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Actually, Eric Beckman, the guy from the NY children's film fest, says he wrestles with this all the time, and there's no easy answer. Does it mean a movie about kids? A movie mainly marketed to kids? Simply a movie without certain kinds of defined-as-adult themes and subject matter?
The standard here was meant to be utilitarian: The movie will engage a large mixed group of children and adults, whether they're closely related or not, without striking any of them as hopelessly stupid or boring. By Timothy's account, Kung Fu Panda fails this test. (I haven't seen it, but a lot of the Cannes critics loved it. I guess it's a film for grown-ups.) Here's what I wrote on June 2, in the original invitation:
"With summer upon us, I want to accumulate an absolutely killer list of DVDs for grown-ups and kids (say, ages 4 to 12) to watch together when the beach day gets rained out, or just before bed, or just for the hell of it. What I'm mainly looking for are non-obvious, non-recent and non-computer-animated choices; classics that our generation has partly forgotten, or odder, older stuff that might broaden the kids' horizons a little and intrigue even the snobbish, film-buff adults in the audience. Obviously it's got to be entertaining to a broad viewing spectrum, or no dice."
Whatever flaws are revealed in the accumulation of this list (no "Duck Soup"), most of the films on it pass that test. Although I remain highly skeptical about "Mom and Dad Save the World."
Xrandadu, I'll definitely come back with that list of runners-up.
Probably true that "Muppets Take Manhattan" is superior to "Great Muppet Caper," come to think of it. I was just following the polls with that one.
