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Childrens

Movie Review Smackdown: The Borrowers vs. Arrietty

Aug 24th, 2011
by Dan.
2 comments

The Borrower series of books by Mary Norton were always a favourite of mine as a child. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to watch two movies based on the books – The Borrowers (1997) staring John Goodman, Jim Broadbent, and Mark Williams which I saw streaming on Picturebox, and also Arrietty (2010) which is a Japanese animated film Studio Ghibli which was showing in cinemas a few weeks ago.

Arrietty

Japanese Arrietty posterOf the two movies Arrietty was by far the best. As with all the Studio Ghibli movies that I’ve seen so far, watching it was as much akin to a spiritual experience as a piece of entertainment. It was just so bloody beautifully drawn and animated. The storyline was much more faithful to the original source material too.

The characters of Arrietty were crafted just as expertly as the artwork was. I especially enjoyed the Borrower family – the feisty, brave, and intelligent Arrietty and her parents Pod and Homily. The film makers were able to capture a wonderful sort of sad claustrophobia to their lives as the sole Borrower family left in a big old house, unsure if there were any more of their kind anywhere else in the world.

I saw Arrietty alongside Amy and Evan, and they were as entranced by the film as I was. They both even commented on how wonderful the artwork was, which isn’t usually very high on the list of priorities for seven and four year olds.

I can’t recommend this movie highly enough, and that view is echoed over on Rotten Tomatoes where it currently has. a 100% fresh rating. Unfortunately it’s gone from the cinemas in the UK now, although in the USA it hasn’t been released yet (it’s coming out on the 17th of February 2012). Looking at Amazon however it looks like the DVD and Blu-ray will be out in November.

The Borrowers

John Goodman Borrowers After seeing Arrietty Amy and Evan were hungry for some more Borrower action. Over the summer holidays Picturebox has been showcasing a lot of kids movies, the 1997 movie The Borrowers being one of them. So last night we sat down and gave it a whirl.

There is nothing actually wrong with The Borrowers. It’s a perfectly serviceable Hollywood kids movie with some good special effects for the time. It is very interestingly set in a sort of blended world of times and cultures which is never referenced or explained, but sits in the background. The TV’s are old style and black and white but have remote controls, the cars are 50′s style but there are mobile phones, and due to the 50/50 mixture of American and English actors you’re never actually sure which country the movie is set in. This mish-mash of worlds is very innocent and sweet, and I found it charming.

Also charming were the sets and props. One of the best thing about the Borrowers is the way they use everyday household items to their own purposes. Unfortunately for this film however is that I’ve recently seen Arrietty – and while The Borowers handles the concept well, Arrietty handled it superbly.

But it was the general plot and tone of The Borrowers that really let it down. It replaced the subtlety and beauty of Arrietty with bawdiness and Home alone style slapstick. Which is OK in itself, but as I say – I’ve been spoilt.

The Borrowers is an OK kids movie, and one that most adults will be able to find some enjoyment in. However Arrietty is a stunningly beautiful work of art that children will appreciate just as much as adults do. No contest really.

——

Picturebox is a an online service that streams movies to your PC, Mac, iPad (and even a Samsung Internet-connected smart TV, whatever the hell that is). They asked me if I’d like to test out their service for a year and review some of their movies on the blog. Usually picturebox costs £4.99 a month for access to a regularly rotating range of 28 movies. However I get it free, because I’m ace.

Legend Of Korra Trailer. Hurrah!

Jul 24th, 2011
by Dan.
3 comments

This post will intrest no one but myself and a few of the COA crowd (who will no doubt have seen this somewhere else before anyhow), but I don’t care. I’m extraordinarily pumped for this new Avatar: The Last Airbender series. So neh.

And if you’d watched the original Last Airbender cartoons (but not the live action film I must hasten to add) you’d be pretty damn pumped about it too. She’s riding a giant dog for goodness sake! A giant dog!!

Blu-ray review: The Princess and the Frog

Aug 14th, 2010
by Dan.
6 comments

I’ve said it before, but there is too much CGI in modern kids entertainment.

In itself I don’t object to CGI animation. In fact some of the finest films of all time were computer generated – specifically every single film produced by Pixar: Up, Wall-E, Incredibles, Monster’s Inc, Finding Nemo, the Toy Story franchise, etc etc.

But there is an art and beauty to other forms of animation that is at risk of being neglected. Would Wallace and Grommet be as charming if they were made of pixels rather than plasticine? No, they wouldn’t.

Similarly cell animation has gradually been lost from our cinema screens, which is a crying shame. And what’s worse is that it’s becoming increasingly rare on our TV screens too. It’s not on the endangered list quite yet (Look at the magnificent Phineas and Ferb for an example of exceptionally high quality cell animated contemporary kids cartoons).

In 2009 Disney released The Princess and the Frog, their first cell animated movie since 2004′s Home on the Range (a film I still haven’t seen). I imagine that Disney intended it to be a sort of experiment to see if audiences still had a taste for traditional looking animation.

It wasn’t an overwhelming success, but did make a profit once worldwide revenues were taken into account and lead to reports of Disney deciding on a policy of releasing one hand drawn movie every two years. However I’ve seen no talk of any upcoming traditionally animated releases, so we should perhaps take those reports with a pinch of salt.

So is The Princess and the Frog any good? Well yes it is.

Here’s a plot synopsis shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia:

The film’s plot concerns a prince named Naveen from the land of Maldonia, who is transformed into a frog by the evil scheming voodoo magician Dr. Facilier . The frog prince mistakes a girl named Tiana for a princess and has her kiss him to break the spell. The kiss does not break the spell, but instead turns Tiana into a frog as well. Together, the two of them must reach the good voodoo queen of the deepest, darkest part of the Bayou, Mama Odie, while befriending a trumpet-playing alligator Louis and a hopelessly romantic Cajun firefly named Ray along the way.

The Princess and the Frog is set in New Orleans, and sports a suitably jazzy soundtrack by Randy Newman. I’m a big fan of Newman and have a real fondness for both Cajun music and New Orleans style jazz and so, despite my usual distaste for musicals, it managed to get my toe tapping and head nodding throughout many of the numbers. Additionally Prince Naveen played a pretty mean ukulele throughout the film, and as we all know there is nothing that can’t be improved with a good bit of uke.

Still from The Princess and the Frog

The characters are strong and humorous. Of particular note is Tiana who, as well as being Disney’s first black lead heroine, was an incredibly positive female role model. I also was a big fan of Ray the firefly, played by Jim Cummings. I can’t remember where it was, but I recently heard someone talking about how animation studios should rely more on specialized voice actors rather than celebrities to provide voices for their movies, and this movie certainly bears this theory out. Aside from John Goodman and Anika Noni Rose there were no well know names in the cast (oh and a Oprah Winfrey cameo too).

The animation is stunning, and there are a number of scenes that are almost breathtaking. And they are all the more enjoyable for the nostalgia that the animation provokes. It all looks pretty damn special on Blu-Ray too, as crisp and vibrant as I’ve come to expect from the format. In fact I’d argue that animation is just about the perfect genre for blu-ray as get the picture quality without having to stare at the actors pores and pimples.

So any bad bits? Well, not specifically, but The Princess and the Frog doesn’t feel like it has as much, I dunno, heart as some of the older traditionally animated movies from Disney. Nor does it have that multi age range appeal that the Pixar films do. I’d think nothing of sticking Toy Story or Wall-E on the blu-ray player when the kids weren’t home, but I’d feel a bit wet doing that with The Princess and the Frog. That’s hardly a fair criticism though, as it’s not many films on this earth that can compare to a Pixar one anyhow.

So in summery, The Princess and the Frog is a welcome return to traditional animation by Disney, and one that is very worthy of joining their very impressive stable. The music is great, the animation wonderful, and the characters and plot engaging and humorous. Plus it has ukuleles in it, you don’t get much better than that.

[rating:8/10]

If you would like to buy The Princess and the Frog then you can do so on blu-ray here
and on DVD here.

Disclaimer
I received a copy of The Princess and the Frog on blu-ray to review. I also got given a blu-ray player by Disney around a year ago in order to review their releases. However the opinions expressed in this review are honest and I have felt no pressure from Disney to provide a positive review.

Also if you buy it from one of the links I’ve given I get an extremely small kickback from Amazon

Movie Review: The Tooth Fairy

Aug 3rd, 2010
by Dan.
19 comments

Yesterday on Facebook I was harangued by a couple of so called “friends” for expressing the surprised opinion that despite my expectations going into the cinema, the movie “The Tooth Fairy” wasn’t half bad.

Theoretically these two people have a far more developed critical eye than I do. One, Neil, spent two years as director of photography on a long running UK TV drama (ok, ok, it was Emmerdale – but it still counts). The other, Chris, hosts my second favorite movie podcasts, Casta La Vista, and regularly reviews films with humour, intelligence, and an abundance of delightfully foul language.

Yet despite their apparent qualifications I still maintain that they are wrong. The Tooth Fairy fairly watchable, and even strays into “quite charming” territory at times.

I realise I’m swimming against the tide here. Neil and Chris aren’t alone in their dislike of the movie. The movies Rotten Tomatoes’ page say it has an overall approval rating of 17% amongst professional critics, and an average score of 4 out of 10. But I think that’s all rather harsh.

In case you’ve not come across the movie yet, the plot surrounds a minor league hockey player (The Rock) who ends up having to serve a week as a real life tooth fairy in punishment for telling his girlfriend’s daughter that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist. The overall theme of the film centers around the importance to hold onto your dreams and all that sort of thing.

The Rock (yeah, yeah, he calls himself Dwayne Johnson these days, but we all know he’s really called the Rock) is a very under rated actor in my opinion. He’s got a very healthy dollop of charisma and always manages to come across as more than just a musclebound lunkhead. And if you compare him to other wrestlers that tried their hand at acting then he suddenly starts looking like Oscar winning material. I mean I like The Princess Bride as much as the next man, but no one could describe Andre the Giant as anything other than wooden.

So the Rock accounts for himself pretty well in the movie. He plays the whole “Big tough guy in feminised role” shtick very well and with very little obvious discomfort (unlike Arnie who always sucked at it). As I say, I find the guy quite charming and a generally believable actor.

But the real highpoint for me in this film was Stephen Merchant. He’s a comedian that I really like, but unfortunately often find his partner Ricky Gervais a little grating. I very much liked his portrayal of the geeky and awkward tooth fairy probation worker, and found the scene where he squares up to him particularly amusing.

Other actors of note were Julie Andrews and Billy Crystal as tooth fairy equivalents to Bond’s M and Q respectively. I’ve seen a fair bit of criticism of these two veteran actors for doing this film, much of which coming from the guys over at Casta la Vista if I remember correctly, however as I say I feel it’s a bit unfair really. Crystal had a good part with some funny gags which I felt was more or less worthy of him. And Andrews is blandness personified in every film since The Sound of Music anyway, although my Midnight Movie Club co-host Lee may argue that 2001′s The Princess Diaries was actually her finest hour (the girly freak).

So in short I had no problem at all with the casting and performances in this film.

The plot? Meh, the plot was pretty by the numbers. A standard tale of initial cynicism turning to redemptive belief, a device more commonly found on your box standard Christmas movie. But I don’t think this is particularly a bad thing. This is a kids film and children thrive on the familiarity and security that well worn tropes provide.

So all in all The Tooth Fairy is a pretty enjoyable children’s film that I feel has been unfairly maligned by the critics. Sure it’s no Pixar movie, but then very few films are. I’d heard some very negative opinions of the film before walking into the cinema, and so my enjoyment of the movie may have been boosted by my initial low expectations. But it’s a film I’d happily add to my kid’s DVD library.

[rating:6.5/10]

The Tooth Fairy has been out for quite a while now. We saw it at a cut price kids club showing at the local cinema. It’s released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on the 20th of September, but is already available on DVD and Blu-ray in the US.

Disclosure
We paid for our own entry (and horrifically overpriced popcorn) to watch this at the cinema. However if you buy a DVD or Blu-ray through one of the links on this post then I get a very small kickback from Amazon.