Babe: Pig in the City

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Families who loved the adorable and heartwarming “Babe” need to know that this sequel, co-written and directed by “Mad Max’s” George Miller, is a much darker and more unsettling movie, not suitable for most small children.

Once again, Babe is called on to save the day, as the Hoggett’s farm is threatened with foreclosure. Mrs. Hoggett (Magda Szubanski) and Babe must appear at a fair to raise the money to save the farm. But everything goes wrong. They miss their connecting flight and are stuck in the strange and menacing city.

Then things get worse. Mrs. Hoggett and Babe are beset upon by every kind of predator, and the warm and cozy scenes of redemption and reconciliation we expect never come. Mickey Rooney plays a genuinely creepy clown. A mildly happy ending is almost coincidental and anti- climactic.

The movie is easier to admire than like, which may be why it ended up on several critics’ end of the year “10 best” lists, and was picked by the late Gene Siskel as the best film of 1998. The visuals are wonderfully imaginative. The city is a miracle of production design, brilliantly conceived. There are special effects of breathtaking skill and small moments of genuine charm. Babe and some of his new friends are adorably endearing. Older kids and teens who are not too embarrassed may appreciate the film’s artistry. But younger children should stick with the original.

Related Tags:

Drive Me Crazy

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

If a sitcom episode from the TGIF line-up was crossed with a commercial from MTV, you’d get this movie, a genial half-hour story stretched out to movie length through the insertion of lots and lots of music for the 11- 16 crowd, who will line up to buy the soundtrack album. It is no coincidence that the name of the movie was changed to the name of Britney Spears’ current hit song.

The plot would fit into an old episode of “Gidget.” High school seniors Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) and her next-door-neighbor and childhood pal Chase (Adrian Grenier) are now barely speaking. They travel in different crowds. She is filled with team spirit, loves to cheer on the school basketball team, and is working hard to make the school’s 100th anniversary dance a big success. Chase is a rebel, protesting the mindless conformity of his classmates, too cool to support anything at school. When Nicole is unsuccessful in getting basketball star Brian to the big dance, and Chase is dumped by his girlfriend Dulcie for not being as cool as a college boy who is busy protesting the use of animals in lab tests, they agree to pretend to be dating, to see if they can make their respective heartthrobs jealous.

Nicole gives Chase a makeover at Gap, and then they each visit the other’s turf. They are surprised to find themselves enjoying each others’ environments and friends, and enjoying each other. It turns out that they are the ones who get jealous, when Brian and Dulcie take the bait. And their friends, too, learn to judge by appearances.

There is no particular subtlety or insight in the movie, but it is undeniably fun to watch. Grenier, in particular, has real charm (though I preferred his tousled curls to the post-makeover hairstyle). And the movie addresses real issues about the tendency of high school kids to categorize themselves according to clearly defined extremes and to stick with friends who reinforce their interests, attitudes, and appearance.

Parents should know that there is a good deal of drinking by teens in the movie. Both Nicole and Chase react to setbacks by getting drunk at parties. The attitude of the kids in the movie seems to be that as long as they have a designated driver, there is no reason kids should not drink. Nicole is also betrayed by a friend, who tells Brian that he should be interested in her because she is willing to have sex with him. Later, Nicole insults her by calling her “easy.” A drunken boy attempts to force his intentions on a girl, and, when she refuses, he is abusive and insulting. While there are other sexual references, the behavior of the kids is limited to some romantic kissing. Parents may want to discuss the issue of cliques and snobbery in school, the importance of feeling liked for what one considers most important about oneself, the dangers of trying to manipulate others, and the difficulty of living with a single parent. Parents should also warn kids not to follow the example of one character, who arranges a real-life encounter with a cyber-date. It might not turn out as well as the one in the movie.

Related Tags:

High School

Madeline

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

One of the most beloved heroines of children’s literature is brought to life in this movie based on the classic series of books by Ludwig Bemelmans about the “twelve little girls in two straight lines” who live in “a small house in Paris that was covered with vines,” and especially “the smallest one,” Madeline. Bemelmans’ gorgeous water colors turn into gorgeously photographed Paris, set vaguely in the 1950s, setting the stage for Madeline’s night-time race to the hospital for an appendectomy, her fall into the Seine and rescue by the brave dog Genevive, and her adventures with Pepito, the son of the Spanish ambassador. Frances McDormand (whose performance in “Fargo” won an Oscar) plays Miss Clavel, the nun who cares for her charges with imagination, wisdom, and love, and courage. Nigel Hawthorne (of “The Madness of King George”) plays stern Lord Covington, who wants to sell the small house covered with vines and close down the school.

Young children, especially fans of the books, will enjoy the film. Newcomer Hetty Jones is a spunky Madeline, brave enough to say “Pooh Pooh” to a tiger, smart enough to know that if she asks Pepito to be extra quiet he will find some way to do something noisy, and determined enough to find a way to stop Lord Covington from selling the school his late wife loved so dearly.

Parental concerns: Miss Clavel’s tolerance of the girls’ misbehavior (a riotous debate over whether the girls should eat a chicken Madeline had seen before it was killed, a late night kitchen raid), a kidnapping that younger children might find scary, and the overall absence of parents (Pepito’s parents are loving but rather neglectful, Madeline is an orphan).

Pleasantville

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

In “Dave” and “Big” screenwriter Gary Ross gave us characters whose innocent honesty and goodness revealed and transformed the adult world. Now, as both screenwriter and director of “Pleasantville,” he has created teen-aged twins who are transported into an idyllic black and white 1950’s television sitcom where everything is perpetually sunny and cheerful, married couples sleep in twin beds, the basketball team never loses, and messy complications simply don’t exist. Tobey Maguire (David) and Reese Witherspoon (Jennifer) are well aware of the messy complications of the modern world. David has retreated into reruns of “Pleasantville,” a television show that makes “Andy of Mayberry” and “Father Knows Best” look like hard-hitting docudramas. And Jennifer is something of a self-described “slut.” When a mysterious TV repairman played by “Andy of Mayberry’s” Don Knotts gives them a magic remote control, David and Jennifer find themselves transformed into Pleasantville’s Bud and Mary Sue. As the twins interact with Pleasantville’s black and white world, they cannot help revealing its limits and ultimately transforming it. “Mary Sue” mischeviously introduces the concept of sex to her high school classmates, and then, more sensitively, to her Pleasantville mother (Joan Allen). “Bud” tells them about a world where the roads go on to other places, where the weather is not always sunny and mild, where people can decide to do things differently than they have before. As the characters open themselves up to change, they and their surroundings begin to bloom into color, in one of the most magical visual effects ever put onto film.

But some residents of Pleasantville are threatened and terrified by the changes. “No colored” signs appear in store windows. New rules are imposed. When the twins’ Pleasantville father (William H. Macy) finds no one there to hear his “Honey, I’m home!” he does not know what to do. He wants his wife to go back to black and white.

At first, Jennifer thinks that it is sex that turns the black and white characters into color. But when she stays “pasty,” she realizes that the colors reveal something more subtle and meaningful — the willingness to challenge the accepted and opening oneself up to honest reflection about one’s own feelings and longings.

High schoolers may appreciate the way that the twins, at first retreating in different ways from the problems of the modern world, find that the rewards of the examined life make it ultimately worthwhile. Topics for discussion include the movie’s parallels to Nazi Germany (book burning) and American Jim Crow laws (“No colored” signs), and the challenges of independent thinking. NOTE: parents should know that the movie contains fairly explicit references to masturbation (and a non-explicit depiction) and to teen and adulterous sex.

Related Tags:

Drama Family Issues Fantasy

The Borrowers

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Mary Norton’s delightful book about the tiny people who live in houses and “borrow” foraged items (thus explaining why no one can ever find anything) is charmingly translated to the screen. The art direction is sublime and the performances are utterly engaging. Children will want to watch the movie a second time just to identify all of the items used by the Borrowers for clothes, furnishings, and equipment. The Borrowers in this story are the Clock family, Pod, his wife Homily, and their children Arietty (played by the adorable newcomer Flora Newbigin) and Peagreen. They live in the home of the aptly named Lenders, until an unscrupulous lawyer named Ocious Potter (John Goodman) has them evicted so that he can tear down the house and build an apartment building. In 83 fast minutes the Clocks find a way to survive Potter and his exterminator, get separated and then reunited, meet up with long-lost friends, and, with the help of the Lenders’ son, save the day for both families. Lots of fun and well worth watching.