Spy Kids (with Smell-o-scope)

We have been doing some travelling and so our movie going activities have been slim this summer. For some reason we caught, Glee: The 3D Movie, in Australia; one advantage, we had the whole theatre to ourselves -- a private showing. That said, we paid too much for it. 

Today, we went to our first movie here in Toronto. Unlike the previous experience it was packed. I have no idea why as the weather wasn't too bad but I guess summer is officially over. The movie we saw was Spy Kids: All the Time in the World. It turns out that this is actually the fourth movie in a series that I dimly remember seeing the first of. Suffice it to say, the kids in that movie were no longer kids so they had to focus on two new ones. Same basic plot: kids think parent is lame -- in this case, a step-mother -- until she turns out to be a spy and is in need of help. We, the audience, know she is a spy right from the beginning as she goes into labour (being 9 months pregnant) and still manages to catch the bad guy. Then, with baby in tow, she sticks around the home for a year or so under the cover of being an interior decorator. The house comically breaks her cover -- or does it -- hard to know with artists. 

Anyhow, she is brought back into duty as something happens to time. What happens is an opportunity for the script writers to engage in cliche and puns on a scale never before seen in movies. Think of all the "time" and "clock" puns out there and you'll get the picture. I, for one, was thinking that I really shouldn't be spending time in this movie and the time could be better used. Apparently, that was a theme for the parents in the movie too which I guess made me wonder about the overall irony of the situation. 

But I digress. The other feature of this movie -- if the obligatory third dimension wasn't enough -- was a fourth dimension, smell. This movie included 'Smell-o-scope.' Now, it used to be the case that when you advertised that a theatre would smell that was a problem for the theatre. Well some marketing geniuses have made lemonade out of lemons and sold the smells as a feature rather than a bug. Of course, if you were expecting some technology -- pumped into the theatre or integrated into the obvious place on the 3D glasses -- you would be disappointed. They just handed you a card with numbers that you scratched to reveal a smell with the numbers carefully integrated into the movie. 

Anyhow, I had to admit that the movie producers did not seize this opportunity. With 3D they throw stuff at you to cause fear. The same was clearly possible here. They had a baby appear in the first five minutes. If you can't make a fearful smell out of that, you are not trying.

Then again, it would have been just an amusement factor for us parents or, as it was in actuality, a lot of sniffing what seemed to me to smell like cardboard. I think that fourth dimension isn't going to take off.

Now I'd like to give you more insight into the plot of the movie, how it turned out, was it suitable for kids and all that. But I can't. Somewhere around smell number 5 I feel asleep and didn't wake up until the closing credits. I was surprisingly refreshed. Hey, what do you know, I did end up using the time well. (Note to movie-makers: the 4th dimension in children's movies is to provide an environment where parents can have an afternoon nap. That is something we will pay for.)

Putting yourself in the shoes of the bad: MegaMind

I was reluctant to take the kids to see MegaMind. For one, it was in 3D. For another, it was the second animated movie of the year told from the perspective of the evil mastermind. The other was Despicable Me which was fine but somewhat predictable. Suffice it to say, my expectations were low.

That being said, I am happy to report that MegaMind got itself an "exceeds expectations" evaluation in my book. The story is told from the perspective of the evil mastermind, MegaMind. But the back story was a not too subtle hit on the age-old 'nature versus nurture' debate. MegaMind starts off in exactly the same shoes (albiet with a different skin colour) as his eventual nemesis MetroMan. They escape a planet -- Superman style -- land on Earth with MetroMan landing in a comical life of privilege while MegaMind lands literally in prison where he remains until he is fortunate enough to attend the very same gifted school as MetroMan. MegaMind stuggles socially and with continual bad luck while MetroMan does not. MegaMind, after an heroically long period of misfortune, decides to through in the towel and trying to be good and becomes evil. That, as it turns out, brings him a relatively fulfilled life but as you can imagine with such existential underpinnings, something is amiss and he doesn't work it out until some life changing events occur. 

I won't tell you more of the plot here suffice it to say that (a) it wasn't silly and made sense and (b) you actually wanted to find out what happens. That puts it right up there in the kid-movie stakes. Throughout, without trying too hard, is a ton of 'adults will only get it' referential humour and, indeed, in this theatre, the adults laughed loudest.

One final amusing bit. A commercial came on prior to the movie showing young girls asserting that they "can be whatever they want to be." At the end of it we found out it was a commercial for Barbie eliciting the biggest groans throughout the audience. The good news for Barbie is that people apparently paid attention to this ad. The bad news is that their heroic rebranding strategy doesn't look like it will work.

Freakonomics with the Kids

So tonight Freakonomics the Movie was released on iTunes. It was rated PG-13 but somehow I just didn't think it would be that unsuitable for kids and so I gathered up the 9 year old and the 11 year old and we all dug in. I, having read the book, knew how it was going to turn out or that it was going to turn out that incentives matter. They came to it with a clean slate.

The first thing of course was their stunned expressions when they found out that it was a documentary. We had recently watched Airplane! and if you look at the poster you can be forgiven for thinking that Freakonomics was going to be a wacky spoof on economics rather than something more serious.

Anyhow, despite that disappointment, there was enough there to get their interest going. Basically, Freakonomics is an unusual documentary as it is really four or five of them (I lost count) all done by different film-makers. That meant all manner of different perspectives on Levitt and Dubner from friendly interview, to shadowy figures to more amusing animations. But it also compartmentalised the issues nicely. There was a segment on parenting that had to do with crazy names people might give their children and what it might mean (answer: nothing). There was also a segment on crime and, in particular, disentangling cause and effect. That one might not be for every family as it deals with the notion that abortion laws could explain a good part of the drop in US crime rates in the 1990s but when it came down to it what better way to discuss the issues there between practical and moral concerns. There was also a broader discussion of corruption based on fraud in Sumo wrestling that went beyond that and into a commentary on Japanese values that frankly I could have done without.

But perhaps the most interesting segment was on bribing kids. My children are, of course, no strangers to that notion. In some sense, it helped them see that their weird family might have something to do with their father's profession. Nonetheless, the particular bribes highlighted were payments for good grades. I could see my eldest daughter just calculating what that might mean and I have to admit that I became curious as to what might happen if we did something in that spirit. This past year she had come to the US, made the honor roll but then fallen behind when she was sick for a month with some flu like thing. So there was ground to make up. It seemed to me that a little financial focus wouldn't go astray and might get her back into the swing of things. Yes, I know that is fraught with danger but sometimes you just want to know if it will work or not. We will see.

That's the lesson. If you are thinking of watching this with your kids, they will find it educational but there is also a danger that they might get some ideas. If you want to save yourself the trouble and have a laugh I can certainly recommend Airplane!

Formula Pixar: Toy Story 3

In 1995, my soon to be spouse and I saw Toy Story. It was a great movie in its own right but I recognised then that it was also a great reason to have children. We had one by the time Toy Story 2 rocked around but she was too young to come to the cinemas. She was not too young to have herself a Buzz Lightyear and being able to soon chant, "to infinity and beyond."

So it was a great pleasure to be finally able to take all three children to see Toy Story 3. Pixar have done it again. It is hard to put my finger on just what they have done. The characters are now fully realised and familiar but are still of great interest. The plot is a natural and touched on all of the themes from the previous movies including existential angst and divided loyalties. And then throughout there is a layer of comedy that, for the most part, only adults would appreciate. Suffice it to say, this movie is perhaps the first to 'get' Ken (of Barbie and Ken fame) and it is worth it just for that alone. Put that together with a tightness of composition that is error free (well, virtually error free as I am not sure "not suitable for children 3 or under" toys should be given to toddlers), and there is unlikely to be a better movie this year.

Pixar have never failed to have a hit. It is a creative legacy that now surely exceeds that of the early Disney. And the fact that they can carry it through to a third movie in a series -- which, let's face it, no one ever seems to manage (save for Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings) -- is a testament to a winning formula. These movies come around once a year at the moment and they will have our money each time.

It's a Wonderful Shrek

Well, it is a fine Shrek but no 'must see.' Shrek Forever After is supposedly the final chapter in the series of movies that started off with a classic. The problem is that it didn't play to the formula and so was a little unsatisfying. Last time around, minor characters made the show. This time around they were absent and for no good reason.

The fourth Shrek movie is an amalgam of plots. It starts off with the plot of many 'family' movies with a parent facing what is a mid-life crisis although that usually arises from career issues which Shrek himself doesn't seem to face. Instead, he has been hit by a year (yes, only a year and with no annoying teenagers) of a fairly routine family life and loses it at his triplet's first birthday party. It turns out that this relatively minor issue plays into the hands of Rumpelstiltskin, who, unbeknown to every other character in the movie had been harmed by Shrek's very existence. He takes the opportunity to employ a time honored contractual mechanism where contract law can, if you don't think about it carefully enough, erase you from history. 

So the plot moves from a 'family' movie to It's a Wonderful Life which, as is usual in these things, involves an environmental disaster with all the trees dying and not much sunlight. That said, Shrek is more concerned about what has happened to his family than to society and the plot quickly moves on to Beauty and the Beast (with some irony I might add) in that Shrek now has a day to set things right and win Fiona's love. Actually, that might be Groundhog Day. That proves challenging as Fiona rightly thinks Shrek is a dweeb and he doesn't 'get her' the way he clearly did in the first movie. Anyhow, you can guess the rest.

The problem is that the main characters are the focus and the obvious opportunity to bring back the dead but interesting villains from the first three movies is completely missed. So no Lord Farquand, no Charming and no Fairy God Mother. That also meant fewer pop songs although for some reason Enya appeared in a surprising sequence.

All that said, as kids movies goes, this is not at all bad and everyone will like that. It is just not quite what it could have been.

Don't touch that cheese!

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid has been a literary phenomenon, at least in our house. The two eldest have both read it and my 9 year old son consumes everything wimpy. So it was no surprise that I found myself this weekend at the movie theatre with all three kids and about a 100 more parents to see the movie version; which had real people and not cartoons.

Having not read the book, this was an open slate for me but the kids say the movie was a pretty faithful representation. Basically, the movie revolves around, not surprisingly, a wimpy kid called Greg who begins the movie being terrorised by his older brother and ends the movie having been terrorised by (almost) everyone else. It is a far from an advertisement for 'stay in school' or indeed 'go to school' and its baseline message (although it does this better than most similar things) is that you should be yourself because there is bugger all you can do about the social status that you have been handed. That is not to say that that status might change, it is just that you can't really do anything about it (at least not in an upward direction; downwards can be achieved with action).

Which brings me to the issue of cheese [caution: mild spoilers ahead]. A sub-plot in the movie (but me with my keen eye could see right from the start that it was the device by which the main conflict in the movie is eventually resolved) is a piece of moldy cheese in the playground. No one removes or cleans it. The reason is that some kid once touched the cheese and got watch was appropriately named, 'The Cheese Touch.' He was then an outcast. Fortunately, like any good caste system, he himself was untouchable unless he touched someone else in which case, The Cheese Touch and its harmful social powers transferred to them. There in lied a set of clearly obvious reactions until such time as these American school children realised that they could export The Cheese Touch to Europe (via an unsuspecting German exchange student) thereby ridding themselves of the game. The ever mouldier cheese remained and the movie keep subtly and not too subtly reminding us of it at regular interviews. 

Now the Cheese Touch mechanism sums up much of the issues facing Middle Schoolers. The whole thing is a social construct (and our wimpy kid makes an impassioned speech to that effect) and it is designed to be randomly unfair. Nonetheless, it is all consuming and all of the children buy into it. Eventually, our wimpy kid who has had a fall out with his seemingly less socially apt but more socially successful friend, saves his friend from the Cheese Touch by unilaterally opting to carry to stigma. Of course, he does this by touching the cheese but I thought he would do it by touching his friend. In the end, however, in the final scene of the movie, our wimpy kids 'buys' into the Cheese Touch or something by all knowing when the 'mean' kid touches the 'real' carrier and I guess becomes the carrier herself. Although it didn't make sense. Could two people carry the Cheese Touch? I'm still struggling with the game.

I think there is one aspect of this whole mess that parents can applaud, "you shouldn't touch moldy cheese." The social apparatus seems to correlate nicely with good hygiene. And if they didn't find this to create a random social game around, they would have found something else. What is more, from the behaviour of my own kids, I am pretty sure none of them will be touching moldy food items in the playground anytime soon (well, at least not where people might seem them).

One final note. Parents will of course identify with and love the mature 7th grader who sees through all of the social graph and just keeps to herself. Now that is the kid we want our kids to be like. It is also exactly the same kid we may fret and worry about given her social isolation. Ah the irony.

Up with Pixar

You know when we take the kids to see an animated movie, I'm not expecting to have my emotions manipulated. A few chuckles is a good outcome. A plot that makes sense leaves me satisfied. And avoiding of positions or morals that make me cringe can top it off. I am not looking for anything more.

Well, Up! -- this year's Pixar flick -- finally arrived in Australia this weekend and I can only warn parents out there: don't expect to come out of it with your emotions unscathed. It has sad, dare I say it, tear jerking moments, that make Bambi's mother getting shot a comparatively delightful event. You can't walk out of the theatre and leave this movie behind.

That said, apparently that view of the movie kicks in at around age 9. In our family discussion thereafter as to whether the movie was happy or sad (overall), the 5 and 8 year old saw it as completely happy while the 10, 39 and 41 year old called it anything but an upper. So this is a rare movie that gives adults and adult-response and leaves children thinking that it was just another, albeit very amusing -- let's face it, talking dogs are always going to be a winner -- animated movie. How Pixar did it, I have no idea. But I won't be going into any of their films so unprepared again.

What's the deal with 3D?

The first 3D movie I saw was actually a Michael Jackson movie at Disneyland. It was a traditional 3D movie which was shameless in its ability to use the third dimension with objects you felt you could touch or something protruding right at you. It was a gimmick but that has its time and place.

These days, all manner of kids' animated movies are 3D. I had skilfully avoided them until today when we saw Ice Age 3 in 3D. 3D movies like this are the big hope of cinemas because they are a reason to go to the cinema rather than wait until the movie comes out on DVD or what have you. I'm not sure of that but, let's go with the idea that you have to be in a cinema. Will it work?

Well, for starters, it is a disaster for younger kids. My 4 year old just didn't want to wear the bulky glasses let alone be scared by the third dimension. They didn't provide smaller ones so she watched a movie in blurred vision; which wasn't much fun. For myself, I have glasses on already and so a full length movie in 3D doubles the smug impact or glare or any number of annoyances. For that I want the 3D to be doing something. In Ice Age, it just didn't and I was just annoyed at the whole experience. The remaining children seemed non-fussed about it all but felt it was hardly any difference. Certainly not worth the bump in ticket price.

So I guess the recommendation is the shun the 3D cinemas and find normal 2D ones. From the look of the opening weekend crowd in our cinema, other parents had already decided that and it was only 10 percent full. Contrast this with a full house for the non-3D Hannah Montana.

As for the movie itself, it isn't awful but doesn't come anywhere near the original. All the more reason to wait for DVD or broadcast television on this one.

Hannah Montana: The Enterprise

I took the children to see Hannah Montana: The Movie. (Yes, I know it has been out in the US for months but it has only just been released in Australia; part of Disney's strategy to give Australians a moral incentive to pirate). I must admit that I was quite emotional about it. I sat there through the whole thing in disbelief at the beauty of the entire story, the poignant images, the subtle and not so subtle tensions. I just can't convey the incredible feeling to gives me to see something like this put together. Hannah Montana is as close to perfection as a business and marketing idea that I have ever seen. I cannot imagine any economist or business school professor sitting through this with a dry eye.

For those who don't know, Hannah Montana is a pop-star who is actually the alter-ego of Miley Stewart who is played by Miley Cyrus the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus who himself plays Miley's father (Stewart that is) calling himself Robby Ray until frankly it is hard to know what is going on. Suffice it to say, in this I join the majority of the world (in the TV show/movie that is) who also don't know that Miley (Stewart) is actually Hannah Montana although I'm pretty sure that I know that Miley Cyrus is both of them depending upon whether she is wearing a wig or not.

Anyhow, why create this confusion? Well, Miley (Stewart but presumably not Cyrus) wants to have "the best of both worlds." Which worlds? Well, the first is being a superstar with all of the perks. And then, apparently, that isn't enough to get to a global optimum so she also wants to attend school with her celebrity life concealed so she can lead a 'normal' life. The point of the TV show is she leads that normal life to the extent that she doesn't and is continually being faced with challenges of how to conceal it all and maintain what increasingly looks like the best of neither worlds as any superhero who has tried to do the same thing could have told you.

Now as you watch this you can see just how perfectly it appeals to the tween set. Miley, apparently ordinary, is actually not but is happy to protect and defend her right to be seen as ordinary by her, otherwise quite annoying, school peers because that is somehow better than not being ordinary leaving tweens with the no-so-subtle message that maybe they should appreciate what they have got except that really what they have got is something ordinary, they are seen to be ordinary and don't have that extra fun and hijinks that Miley (Stewart and Cyrus) seem to have. She sings "who would have thought that a girl like me, would double as a superstar?" to which the answer is being conveyed as no-one to which I as an outside observer answer, well everyone and the children appear to get that whole irony too.

Disney have put together a perfect marketing storm. It sits so well with the struggle that age group has regarding peer recognition, excitement, and wealth inequality, that it is hard to imagine anything better targeted. Add to that they actually created Hannah Montana (the actual pop sensation rather than the TV show concept) and the whole thing is staggering. And yes, you even get to sell blonde wigs in spades! Indeed, they are totally upfront in this. In the movie, Robby (or is it Billy?) Ray says to Miley (I give up) that "we created Hannah Montana so you could do this" and I nearly fell out of my chair. You mean, "do this" as in "rake it in," right? But the point is Hannah Montana is a creation and they can even throw that straight at us.

Which brings me back to the movie which only my 4 year old claimed she was excited to be seeing. My 10 year old daughter watches Hannah Montana repeatedly and mimics her expressions but apparently is not allowed to be excited about her anymore as that honor is reserved only for Harry Potter. My 8 year old son, always seems to be watching Hannah Montana although he claims it is by some sort of accident that occurs when it is on the TV that he can't avoid seeing it even though apparently he would very much want to. It was he who laughed hardest throughout the movie.

The movie deals with Robby (and probably not Billy) Ray getting frustrated that Miley is getting too into Hannah and forgetting "her roots." Her punishment for this is to be rooted back in Tennessee and embroiled in life there including -- and this mandatory for these movies -- being reminded of her mother's passing and having that old life threatened by an evil developer which ironically requires her Hannah Montana life to get them all out of that jam. A few songs and a painted chicken coop later, and Miley (Stewart) faces a moment in which she decides to throw it all away and give up the Hannah Montana franchise. And I have to tell you that I held my breath in stunned disbelief at that moment as I thought, "OMG, if she does this, Disney are giving up the whole game too." If she reveals who she really is, the whole franchise will collapse. And for a few minutes I wondered if the whole movie was Miley (Cyrus) giving up the game.

[SPOILER ALERT FOR NEXT PARAGRAPH] But it turned out that her adoring fans did not want that and all 5,000 of them at the small town benefit concert promised to keep her secret if she would just put that damn wig back on and get singing. More implausibly, a (British of course) tabloid reporter decided to forgo millions and do the same thing. The town and franchise were saved. Phew!

So we live to fight another day. For parents, this is a movie you can sit through without dying. (Although you will be likely stuck with that Hoedown song in your head for days). But don't expect to be free of the whole Hannah Montana thing anytime soon.

Star Trek: for Kids?

We took our 10 year old daughter to see the new Star Trek movie. She has a high tolerance for violence and so we weren't too worry (after all she has been through all three Lord of the Rings movies to interesting effect and the other week we watch Jurassic Park -- her take: don't hire criminals or at least pay them better and everything will be fine). Anyhow, the movie is great and my initial thoughts are here.

But what was her reaction? Well, let me start that she has seen plenty of Star Trek just not much of the original series. A while ago, she became a tad Borg-obsessed and so we cycled through those episodes. But her knowledge of original series Star Trek lore was lacking. So we decided to sit down the other night and watch "Balance of Terror." Now, while I can't imagine this, but if you didn't automatically nod your head and see what I was going for I guess I might have to spell it out. That is the episode where we first encounter the Romulans (who are in the new movie) and find out that they look like Vulcans (cue dramatic music). That is also a great episode where Kirk and the Romulan commander engage in some very game theoretic strategising and so I knew it would appeal to that part of my daughter's mind.

Now the episode, I recalled, had some very poor special effects so we watched the remastered version which was better. That said, her reaction was that it was somewhat underdone on that front. But it was enough to get the basics including the idea that racism was alive and well in the future and that displaying it on duty was an issue (let alone being thrown off the ship which is what we would expect these days). (Someone had family in the Earth-Romulan war a century earlier and some deep seated issues came bubbling back). We also learned that racism can be solved when just one of the minority (in this case, a Vulcan) does something heroic and saves the life of a discriminator even if that minority saw that act as just making sure skilled personnel would still be around to work another day. Of course, let alone the fact that the same minority person saved the entire ship!

All this is a nice counter-point to what we find in the movie. This time it is Kirk with the deep seated issues about Romulans but he doesn't seem to let that get in the way of just being extra-knowledgable. So there is no moral undertone -- hit over the head or otherwise -- but for the idea that it is a good idea to make something of your life and not just be a loser. Now, let's face it, that is pretty much the only message I am ever hoping for when I take a kid to the movies. And this is what you get.

Other than that, you'll be interested in the scary and other bits but Geekdad does a better job outlining that than I ever will. Suffice it to say, we might go again and I think I'll take the 8 year old along this time around. Then we will move on to Wrath of Kahn.

[Update: I took the 8 year old. Despite usually being quite sensitive he had no problem even with big insects that are all mouth. As he commented, "it looks like one of my Spore creatures."

And one other thing: on Jurassic Park, my daughter now asks why they aren't doing that now?

"Doing what?"

"Making dinosaurs out of the blood in ancient insects. It seems doable and a good theme park."

"You aren't concerned about the dinosaurs chomping people."

"Look just make one of them and put it in a cage."

Ohh I can hear the animal rights people now. Kids today.]

The Mild Tales of Despereaux

A while ago, Emily Bazelon, arguing against the Tales of Despereaux's G-rating, lamented its violent scenes. This was despite the fact that, having exposed her children to the book, it seemed not to appeal to kids above the age of 8. At the time, I lamented the difficulty of ratings for kids movies and reviews that didn't involve an adult sitting next to a kid. As Bazelon's 5 year old was scared by the movie, I excluded our 4 year old and took the 10 and 8 year old to see it today.

Well I have to say, that the picture of extended violence seemed hardly what was going on. There were a couple of scenes which were scary but no more than all manner of similar scenes in animated movies today -- G-rated or otherwise. I can contrast this with Bolt. If anything, what was different in Despereaux was that the chase and other scary scenes were not humerous. Indeed, there was no humour at all in the movie -- reminding my more of the beautiful Iron Giant than the usual fare.

Instead what we have is a cinematic masterpiece. The picture painted was reminscient of Eastern European paintings of pre-industrial urban life. And the entire story, based on a mavrick mouse and rat, was beautifully crafted. Indeed, I don't want to give too much away because it is such a pleasant and satisfying ride. It isn't shockingly unpredictable but it does involve a story of relationships between individuals and also society that is worthwhile.

But there is a moment of irony. One of the key themes is the mice world that spends all of its time indoctrinating themselves and their children to be afraid. It isn't subtle but I could not help but think about Bazelon's concerns and fears taking her children to this movie. Was that concern the equivalent of mouse indoctrination? Are we guessing about what our children are thinking and what they regard as scary and permitting those emotions? The alternative to cowering being a posture of a lack of concern and confidence. Actually, I have no idea. But that thought did occur to me during this movie. And apparently, we as parents don't really know very much about our children so it is right to ask these questions.

So my assessment of Tales of Despereaux is that it is a great family movie. My 10 and 8 year old enjoyed it but didn't laugh at all. And my attention was fully there thinking this is the sort of higher level movie that I should be taking my kids too. Utility and satisfaction all around.

Disney movie extravaganza

In the last week, we have watched three Disney movies: two new releases and one a year or so old. By coincidence, in Slate today, Emily Bazelon decides to rail against the inadequacy of ratings for kids movies. She was reacting to a non-Disney movie, Tales of Despereaux, and pointed to a ratings site -- Kids-In-Mind -- that I have written about before. Her point is that a G-rating doesn't necessarily give parents all the information they need and they need to look beyond to fully pre-screen a movie to see if kids will be OK. All true but I must admit the experience of the past week has led me to wonder if 'protection' is really enough.

I'll explain that in a minute but let me first review this week's offerings. First up was Bedtime Stories that we saw on Christmas Day (part of a family tradition of seeing movies that day). This is basically a fairly standard Adam Sandler comedy that happens to be a Disney-kids flick. By standard I mean, Adam Sandler is a flawed but life-losing character who then meets someone (kids + girl), engages in heartbreaking conflict, develops an understanding of the way the world works, blocks the even more flawed but more life-successful bad guys, and lives happily ever after, content with the simple life. By Disney-kids, add a seemingly magical run of coincidences that are related to kid's bedtime stories and some computer generated animation. All in all, the movie worked. It was as funny as any Adam Sandler comedy but also funny to the kids as well. My son, who is my barometer for kid-funny, cacked himself throughout the movie while my youngest daughter, my barometer for plot coherence, kept up her usual running commentary of understanding. The movie also used foreboding in a good way -- how will those stories play out in the real world. Not something you see everyday. As Sandler's character thought there was magic in the air, it was he who had to deal with the nexus between fiction and reality.

Let's jump a week to New Years Day, today, when I took the kids to see Bolt. Bolt is a dog-star who doesn't realise life isn't a movie and he doesn't have super-powers. So he is delusional but less so the Buzz Lightyear and what is more, when thrust into the real world, he realises it pretty quickly; certainly more so than Buzz but with a similar existential angst. Because we adults had seen delusion before the movie was no Toy Story but the opening sequence, in particular, left my son in hysterics (those bad guys were cleverly goofy) but my youngest daughter with her head buried in my chest so there was a mixed reaction there. But the movie sustained itself even if the 4 year old was a tad scared. Again, the primary issue was the main character dealing with real vs fiction and their role in life.

One night, we watched with our eldest two kids, Bridge to Terabithia. This movie is based on a book about friendship between two kids who are both isolated from others for various reasons but share an imagination and build an imaginary world, Terabithia, to escape in. They have no delusions between reality versus fiction but others want them to be more grounded in reality. That conflict is brought to a head by a shocking event (I'll spare you in case you haven't seen it but if you want to know Emily Bazelon discussed it all here). Suffice it to say, the movie is a downer but on a classic level on a higher plane than other movies. But it is a movie aimed at kids -- maybe between 8 and 14 -- and is useful preparation for life's issues. It also has its entertaining moments. However, you could hardly describe it as light.

So how would one sort out which movie to see? All three movies are rated PG or below and so are deemed safe for kids. According to Kids-In-Mind, each rates 3 or 4 out of ten for violence. As I worry about that characteristic for safety more than others, they are all within acceptable parameters. But Bridge to Terabithia is the one I would agonise over on protection grounds more than the others. Why? Because it actually has hard substantive content. It is the most real and therefore, the most emotionally wrenching. Amazing. We talk so much of getting our kids into real art and literature but when confronted with a piece that gets them there, we hesitate.

This suggests to me that protection should be one criteria but should not hold a veto on our decisions. I am confident that we will face moments where we are grateful our kids saw Terabithia in ways in which I won't care about the others. It is disturbing and so you need time to deal with it but with that time, there is a good investment to be had.

But beyond a meaningful message, this week highlights to me the problem with rating systems and most reviews. Kids-In-Mind is useful input on the protection -- or cost -- side of taking kids to movies. But there is the benefit side too. I hardly know any reviewers (although I guess I and parent bloggers are an exception) where the reviewers attended movies with kids. How can you possibly give a kids movie 2, 3 or 5 stars without having seen it with a kid? We want to know whether it actually held attention, what type of kids it might scare, whether the plot was comprehendable to a child and, most critically, whether kids actually laughed. I can go to all manner of crappy kids movies but if my son sits besides me laughing all the way through, I just don't care. It is worth taking him and worth paying for the extra adult ticket to sit next to him. For a proper screen, we need a child whose eyes and ears to see the movie through.

Why Madagascar?

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a great movie but you really need to have seen the original. For starters, less than 60 seconds of the movie takes place in Madagascar although admittedly, it is a crucial plot piece. But the character development all took place in Madagascar and this movie is just gravy.

As everyone knows, this franchise's appeal rests with the minor characters -- mainly penguins and lemurs, although the moneys do feature. The major characters are there to keep a main plot-line going so we can enjoy the antics of the minor ones. And they do not disappoint in this movie. The penguins are as efficient as ever while the lemurs carry with them the untamed masses. No one is looking at their watch during this movie.

So I would rate it highly this holidays on the "volunteer to take your kids' friends to the movies so that they have to reciprocate by taking them to something less adult friendly." Get there first now.

Clone Wars

If you loved The Ewok Adventures Caravan of Courage and the Battle of Endor or the Star Wars animated series (Ewoks and Droids), well then you would pretty much like anything. And if you managed to sit through the Star Wars Holiday Special, then that will pretty much explain those psychiatric bills. And if you have never heard of the Star Wars Holiday Special (which made Wookies look like cuter Ewoks!) it is because of the greatest information suppression strategy by George Lucas ever and you should thank him for it.

It was on that basis that I took the entire family to see The Clone Wars animated Star Wars movie. Of course, this was the more sophisticated cousin of the Clone Wars series that was released prior to Episode III but with the indulgence of a new dimension to Jabba the Hut as a loving father of a son who squirmed his way around with Ewok-like cuteness. Suffice it to say, expectations were so low it would be hard not to exceed them.

And exceed them marginally this movie did. Indeed, I would go as far to say that on some levels the movie exceeded elements of the prequel trilogy. For instance, the acting was much better, the directing made sense, and there was far more consistent and continual carnage and less foreboding character development than Episodes I-III. The plot, of course, was ridiculous but not by Star Wars standards. I never bought the premise that Jabba the Hut would have or care about a family. I also don't know what became of his son in later movies but feel confident that the Jedi helped save someone who ultimately came up to no good.

On the level of a good movie to take kids to see, The Clone Wars is worth the ticket price. And I am sure they haven't finished milking that avenue yet. It even gives Anakin a padawan learner who somehow is gone by Episode III and so we can look forward to a tragic end in a future movie. So on the metric 'how many bad Star Wars movies do there have to be before you don't see another one,' this one keeps that count constant. LucasFilm has more reputation capital in the bank left to blow yet. Now that is foreboding.

A movie about incentives

The much anticipated Kung Fu Panda hit our cinemas today. Actually, it had a tough job to overcome following trailers to Wall-E, Madagascar 2 and The Clone Wars. Nonetheless, it was much as expected, a light-hearted homage to the martial arts genre. You know the drill, an anoited one is to be anoited and rather than being one of the 5 animals who had trained for it their entire lives, it someone ends up being a panda who gets the nod for what everyone including the panda but not the 'accident denying' turtle believes was, in fact, an accident.

The issue then becomes how to make this fairly bad state of affairs work against a snow leopard ,Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, former pupil character who is coming back to do bad things but, in reality, is just ticked off. And it turns out that the answer, and I am not giving too much away for those who have seen the trailer, is to get the incentives right. In particular, so long as said panda is appropriately motivated -- in his case, by food -- he can pretty much do anything and what should be a lifetime of training is compressed into what appears to be only a day of food related hijinks. The message for all the kids and parents out there is simple: anyone can be great so long as you put the right carrots, or in this case, Chinese food, in place. Our kids left the movie with this message firmly in place and hungry -- well, for lunch.

Who is Horton

Plausibility issues aside, Horton the elephant stands out as one of the truly heroic figures in children's literature. In both Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton Hears a Who, the elephant stands as a lone voice against mob judgment. In one case, he is keeping a promise (an elephant is faithful 100 percent) and in the other, he stands on evidence even though he is alone in seeing it. He is a hero of individual rights and confidence and, if even half of that message gets through to a child, these books have served us well.

It was with that in mind that we went to see Horton Hears a Who, the latest attempt to bring Dr Seuss to the movies. The other attempts had to all accounts been failures although we had only seen The Cat in the Hat. There simply wasn't enough substance for an extended story. For that reason, our expectations were low.

Horton Hears a Who is not a failure as a movie but it will not rate as anything special either. All the modern elements -- great animation, familiar voices and a few one-liner gags -- are there. And the essence of the story is the same: Horton hears the voice of a small but unseeable civilisation, Horton opts to defend said civilisation, the mob does not believe Horton and turns on him, and finally, the civilisation makes itself heard and saves itself. But within this there are distinct and important changes.

First of all, Horton is not alone in being alone. The mayor of WhoVille faces the same issue and it is Horton and the mayor who have each other, with a similar struggle, to give them strength. This diminishes somewhat Horton's individuality. Second, the mob while a mob is distinctly led by the kangaroo. That leadership is less obvious in the book and critically, the kangaroo's joey is just as biased and distrusting as everyone else. In the movie, Horton is the school-teacher and so the children, while powerless, do believe in him. From my perspective, this too diminishes Horton's individuality as the author would have intended it. Finally, in the book, the mob was just plain mean. It is quite unclear why they turned on Horton who wasn't harming anyone. They just did giving rise to a subtle message of the right to privacy. In the movie, the mob gains a rationale -- 'protecting the children from bad thoughts' -- which, while spurious, moved the issue beyond a private one and gave it a public force.

These changes both reduce the injustice faced by Horton and his small friends but also the true strength of his struggle against it. But it also shows why it is virtually impossible to take relatively short but beloved children's literature and modify it for the movies (although there are exceptions such as The Iron Giant). They will make enough money this time around to keep trying. I am going to have to be much more careful about going.

Navigating alternative realities

They say The Golden Compass is better movie viewing if you read the book by some other name. I didn't get a chance to find out when we saw that today but what I saw was not too bad and, I guess this is the acid test, will probably have myself and the 9 year old seeing the next one when it appears.

The movie is about an alternative reality where more efficient use of environmentally friendly technology has led to a cold Northern haven for polar bears who are sentient with their own monarchical, but warring, civilisation. I guess the main focus is not so much on that but on the humans who literally carry around their own demons with them for all to see and the difficulties that apparently creates for their own authoritarian regime to maintain order, etc. Suffice it to say their conspiracy of continuing evil is revealed in this movie with the main child heroine having enough trouble working out who her parents are and fulfilling some prophecy a la Harry Potter style. I guess this is where a reading of the book may have assisted in character and societal development.

Anyhow, there are worse things to do in 40 degree heat than see this one.

Enchanted Stuck in the Middle

We saw Enchanted yesterday (our only family Christmas Day tradition). This is the new movie from Disney that pokes fun at Disney. It starts out in a comically stereotypical Disney fairytale cartoon and then moves into the real world, New York city, where the characters remain in character but interact with other people. All this makes for some very funny scenes and one deep moment whereupon the lack of emotional range of cartoon characters are explored but beyond that is nothing special.

This movie is 'stuck in the middle' in that it tries to appeal to two audiences and falls short. For children, the irony is lost on them and the movie becomes boring. To placate them, Disney adds a gratuitous dragon at the end that is pretty much completely pointless. For adults, the irony is there but it is muted because the writers cannot steer too far away from kid friendly issues. And so while the girl ends up with a different guy, everyone still lives very happily ever after; in the barf worthy sense.

That said, you could do worse for a school holiday movie.

Bee Property Rights

Jerry Seinfeld's long awaited Bee Movie doesn't disappoint. It is a kids' movie so the true Seinfeld magic was never going to be repeated but it is written with the comedian's flair and is peppered with truly amusing lines and Seinfeldesque moments and observations. You know, "what's the deal with all this honey?" This is one movie you want to be taking the kids too rather than foisting the task off on other adults.

But what interested me was the subtle message underlying the whole movie. If we believed that Jerry Seinfeld was the sort of person capable of sending a message to the whole Hollywood system (much as we believed was the case with, say, Shrek or Ratatoullie) it was this: the whole obsession with intellectual property rights and their enforcement (rightful or not) has repercussions that can destroy the economic system and social fabric. Of course, we don't really believe Seinfeld is capable of that but that doesn't mean the message didn't get there anyway.

The main issue in the movie comes when our resident 'bucking the system' bee, Barry, finds that humans are enslaving bees, consuming honey and no value is going back to the bees. Barry takes it on himself to use the humanic legal system to enforce what he sees as bees legitimate property rights and secure the honey back for bees. He succeeds and with more honey than they will ever need, bees stop working, pollinating and so the whole environmental system breaks down.

Now the Coasian solution would have been to pay the bees to work but there doesn't see to have been a gain from trade; that is, they didn't seem to want to despite having done so for 27 million years. Indeed, rescue comes later in a wholly uneconomic way; but I won't give away that one.

The message for the kiddies is you might have property rights but that enforcing them may cause others harm, so think about that one. Now think about that people who might be downloading Bee Movie rather than dragging everyone to the cinema.

The 5th Harry Potter movie

There are two reactions to the newly released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. One set of people really enjoyed it. Another set think it lacked something. The difference between the two is whether they read the book in the past two years or not.

I fall into the latter book having re-read the last two books a couple of months ago in preparation for the final installment. The movie writers had a tough task. They decided to turn the longest book (800+ pages) into the shortest movie (just over 2 hours). Something had to go. What went were the characters. Only two characters get prime billing, Harry Potter and Delores Umbridge. Two other characters get a non-trivial, Luna and Sirius. But everyone else is pushed into the background. Hermione, Dumbledore, Cho, the Wesley twins, Ginny are there but not at the book's level. Sadly, Malfoy, Ron and Snape are pretty well left behind. This left a big hole; particularly, since it is Harry's relationship with Snape that was by far the most significant feature of the book.

The plot shortening took away the epic feel of previous movies. There was no sense of the school year and no build up. Dumbledore's Army was created but only named as it was disbanded. And the plot basics were twisted to make the story work. But it seemed to me that things went too quickly and the whole exercise seemed jumpy. Put simply, the movie seemed more filler than real development. The book made up for that with character development. This time around there was none to be seen.

That said, we go into these things with high expectations. It was very enjoyable and the incorporation of humour was very well done. It was also far less scary than previous movies; perhaps the least scary of the lot. There may have been a darker movie, but around the theatre there were fewer instances that sent childrens' popcorn flying. There was no time to build up a sense of foreboding.