» With the kids Kennelco Film Diary

Fantasia (1940)

March 2, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

various directors
viewed: 02/25/2012 at the Castro Theatre, SF, CA

It was a theatrical showing of Disney’s Fantasia that inspired our watching the film a little over a year ago, which was on DVD at home on a Friday night. When the opportunity for a theatrical showing appeared again, this time at the Castro Theatre, I set it as a priority visit to the cinema for us. We wound up with one of Felix’s best friends in tow as well.

Back last January, watching the film together, the three of us all wound up enjoying it. Initially, the opening sequences were a little straining for the kids but eventually they got into them, Clara quite a lot. How much (or little) a year changes. And actually, having a friend along to distract you as well, I would say. Felix found this outing “boring”. Clara really liked it, again, her favorite was “The Pastoral Symphony” segment, with all the Greek mythology figures dancing around in forms of enhanced cuteness.

For my money (and it was my money we spent on this trip), it’s a great film. The one sequence that I could do without is “The Rites of Spring,” which is interpreted through the creation of life on Earth, evolving into the dinosaurs and then culminating with the dinosaurs’ ultimate destruction at the hands of Nature and fate. It’s a slower sequence, not entirely humorless but lacking vibrancy. It’s the only true slog of the show.

Having just watched Legend (1985) the night before, I was very struck at how Ridley Scott’s devil is adapted from the demon in the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence. It’s an interesting transition from that piece to “Ave Maria”, which the sequence morphs into. The opening part has the devil raising the dead, ghostly spirits zipping from the grave and devils dancing like Hieronymus Bosch figures through the Disney animation lens. And then as dawn comes and the beasts all go back to ground, shrouded figures carrying lights march toward a forest cathedral. While there is a significant Christian overtone, it’s not of a grandly explicit nature. In fact, the images, filtered through Art Deco and Neoclassicism bear a nearly Pagan sensibility.

I didn’t get to quiz Felix’s friend on his thoughts, though he seemed more wiggly than Felix and Clara. Felix and Clara have experienced a pretty wide spectrum of cinema and probably have a patience that is greater than a lot of children their age as a result. Clara has a tendency to find qualities in everything, while Felix is going through of phase of being hard to impress. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which child seems to take after me more than the other.

Filed under Animation, Disney, Theatrical, With the kids

Legend (1985)

February 29, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director Ridley Scott
viewed: 02/24/2012

I don’t know how I’d never managed to see Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy adventure film, Legend, but I hadn’t. I’ve never been a Tom Cruise fan and maybe I was a bit young to know about Ridley Scott. Anyway, while looking for films for the kids, 1980′s action/fantasy has been a fruitful genre/period, so I queued this up for them and myself.

After debuting with his film, The Duellists (1977), Scott made his two masterpiece science fiction films, Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982). Both of those films featured such innovative and influential visual designs, it’s not surprising that when he turned his lens to fantasy that the resultant designs are overwhelmingly stunning.

The film is set in a classical fairy tale world inhabited by elves, sprites, dwarves and demons. And unicorns. And Tom Cruise as a boy of the forest. Mia Sara, most known for her role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), is the goodly princess who loves him. It’s a very young Tom Cruise, still very boyish. When Tom’s character takes the princess to view the unicorn, her trespass against the rules in approaching and touching the magical animal of purity sets up the opportunity for the creature to be attacked by dark forces.

Dark forces, in this case, are driven by “Darkness,” an elaborately-made-up Tim Curry as Satan with massive, massive horns. He seeks to kill the two remaining unicorns and steal their horns, allowing him to pitch the world into eternal darkness, in which he rules. His minions successfully get the first unicorn when the princess approaches it, throwing the world into night and snow, and setting the adventure afoot.

A number of trolls or dwarves or other forest sprites appear, the most significant of which is Gump, the striking-looking small boy-man, played by David Bennent, who starred in the amazing 1979 film of The Tin Drum. He is the leader of the magical creatures of the forest and bears the fascinating features of an adult in the child’s visage. Whereas Bennent required little make-up to be so striking (he does have long elfin ears), the others are cased in top of the line prosthesis. The make-up in the film is uncanny.

This film’s shortcoming, unfortunately, is in story and tone (and perhaps in character). The story is original, though heavily influenced by traditional fairy tales and folklore, but it lacks imperative and, at times, logic. Why the demon doesn’t kill the second unicorn right away and be done with it, I have no idea. And why he falls for the princess? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. The tone is driven by the designs, which are dark and detailed. It lacks wit and humor, even in its characters who are meant to embody that for the script. And finally, none of the characters in themselves are compelling. It all looks great, but it doesn’t suck you in.

I don’t know that the kids would put it the same way but they both found it disappointing. Just as a point of comparison, they both said that they liked both Stardust (2007) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989) better, two fantasy adventure films that we had recently watched.

I still say that the visuals are stunning. I was a bit dubious as the film opened in the glorious forest and it seemed that birds were being thrown into the frame every other cut. But the light, filtering through the trees, with the air full of seedpods or dust or “magic” or whatever…it all looked a little overdone. But as the film progresses the whole thing becomes more and more striking. Sadly, just not amazing nor compelling.

Filed under DVD, With the kids

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)

February 21, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director Hiromasa Yonebayashi
viewed: 02/18/2012 at AMC Loews Metreon 16, SF, CA

It’s a sad fact that one day, we will live in a world without Hayao Miyazaki actively making movies. We may already be living in a world where Miyazaki is no longer directing films. There has been speculation, based on his own words, that Ponyo (2008) may prove to be the last feature film for which he will have a directorial credit. We have been so lucky to live in world in which a master film-maker created at the top of his craft such films as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Spirited Away (2001), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) and so many others.

What we have in The Secret World of Arrietty is perhaps the next best thing to a film directed by Miyazaki. It’s a film written by Miyazaki and to some extent “planned” by him. I’m not sure if this includes storyboards or to what extent his hand remained in, but Arrietty does bear more of his mark than other films from Studio Ghibli. It is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi who worked as an animator on a number of Miyazaki’s films, and I’d be hard pressed (or merely speculating) to suppose where the word started and stopped. The most important thing is that while Arrietty may not be entirely a Miyazaki film, it bears a great deal of the charm and beauty of his work. It’s a fine film.

Based on the novel, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, the story is about a little family of little people who live in a house in the Japanese countryside. They “borrow” what they need from the bigger humans, hiding their existence entirely from them. But when Sean, a boy with a heart condition, is brought to the house to convalesce, he discovers the teenage borrower Arrietty and tries to make friends with her. Ultimately, when the family realizes that they have been discovered, they have to leave and rebuild their home somewhere else, but the friendship between Sean and Arrietty brings about hopeful changes for both.

It’s a sweet film. Like Ponyo, it’s rated G (a rare enough thing these days in children’s film), with a strict limit to drama, danger, and violence. While there is no out-and-out magic at play here (a common Miyazaki theme), this family of little people are in a sense the magic of the world, a hidden, endangered, beautiful element sadly threatened increasingly by change. The family aren’t sure if they are or not the last of their species.

Arrietty is yet another of Miyazaki’s strong young female protagonists, spirited and innocent, breaking into the world in new ways.

Both Felix and Clara liked it a lot, though Felix, typically was less enthusiastic after a while. I thought it was quite enjoyable myself.

We are lucky to live in a world in which Hayao Miyazaki is still creating cinema, and we can hope that he will continue to do so.

Filed under Animation, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, Theatrical, With the kids

Captain Blood (1935)

February 20, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director Michael Curtiz
viewed: 02/17/2012

For all the films, genres, stars, experiences that I handpick to show to my kids, intending to expose them to the breadth of cinema, there are a number of those that I, myself, have no first-hand experience. Take Errol Flynn for instance. Before we watched The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) last year, I couldn’t claim that I’d really seen any of his films. The more and more that we watch together, and the broader and broader of the material to which they are open, we will doubtlessly continue to forge into territory that is new not just for them, but for me.

Actually, I hadn’t realized that it had already been a year since we saw our first Errol Flynn film. I’d had Captain Blood in my queue, waiting for its week for film night.

Captain Blood is actually a title that I recall getting heavy play on television as a kid and actually still on TCM. For whatever reason, I’d never seen it. Based on a popular novel of the early 20th Century, it tells the tale of a doctor turned pirate in the topsy-turvy world of 17th Century Britain. The evil (or at least very unlikable) King James has a group of rebels sent off as slaves to Jamaica to serve a brutal Lord there on his plantation. Dr. Blood (Flynn) had been an adventurer, but had settled as a doctor, only pulled into the courts when captured healing a rebel. When opportunity finally shows itself, he leads an escape of the unjustly imprisoned men, taking a pirate ship and then turning buccaneers themselves, becoming the scourge of the Caribbean.

For all its swashbuckling, the film actually takes quite a while to get to its first battle and it’s quite deep into the story before a sword fight breaks out. By contrast, action got happening much more quickly and regularly in the later The Adventures of Robin Hood. Oddly enough, the kids were both invested in the film early on, not being plaintive for more action.

Again, I thought that Felix would be more into it than Clara. He was more into it than he was in the prior week’s Astaire/Rogers film Swing Time (1936), but Clara was in some ways equally as excited about it as the other. As for me, I enjoyed it a great deal, too, though I did find it a bit slower than ye olde Robin Hood.

The finale is by far the best, as Blood leads his crew in an attack on two French ships engaged in besieging the port. Finding out that James has been chased from the throne, usurped by King William, the English take the pirates back and the enemy has now sided with the French. The battle sequence is enthralling. While Felix noted the fakery of the skies in the background on some shots, it’s a testament to the battle sequence that one isn’t drawn to figuring out what shots are models, which shots are sound stage, trying to decipher the artifice. It’s just a good old adventure with the high-flying Flynn, still exciting and fun.

Filed under DVD, With the kids

Swing Time (1936)

February 16, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director George Stevens
viewed: 02/11/2012

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at the height of their collaboration, directed very effectively by George Stevens, and featuring music by the fantastic Jerome Kern. What’s not to like? The blackface, perhaps?

After watching Top Hat (1935) a couple of years ago, I wondered about watching films like this with kids. This time, I did. The magic was lost a bit on Felix, perhaps due more to tiredness (he fell asleep during the film) than due to real reaction, but Clara, who is soon to be 8, totally loved it, as did I.

As good as the Irving Berlin songs were in Top Hat, the Kern songs in Swing Time are even more impeccable. ”Pick Yourself Up”, “A Fine Romance”, “The Way You Look Tonight”. Fantastic.

The dance sequences, namely the first, set to “Pick Yourself Up” in which Astaire vies to prove that Rogers has just taught him how to dance in the studio is magic. The “Bojangles of Harlem” sequence is perhaps the most cinematic, highlighting a big tribute to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson with a striking sequence in which Astaire dances in front of a screen of three giant syncopated silhouettes of himself, projected behind him. This sequence, though, is the site of the blackface that Astaire dons. It’s the sad thing about blackface that it’s so rightly stigmatized that even in a sequence like this, which is done in tribute, and perhaps far less is lampoon, it’s still shameful. I, personally, try not to get too hung up on these elements, as there is no simple, clear way to feel. It’s of its time, it’s shameful, it’s there. It’s still arguably one of the film’s best moments, tainted as it is.

Not being a particularly “dancey” person myself, I still found myself wanting to glide around the room a-la Astaire, and Clara did very much too. It’s almost impossible not to get caught up in it. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. Felix slept through the ending, so maybe next time for him.

Filed under DVD, Musicals, With the kids

The Dark Crystal (1982)

February 9, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

directors Jim Henson, Frank Oz
viewed: 02/04/2012 at the Castro Theatre, SF, CA

Playing at the Castro Theatre as part of its 30th Anniversary, The Dark Crystal is yet another journey into the heart of 1980′s wonderful analog effects, puppeteering, and visual design. Great as all of that is, it’s a little hard for me to consider it a “classic” as some do, certainly a number of the people in the crowd last Saturday.

I recall seeing it when it first came out, something I noted to my kids, which would have made me 13 at the time. I remember not being particularly impressed by the film, and finding the “gelflings” the heroes of the film, bland and unexpressive.

Directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz as the first of their more “adult” or “realistic” styled puppets (as opposed to The Muppets with whom they had risen to fame), it’s a very different style of narrative, a more traditional fantasy genre story, set in a mystical world that has three suns. When the dark crystal became damaged in time long ago, it broke these creatures into two races, the evil, vulture-like Skeksis and the mellow, old hippy-like Mystics. When the old ones start dying out, the leader of the Mystics tells one of the last living gelflings, Jen, to go find the missing shard of the crystal and to make things whole again. It’s all associated with a prophecy. The Skeksis don’t want this to happen, they just want to rule cruelly for all eternity.

The story isn’t all that strong. I mean, an old hag had the shard in a box of crystals all along. Outside of dodging the giant pill-bug-cum-crab creatures called Garthim, the Skeksis’ henchmen, there really isn’t a whole lot to the “quest” as it were. And the direction of the main story arc is kind of clumsy and plodding. So, I guess I kind of agree with my 13-year old self on this one.

Differently, though, I think I appreciate the puppet designs and performances a bit more, though. The gelflings are still kind of lame, but the Garthim and the Skeksis are cool, as is the old hag, and lots of the little details, the strange plant life and odd creatures that make up the landscapes (and don’t necessarily get a lot of screen time) are some of the most fun and interesting.

Typically, Clara enjoyed it more than Felix, something of a theme of late in our viewings. He’s developing a cynical sensibility toward a lot of stuff, perhaps some would say, much like his old man. That’s too bad. It’s more fun to find reasons to enjoy things than to find reasons not to. Note to self.

Filed under Theatrical, With the kids

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)

February 5, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director Terry Gilliam
viewed: 02/03/2012

The only time that I had seen Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was on VHS in 1990. At that time, I wasn’t terribly familiar with it, though I had been very familiar with his 1985 film Brazil which was probably one of the first “art films” that I got into. At the time, though there was a lot to like about Munchausen, I, like my friends, was inclined to consider it sort of mediocre, which given the circumstances of seeing it, makes some sense.

It was, however, in considering potentially entertaining fantasy adventure films for my kids, especially having just watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) at their behest, that I came to reconsider Gilliam’s great adventure film. The kids had no idea what to expect, and I, over 20 years out from having seen it before, was due for some surprises, too.

More than anything, I was surprised by how charming and fun most of the film was. If anything, it brought to mind such classic adventure fare as The Thief of Bagdad (1940), a solid, while quite whimsical romp, with some truly outstanding design elements and good fun. The film is a long one, over 2 hours, and some of the sequences have less verve and fun as some others, it could doubtlessly use a nip or tuck here and there to tighten it up. Still, it’s a very sound and good fantasy adventure, which Clara liked very much and Felix liked to some extent.

Set in some time in the 18th Century in a “town” besieged by the Turks, a small theater troupe is performing the adventures of the baron Munchausen, a popular series of stories based on the tall tales told and attributed to an actual Baron. They are performing amidst an onslaught, when suddenly an elderly fellow, claiming to be the real Baron steps forth and begins spinning his tales, with really only the young daughter of the troupe leader (a nine-year-old Sarah Polley) who takes him for real.

But then he is “real”. The film’s main thrust, outside of weaving a rollicking yarn, is the aspect of fantasy in the realm of “reason”. As the intertitles tells us, the story takes place in “The Age of Reason” in which people continue to bomb the hell out of one another and when the film comes to its grand finale, the difference between the “real” and the “fantasy” is sort of clumsily (though perhaps intentionally) kept fuzzy.

Eric Idle appears as Berthold, one of the Baron’s sidekicks with variant superpowers (his is superspeed). Another has great hearing and the ability to blow tremendously powerful wind with his breath. Another is a sharpshooter and another is a strongman. Maybe one of the downsides is that these characters spend most of the time as semi-useless, with only the briefest of moments of highlighting their hidden strengths. The Baron himself is played by John Neville with a particular flair and charm truly befitting the character. We’ve also got a young and beautiful Uma Thurman as the goddess Venus (an apt role indeed).

The adventures take them to the moon, into the depths of Mt. Vesuvius, and swallowed by a giant sea serpent/fish, all while the aging Baron is pursued by the shrouded and skeletal image of “Death”, ever-waiting to snatch his essence away.

The film is far from flawless but indeed is perhaps as good as anything that Terry Gilliam has directed. I’m sure that there are those who would vaunt Time Bandits (1981) or the aforementioned Brazil as his masterpieces, but it’s clear to me that he is certainly a director who is worth considering among the most interesting and original living American directors (though it’s sometimes hard not to consider him English, what with his Monty Python affiliation). And really, I did enjoy it more than I imagined I would (even with the tiresome Robin Williams as King of the Moon sequence). I was tired of that 20 years ago. Still am.

Filed under DVD, Terry Gilliam, With the kids

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

January 31, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

directors Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
viewed: 01/25/2012

When I asked the kids what they wanted to watch on movie night, Felix said, “A classic. Like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Who am I to argue?

They’d watched Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) with their mother and we’d previewed a number of scenes from the film on YouTube. But frankly, for all its popular cultural ubiquity and placement on many lists as one of the “greatest comedies of all time”, I don’t know if I’d actually seen it since the 1980′s.

Like so many things that I grew up with and had my own experience with, Monty Python has come to signify not only a style of British humor, but has gone far beyond the breadth of its initial run. Of course, on Broadway, there’s Spamalot, adapted directly from the film and broadening the reach of the humor perhaps more deeply into the mainstream. Of course, one thinks of the classic “nerd” when considering the most typical Python fan. And I could hear echoes of that in my consciousness as I heard lines like, “I fart in your general direction.”

I’m going to go ahead and say it: It’s not a great film. It’s funny, classic in many parts, but it’s also exemplary of the hit and miss nature of Python humor, gags, skits, what-have-you.

Am I showing my lack of cultivation by saying that I think the Black Knight scene is the funniest of them all?

The kids enjoyed it. Like a lot of verbal/physical humor (like the Marx Brothers), I’m sure that there’s a lot of it that they didn’t get. I’m sure that there’s stuff that I didn’t get.

It’s a classic, yes, indeed. Extremely funny. Far from flawless.

Filed under DVD, Terry Gilliam, With the kids

Stardust (2007)

January 27, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director Matthew Vaughn
viewed: 01/20/2012

Adapted from a novel by Neil Gaiman, Stardust was one of a number of fantasy/adventure films that came out a few years ago, attempting to horn in on the Harry Potter empire. Now Stardust was not from a series, but it shares something perhaps with the film version of The Golden Compass (2007) in that it’s a big epic fantasy film with a cast with lots of cachet that got middling to poor reviews and tanked at the box office. Actually, I imagine that most people are probably going, “Stardust?”

Neil Gaiman is more interesting a writer that many and with the kids into fantasy films/stories, it seemed like a reasonable thing to watch even if the reviews weren’t that strong.

The story involves an alternate world that lies behind a hole in a stone fence in long-ago England. The world beyond is called Stormhold and in it, a crazy king wants his 7 sons to murder each other to earn the right to take his throne. His daughter is abducted by a witch, but fathers a child with the one Englishman who ever ventured over into Stormhold. This child, as a young adult, is the hero (Charlie Cox). There are witches, led by Michelle Pfeiffer (quite often in uber-ugly old hag make-up, who want to find a fallen star to use its energy to become young again. And the star is actually Claire Danes, fallen to Earth in human form.

So, you can see there is a lot of story there. More than I care to attempt to re-cap entirely.

The film is directed by Matthew Vaughn who has gone on to direct X-Men: First Class (2011) and Kick-Ass (2010), though before this his only feature had been Layer Cake (2004). While not an impeccable resume, it’s also not by any means a dire one. In fact, it’s pretty decent. Still, Stardust really didn’t show him at his best.

The tone of the story is funny and fun, which I kind of liked. And really, though it doesn’t manage to be quite as epic or enthralling as the best of the fantasy genre films go (and is a poor comparison to the source material so I’ve heard), I found myself kind of liking it. The kids liked it too, perhaps Clara a bit more so than Felix, but with the core story being about “love”, it’s not the most compelling subject for them at present.

Robert De Niro shows up as a closeted cross-dressing sky pirate who captures lightning with his band of hearties. It’s a kind of painful thing to watch. He minces around a bit in the most cliche forms of “fey”, though the character is couched in a more positive attempt at addressing the stereotypes. He hides his cross-dressing from his tough crew, thinking he has to maintain the appearance as a cutthroat to keep them following him, but ultimately they all know who he is and they still follow him. De Niro didn’t have to be quite so bad in this. It could have been pulled off with more flair and ingenuity, but it’s pretty awkward and a bit troublesome.

I don’t know. It was also interesting to see Pfeiffer, still stunningly beautiful, playing the hag in make-up, having just watched her not so long ago in another fantasy film, in Richard Donner’s Ladyhawke (1985). Twenty-two years separate the two films, and in Hollywood, as in perhaps all of Western culture, the measure of beauty is so fixated on youth that there is something uncanny about considering these multiple visions of her, young in Ladyhawke, still lovely as her present self, but aging back and forth throughout the film. It’s hardly the focal point of the story, just something that flickered through my mind throughout.

Filed under DVD, With the kids

The Kid (1921)

January 26, 2012 by kennelco Leave a Comment

director Charles Chaplin
viewed: 01/14/2011

Charlie Chaplin’s first feature-length film, The Kid, highlights as much of Chaplin’s pathos as much as his humor. Who knows, maybe even more?

My kids, when queried what they were up for on movie night, said “a classic.” I’d long been holding back on this, figuring it would do well with them. It did.

What struck me most were the images of poverty portrayed in the film. This isn’t the Great Depression, but the stark images of the poor are very much of their time yet strikingly timeless as well. Poignant for today’s world perhaps more than one might initially realize. Most striking for me were images shot on location on downtown Los Angeles’ Olvera Street (I’m a sucker for location shoots, capturing landscapes in place and time as they do.) More than however dressed up the sets were or the cast was is how the images of need are as commonplace as they are, as simply readable. From Chaplin’s Tramp’s clothes to the begging, scamming, and other hardscrabble means that people are portrayed as living by.

“The Kid” is Jackie Coogan (who would go on to becoming one of film’s first child stars and eventually become a well-known character actor as well, including notably Uncle Fester from TV’s The Addams Family.) Coogan’s story is interesting in itself, how his parents spent all his money and left him broke, something that eventually led to laws changing the way that child actors’ money is managed. But Coogan is as cute as they come and a wily, lively, miniature of Chaplin with his knack for physical humor.

Oddly, and it could just have been the time I was watching it, but I think it’s my favorite of Chaplin’s features that I’ve seen while tracking such things in this film diary. Not to say that it’s necessarily “the best” of those films, just my favorite.

Filed under Charlie Chaplin, DVD, Silent Film, With the kids

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