Gift Guide 2011

Posted on December 1, 2011 at 8:00 am

Some gift idea to keep in mind as you think of your friends and family this holiday season:

For the sports fan:

ESPN Films: 30 for 30 Limited Edition Collector Set These brilliant films by some of today’s top directors have all the thrills and triumphs and gripping story lines any sports lover could ask for. The collector set includes all of these outstanding films and five hours of extras.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tqv8ujQgMA

For those who loves thrills and chills:

Midnight Madness: The History of Horror, Fantasy and Sci-Fi Films From the golden age of Universal Studios through the explosion of digital effects, this 2-DVD set will take you through all the categories of scary movie magic, with interviews of the people who were there.

For PBS fans:

Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey This instant classic miniseries about a wealthy country family on the brink World War I is brilliantly acted by a cast that includes Dame Maggie Smith and Elizabeth McGovern. Season two is coming in January, so this is a good opportunity to get up to speed or enjoy all over again to prepare for what comes next.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSwVm1jRME

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy The feature film remake is fine but it can’t touch the original miniseries, possibly the best ever shown on television. Alec Guiness plays George Smiley, a veteran spy called back to service to find a mole in the highest levels of British intelligence.

For classic movie buffs:

Meet Me in St. Louis One of the all-time family musical classics is this story of the Smith family in the year before the 1904 World’s Fair. Judy Garland sings “The Trolly Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo&feature=related

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam’s Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby) Turner Classic Movies has a whole series of highly affordable classics and this is one of the best, with four Katherine Hepburn comedies featuring her two best co-stars, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant.

TCM Classic Movie Trivia: Featuring More Than 4,000 Questions to Test Your Trivia Smarts See how well you know the movies — and find some good titles for your Netflix queue.

For the romantic:

Midnight in Paris Woody Allen’s best film in years is the story of a writer whose trip to Paris with his fiancée and her family takes an unexpected turn.

Jane Eyre This most recent re-telling of the classic Charlotte Brontë story about the shy governess and the stormy, mysterious employer stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.

Beginners I predict Christopher Plummer will get an Oscar nomination for his performance as a man in his 70’s who comes out for the first time after the death of his wife. Ewan McGregor plays his son, who is a bit mystified but supportive, and inspired by his father to take some risks in his own romantic life.

For the new Blu-Ray owner:

These two sets include not just the iconic movie series that both rank at the top of box office winners but lots and lots of fabulous extras.

Star Wars: The Complete Saga

The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy

For 3-8 year-olds and their families:

Winnie The Pooh Disney’s loving adaptation of the A.A. Milne classic has beautiful hand-drawn animation and a charming story that lovingly captures the magic of the stories that have enchanted children for 85 years.

Scholastic Storybook Treasures: Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics and Scholastic Storybook Treasures: Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics Two My very favorite series for young children and their families has the very best in children’s books read aloud by the very best in voice talent with lovely musical accompaniment and some gentle animation. These also make a great gift for a school or library.

For 8-14 year-olds and their families:

Dolphin Tale Inspired by the true story of Winter, the dolphin with the prosthetic tail, this is a beautiful and inspiring family film.

Anne of Green Gables The miniseries based on the classic books about the red-headed heroine of Prince Edward Island has been digitally remastered for DVD.

The Rocketeer The 20th anniversary edition of this exciting sage of a dashing hero who fights the Nazis by wearing a special jet-pack is gorgeous to look at lots of fun.

One of my favorite picture books is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg. It is supposed to be the portfolio of drawings left behind by an artist with no other clues about what was going on in the stories they illustrated. I loved to try to come up with my own ideas about what was going on. Now, a group of top writers have given us their ideas with The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales / With an Introduction by Lemony Snicket and stories by Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, and Chris Van Allsburg himself.

For teens and their families:

Rise of the Planet of the Apes This excellent prequel to the tells us how an experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s led to the rise of the apes and the fall of the humans.

For everyone:

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest children’s books of all time with The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth and be on the lookout for the new documentary film featuring author Norton Juster, illustrator Jules Feiffer, and fans including authors, critics, teachers, and kids.

http://vimeo.com/30575133

The Best of the Muppet Show The new generation that has fallen in love with the Muppets will enjoy sitting down with the older generation that remembers them well to enjoy these highlights from the original series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-_QLNkh-zI

Now that the story is done, Potterphiles of all ages will appreciate Harry Potter: The Complete 8 Film Collection, including the sensationally satisfying final chapter.

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Arthur Christmas

Posted on November 22, 2011 at 6:12 pm

A sleigh pulled by reindeer? That’s so five decades ago. With the population topping seven billion and the Duggars getting ready to welcome baby number 20, Santa (Jim Broadbent) needs all the support modern technology can provide. He may not be on Facebook or Twitter, but he has swapped the sleigh for a state-of-the-art spaceship with a cloaking device, and he has a battalion of elves with the precision technology of Seal Team Six and nifty hand-held devices with naughty/nice indicators. Santa’s head of ops is his burly son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), who barks orders from mission control in camo fatigues and a high and tight haircut. Meanwhile, his bumbling but kind-hearted brother, Arthur Christmas (James McAvoy), sits by himself and answers letters from children old school-style, one at a time by hand, wearing a fuzzy Christmas sweater decorated with candy canes and reindeer-faced slippers.

The British Aardman studio is beloved for claymation films like the “Wallace and Gromit” series, characterized by off-beat characters literally showing the fingerprints of the humans who created them and a refreshing unwillingness to focus-group their stories to make them bland and culturally non-specific. While this one has some accommodation to American sensibilities — surely a little girl from Cornwall would address her letter to Father Christmas rather than Santa — the Aardman sensibility has thankfully been transferred to the digital world without looking sterile or boringly hyper-real. Steve’s goatee is shaped like a Christmas tree, an elf has a pierced eyebrow, and a reindeer has a plastic cone on his head. The settings, especially on the North Pole, are deliciously intricate and the characters understatedly quirky. I longed for a pause button to explore the witty details, especially the Enigma code-inspired analog machines Arthur and his grandfather use to send messages.

Santa’s family is endearingly flawed and familiarly dysfunctional. He loves his sons and knows he should retire, but he just cannot give up the spotlight, even in playing a Christmas board game with his family. His father, Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) longs for a chance to show he can still take the starring role. I was especially taken with Mrs. Christmas (Imelda Staunton), whose comfy demeanor hides some unexpected skills. Steve is a numbers guy who is comfortable with a delivery record that is almost perfect and he is angry and frustrated at not being promoted to become the new Santa. Clumsy, anxious Arthur knows that no child should be disappointed on Christmas morning. So when one gift is mistakenly left behind, it will be up to Arthur to save the day. With Santa and Steve in bed and mission control shut down, Grandsanta, Arthur, and a spirited stowaway wrapping elf (Ashley Jenson as Bryony) set off in the sleigh to deliver that last gift, a pink twinkle bicycle, to a little girl in Cornwall before sunrise.

From the brisk Justin Bieber video that opens the story to the warm-hearted happy ending, this is a holiday charmer that shows us how imperfect families can still feel just right.

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3D Animation Holidays

Happy Feet 2

Posted on November 19, 2011 at 6:23 pm

I loved the original Happy Feet, but five years later only liked this sequel. It’s still a lot of fun to see dancing, singing penguins, but the meandering storyline never catches hold.

In the original, a small Emperor penguin named Mumbles (Elijah Wood) could not sing like the others but loved to dance and ultimately found a way to be true to himself and be a part of the community. Toward the end, the movie took a darker turn by acknowledging the impact of climate change on the Antarctic’s pristine world. This movie seems to have adopted the same template with a few random variations. Once again, there is a mash-up of music from a variety of genres (now a more familiar idea in this post “Glee”-era) and a small penguin who does not fit in, but this movie begins with the environmental crisis as the penguins see something — and a color — that is new to their black and white world. The ice is beginning to melt and underneath is green grass.

Wood returns as Mumbles, with rock star Pink replacing the late Brittany Murphy as his spouse, Gloria. Their son son Erik (Ava Acres) is a misfit like his father. He cannot sing or dance and after a humiliating failure in front of the whole penguin tribe, he runs away from home, followed by two of his friends, Atticus and Boadicia (charmingly voiced by Benjamin Flores Jr. and Meibh Campbell). As Mumbles did in the first film, they meet up with some Adelies penguins led by the wild, sweater-wearing Lovelace (Robin Williams), who has a new friend, Sven (voice superstar Hank Azaria), a penguin with the ability to fly — and a secret about his identity. Mumbles goes after the penguin chicks, but on the way home, they find that the ice has broken apart so that their community is cut off. They cannot get back and their friends and family cannot get food. They will need the help of the Andelies and some other friends to rescue the Emperor penguins and find a new home. Meanwhile, though the penguins have no idea, a couple of microscopic krill named Will and Bill (voices of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) are on an adventure of their own, trying to move beyond the hive mind of their species to evolve into something more independent.

The music choices are delightful but too often just frustrating snippets. The relationship between Mumbles and Erik never comes to life. The segments about Will and Bill are far more engaging (the movie I’d really like to see is the Pitt/Damon recording studio riffs), but they are not integrated enough to the rest of the storyline until a Cindy Lou Who moment at the end. It’s nice to make a movie about how everything is connected but in this movie, it does not really hold together.

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Little Drummer Boy

Posted on November 18, 2011 at 3:40 pm

The wonderful folks at Veggie Tales have a new DVD for the holidays, Little Drummer Boy, based on the classic Christmas carol. In this version, Junior Asparagus hears the story of a little boy whose heart was filled with bitterness and anger when his home was destroyed until the birth of Jesus inspired him to find hope and forgiveness. They have their own Veggie twist on the story with some gentle silly humor, of course, plus Bebe and Cece Winans on the soundtrack.

I have a copy to give away PLUS a special drummer boy surprise. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Drummer” in the subject line and don’t forget your address! I will pick a winner on November 26. Good luck!

Little Angels

Posted on November 18, 2011 at 8:00 am

Roma Downey knows something about angels after playing one on television in the fondly remembered “Touched by an Angel” series. Now her Little Angels DVDs are a faith-based series for pre-schoolers to help them learn numbers and letters. Animated twins Alex and Zoe have eight little angels watching over them, living on the ceiling of their bedroom and guiding them through the challenges of learning and growing.

Downey says, “For many years I had the privilege of playing an angel on television, bringing the message of God’s love to millions of Americans. As a mother I have longed to be a part of a project that would help to bring that same message to children through the foundations of education.” She calls the series “critical learning skills through the lens of timeless and appropriate Bible stories,” including spiritual, moral, and ethical lessons along with the three R’s.

I have a “Little Angels” DVD to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Angels” in the subject line and don’t forget your address! I’ll pick a winner November 26. Good luck!