuminating as the film itself, with insights and details of technology and artistic innovation that are mind-boggling.  There’s a separate commentary by director/historian Peter Bogdanovich and interviews with editor Robert Wise (who later became a director) and co-star Ruth Warrick (who played Kane’s first wife and later went on to star in “All My Children”).

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Classic Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week For Your Netflix Queue Inspired by a true story Movie Mom’s Top Picks for Families
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