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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Albert Lamorisse directed the classic The Red Baloon, but this is his prior film, black and white, about a boy and a wild horse in the spectacular, wild territory of the Camargue in France. The Camargue is a vast salt plain and the home of the only wild horses in Europe. People live in weird, white houses which look like they were formed of wet sand -- it is tropical and also home to huge native flocks of flamingos.Everyone wants to capture the king of the wild horses, but White Mane instinctively knows that only the boy understands and loves him.
About an hour long, nearly silent, deeply moving and some of the best cinematography ever, in any film.
If such a dubious selection can make the list, I would have to put The Stupids starring Tom Arnold and Jessica Lundy on the list. It is overlooked and underrated.
As a bonus, it contains a song called "I am my own Grandpa." Any movie with such a song deserves at least one viewing.
And what is up with bashing The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas? Those are two of Disney's best modern movies. I said in '89 and I'll say it again. Mermaid and Do the Right Thing were the two best movies of that year. Yes, it changed the ending and thus the moral, but it still works as a classic fairy tale. It is hard to take a critic seriously who would bash a movie with the lyrics of the late, great Howard Ashman, whose death was the first step on the rather swift decline of the modern Disney animated film.
And, yes, Disney did transform the chubby 13 year old Native American into a marriage aged sexpot, but they also created a surprisingly well made film. It has a more adult tone than many modern Disney films, including an on-screen killing. And despite the subsequent marketing of Pocahontas as one of the Disney Princesses, the movie was not a fairy tale romance. It dealt with the issue of love in a way that was quite serious for animated fare. Love doesn't conquer all in Pocahontas. Pocahontas is faced with an adult choice and forgoes her happily ever after. Lastly, I would argue that Pocahontas is one of the better films to emerge from that time frame about Native Americans. It deftly avoids the overly PC traps that comprised the backbone of highly overrated films like Dances With Wolves. The Native Americans are not presented as this perfect civilization that was destroyed by the evil white man. The warlike, brutal side of Native American society is given more attention in this Disney cartoon than in most modern movies involving Native Americans. It has a balance that more adult films on the subject sorely lack.
So, while I agree with the need for a list of kids flicks that go beyond the standard Disney flicks, I strongly disagree with the choice of the two aforementioned films as examples of bad kid flicks. They seem to have been chosen randomly. With Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Cars, the grossly overrated (non-Disney) Shrek movies, and anything Disney has released direct-to-DVD out there, why pick two that arguably earn the header Disney Masterpiece™?
Speaking of direct -to-video titles, Muppet Classic Theater is an hour of pure fun and I urge all parents to write Disney and get them to finally release this little gem on DVD, and not just because my daughter has just about worn out our VHS copy.
Seems like some pretty good choices to me. I like it.
JT
www.FireMe.To/udi
While I agree with your defense of "Little Mermaid" and "Pocahontas" (which were both terrific), I can't support the disparaging of "Mom and Dad Save the World."
I originally saw the movie only because it was assigned to me at work (for closed-captioning/subtitling), but it is surprisingly entertaining, well-structured, and very, very funny... and it actually puts forth several gentle lessons about how to be a decent human being (not to mention the wonderful fact that a then 45-year-old Teri Garr was the main love/lust interest).
We could do a lot worse by our kids.
The first All Dogs, and none of the dreadful sequels. My kids' all-time favorite, and mine too. Don Bluth at the peak of his writing and direction skills. Burt Reynolds as Charlie Barkin, the dog mobster with a heart after all, dancing through the heavenly clouds wth Annabele the angel dog, delivers one of my favorites lines in any cartoon, ever:
"You have natural rhythm — unusual in a whippet."
I have to add The Dark Crystal! As a child many of the movies I loved, including Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits, and the Secret of Nimh, were a little bit dark and scary. Those are the movies that have held up best when I go back to them as an adult. Although some of the puppets in the Dark Crystal scared me as a child, I loved that movie with a passion and watched it again and again.
O'Hehir stated right at the outset, no recent Disney/Pixar blockbusters. That's what makes the list interesting!
Regarding "Grave of the Fireflies." I rented that for my 10 and 13 yr. olds, thinking, oh here's another one of those magical Miyazaki movies about children. I check on them at the end and they're bawling their eyes out. Saddest Movie Ever Made, seems to be the Internet concensus. It seemed like a big mistake at the time, being one of the most emotionally wrenching experiences they'd ever had, but they still talk about that movie (two years later). Perhaps we protect our children too much from such expiences. But maybe I just screwed up.
One of the great early Disney animated features is "Pinocchio". I watched this with my 3 year old nephew who was completely enthralled though frightened by it. Maybe better for kids a bit older as the story is rather dark. But the animation is absolutely gorgeous!
Great list...I was so pleased to see The Secret of Roan Inish included. My kids LOVED it when they were little and used to spontaneously get up and dance a jig when some of the music came on. Not sure how they knew how to jig, guess it's their Irish blood. The pace is slow and the plot kind of obscure but it still was a movie we watched over and over at their request.
Also loved "The Princess Bride" which we still quote occasionally ("Stop rhyming now, I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?") and Monty Python's Holy Grail, which we quote constantly ("It's only a flesh wound!" "Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!" "We have ridden since the snows of winter" "He's go two 'alves of coconuts and he's bangin 'em together!" "Help, help, I'm being repressed!" "What if we built a large wooden badger?"and on and on).
Agree with adding all Python movies and also 'Millions' which was fabulous.
Also for older kids, "Galaxy Quest" a spoof on the Star Trek genre is hilarious. My kids loved Mel Brook's "Spaceballs" which did have some funny moments along with a lot of tedious "Druish Princess" jokes. There were some sexual stuff (Brook's character talking to other character's breasts...ugh!) and language issues but they thought it was hilarious.
The Christopher Guest Canon has also been a been fun to watch as a family as the kids get older: This is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, Best in Show....all hilarious.
Also, it is great to watch movies that are based, even loosely, on classics. We watched "West Side Story" when they studied Romeo and Juliet in school. We have seen some great Shakespeare (thanks to Barbara Gaines's wonderful theater in Chicago) and so have followed up "Taming of the Shrew" with Cole Porter's "Kiss me Kate" and "Ten Things I Hate About You". Same with Jane Austen's "Emma" and "Clueless". These pairings provide great opportunities for discussing social and class issues and what has changed or not changed since the originals were written. (I'm not saying "Clueless" and "Ten Things.." should make the list on their own merits, however!)
I also would echo a previous writer with regard to the R vs PG-13 issue with another example. A few years ago I took my kids (then ages 11-13) and some of their friends to see 'Anchorman' which was PG-13 and filled with jokes about sex and priapism, the latter visible in the trousers of one of the actors for a prolonged period, etc. I was not horrified, but did feel it was a bit much for a PG-13 movie. Later, I took my boys to see Farenheit 911, which was rated R and had nothing racy at all, just scary revelations about our government. It seemed that the ratings should have been reversed.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
