Milkbaby's movie meanderings: Ernest & Celestine and Frozen

For Milkbaby's fourth birthday, we took him to Ernest & Celestine.  Here's his review.

Tell me about Ernest & Celestine.
It had a big ummm bear, called Ernest.  And a little mouse who was called Celestine.  Umm Celestine dropped the pencil, and the movie was great.

What was the best part of the movie?
The funny one, the big mouse.   He went "boof!" into the door. [giggles]

What did Ernest & Celestine do?
They jumped in the big house.  Celestine took a big bunch of teeth.  Where to?  To the doctor?  Did she steal them?  No. Ernest stole a whole bunch of teeth.  And that's the end of it.

Who was chasing them?
I saw a funny part.  It was the police holding hands and went "boof" into a wall.  It was very silly. [more giggling]

What else did you like about the film?
Nothing.

Were Ernest & Celestine friends in the end?
Yup.

But mama? We didn't talk about Frozen yet!

What do you want to say about Frozen?
There's two girls, and one girl went away and said

"Let it go, let it go
It's all very nice
Let it go, let it go
It's all very nice"  [Milkbaby sings this for me, somewhat tunelessly]

That's the song about the girl who was going away.

Where did she go?
She made a tall house and a bridge.  And.  Someone trapped her.  And it was locked.  And.  Uh.  The other girl came to her and tracked inside.  What happened then?  It locked.  They were huggling each other.  But the one he was coming back and the other one was pushing her away.  The guy?   No. The girl.

What else happened?
It's finished.  I want to say Germany wins. [Any guess as to what day we wrote this together?  Yup, the day that one country got their happily-ever-after ending.]

Mama's thoughts
Ernest & Celestine is a gorgeous, fantastical movie, from the creators of The Triplets of Belleville.  For anyone who has read the Ernest & Celestine picturebooks, as far as I can tell, this film doesn't attempt to adapt their simple stories; rather, it is the backstory of how Ernest & Celestine came to be friends.  And what a story it is - they both must overcome adversity (the mouse and bear Police officers go "boof") and their own personal challenges to realise their dream of staying friends.  Celestine is a courageous and smart female role model.  She stands up to the system, and to the "big scary bear" Ernest.  Ernest, voiced by Forest Whittaker, is her lovable and loyal sidekick.

And Frozen? Don't even get me started... I've "let it go" already.

Rating for Ernest & Celestine: ***** (go see it if you haven't already!)

Milkbaby's movie meanderings: Rio 2 and Lego

With the school holidays in full swing, there's a plethora of children's movies to choose from.  Sadly, the release of Ernest and Celestine, the movie we've most been looking forward to, has been delayed in New Zealand, and won't come out until July.  Boo.

Last week we saw Rio 2, and Lego.  I managed a short interview with Milkbaby on each.  Mama rant follows.

Rio 2  [Was there a Rio 1?  It seems to have passed us by.]

Plot synopsis: It's a jungle out there for Blu, Jewel and their three kids in Rio 2, after they decide to leave Rio for the wilds of the Amazon rainforest.  As Blu tries to fit in, he goes beak-to-beak with the vengeful Nigel, and meets the most fearsome adversary of all - his father-in-law.

What did you think of Rio?
I think the bird. The bad bird.

What happened in it?  What was the story?  What did the birds all do?
Ah, hide away. Some birds hid and some birds said "breakfast time!!".

Who was your favourite character
Ah, Rio.  Your favourite bird?  Rio.  Rio, the kind of character.  The blue bird.
You mean Blue?  Yeah, Blue.

What actually happened in the movie?
Um.  The birds went in their nest.

Did they have fun?
Yep.

Who else was in the movie?
There was an elephant. With a different trunk. He had a long long nose and a long long tongue.  I think that was an ant-eater.  No. In Rio, the elephant. [looks at me like, duh!]  And there was a frog.  It was pink and black.

Were there any bad guys?
Yep, batman.  In Rio? Yep. [Milkbaby's brain: where movie worlds collide, with Batman from Lego starring in Rio 2]

Ok now talk to me about Lego.
I like Batman.

What about him?
I like his batcape.

What happened in the movie?
Um.  The batman flying thing, the batman came.

What was your favourite part?
I don't want to talk about this any more.  You play trains with me?

Mama rant
Before we go on, here's the plot synopsis for Lego:

Emmet is an ordinary, rule-abiding, perfectly average Lego minifigure who is mistakenly identified as having the extraordinary ability to save the world.  He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.

With these three films (Sherman and Mr Peabody included), I've identified a bit of a trend.  The male leads must overcome their character flaws (fear, domestication and sheer stupidity respectively) to save the universe/Amazon rainforest/Lego universe.  In their pursuits, they are accompanied by a female character, who invariably is smarter, more well adjusted and sassier than they are.  Yet it is the 'man' of the story who gets all the glory and ultimately saves the day.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - what are we teaching our children?  When are we going to see some children's films that have a strong female lead?  Frozen does not count (yes the female lead was smart, independent and her only character flaw was to be a bit too trusting - but she was a princess).  I have high hopes for Ernest and Celestine.

Back to the movies at hand.  Rio is perfectly watchable for a kids movie.  It's fairly light on the adult gags, but the sub-plot starring Nigel - a cockatoo with a personality disorder and a penchant for Shakespeare and revenge (voiced by NZ's very own Jemaine Clement) is enough to keep you interested.

Lego.  I had high expectations for this film, after it got five stars and had reviews which described it as "dancing on the brink of a cinematic revolution".  It's dancing on something alright, but my guess is that something is more like LSD than cinematic revolution.  If you want to find out if your child suffers from strobe-light-induced epilepsy, this is the film to take them to.  The graphics are FULL ON, both in terms of colours, fast cuts, flashing lights and OTT sounds.  I was actually relieved to have an excuse to leave the movies to change The Sailor and take him for a bit of a walk, even if it meant we had to encounter someone molesting the life-size Spiderman cardboard figure (not joking).

And if you want an earworm that will last at least a month, this is the film to see.  The soundtrack features a song called "Everything is Awesome".  Expect it to be selected by the Internet Party for their campaign song (their slogan is "This is going to be awesome").

That said, the film is packed with irony, adult gags and references and has a complex story line that cleverly mixes fantasy and reality.

Ratings
Rio 2: ** (only if you need an excuse to leave the house and your toddler is driving you bonkers)
Lego: **** (but don't say I didn't warn you about the strobe effects)

Milkbaby's movie meanderings: Sherman and Mr Peabody

Last week I took Milkbaby and The Sailor to see Sherman and Mr Peabody.  As Milkbaby is now capable of expressing his own opinions on films, I thought I'd do this review Q&A style with him.  To guide you through the review below, here's a brief plot synopsis:

Mr. Peabody, the most accomplished dog in the world, and his mischievous boy Sherman, use their time machine - The WABAC - to go on the most outrageous adventures known to man or dog. But when Sherman takes The WABAC out for a joyride to impress his friend Penny, they accidentally rip a hole in the time-space continuum, wreaking havoc on the most important events in world history. Before they forever alter the past, present and future, Mr. Peabody must come to their rescue, ultimately facing the most daunting challenge of any era: figuring out how to be a parent. Together, the time traveling trio will make their mark on history.

So, what did you think of Sherman and Mr Peabody?
I liked the fighting of Penny.  The fighting of Penny [hand gestures, karate chop style]. I liked the round thing.

The WABAC?
Yes, the WABAC.

What was your favourite part of the movie?
I liked the killing to get Penny away.  The killing.  [ed: for the record, I couldn't recall anyone being killed or dying in this movie - even "the baddies" had happy endings]

What happened in that part?
Fighting came to climb up the building, and he went on the WABAC home. [here I think Milkbaby is referring to a particularly exciting rescue of Penny from the ancient Egyptians, in which Sherman and Mr Peabody climb inside a large statue and impersonate a God who tells them to let her go]

What did you think of Mr Peabody?
He did great yoga.  He did standing like that (gesticulates), with her tail, like that too.  It was very funny.

What else?
And I know the fighting, the fighting to get Penny back.

Where did they go in the WABAC?
To home.  Where else?  And to Penny, when Penny doesn't kill, mama.  Do they go to ancient Rome?  Yes they did, and they're up the elevator.  What about to renaissance Italy?  They went to the honey bees.  The saw a big guy.  Mr Peabody bites someone.  A big guy.  He had pink and white.

What about Sherman?
Sherman is a nice boy, and Mr Peabody is a nice boy.  Sherman looks like this tall (hand gestures).

Mr Peabody is a dog.
Mr Peabody is a dog.  Silly me ding dong.

How old do you think Sherman is?
Sherman is four years old.  He turns five and goes to school.

Does he like school?
Yes he does.

Does he make friends there?  Yes. What friends? Just all of them.  They don't have toys there.

What else happened in the movie?
Oh, it did.  What about a different movie?  Madagascar.

And what did mummy think?  The movie was surprisingly watchable.  It had enough wit to keep me smiling, and I even learnt a thing or two from their visits to places in history.  In this aspect, the learning aspect was a bit lost on Milkbaby, though the pace was probably too fast for children of all ages to actually learn something.  Sadly, the familiar and sickening boy-rescues-silly-girl plot had my feminist hackles up.  Unfortunately, Penny alternates between nasty and silly, and Sherman, for some reason, wants to impress her. In addition, the people they travel back in time to visit are almost all male as well (with King Tut, Agamemnon and all the other male ancient Greeks, Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein and ex-Presidents all making appearances). What are we teaching our sons with female leads and plotlines like this?  I can only hope that the message Milkbaby got out of this was that the guy with the brains [Mr Peabody] will triumph, and you shouldn't do silly things to impress your friends (otherwise you may cause a rift in the time-space continuum). 

Rating: *** (worth leaving the house for if you're desperate to find something to entertain your toddler)

The Sailor's movie meanderings: Tracks

I've been looking forward to this movie.  The real, actual, true story of Robyn Davidson's mostly-solo 2700km Australian desert crossing in 1977.

Unusually, we had company at the screening; people without babes in arms.  "Don't worry" I assured them as we walked in, "he'll go to sleep soon".  And he did, but not before letting out a fair bit of screaming as the movie began.

This doesn't feel like your average Australian movie.  If your average Australian movie is The Castle, Muriel's Wedding or even Rabbit Proof Fence.  The dialogue is deliberately sparse, sparing viewers from that awkward and grating Australian accent and allowing you to instead focus on the miles and miles of desert and sand.

Sand.  Grey sand, red sand, blue sand, pink sand, windy sand, wet sand, sandy sand.  You will never again encounter so much sand in a movie - but you'll still not tire of the view.

I'll admit to a moment of dread as 'Day 1' was captioned.  My fear that we could be watching a movie as long as Lord of the Rings was quickly allayed with the next caption reading 'day 29'.

This movie is billed as a drama, but there were only a few moments where my heart rate got a smidgen above its usual resting rate.  However, the movie delivers on the usual dramatic questions, even if the pace is lacking:

• what is she running from?
• will the camels and dog make it?
• will she get together with the annoying American photographer who's tagging along?
• will she make it?

The Sailor woke from his nap about two thirds of the way through the film, and seemed to take a genuine interest in what he could see on screen.  I decided to treat it like a nature documentary.  "That's a camel", I whispered in his ear. 

After a while he lost interest, settling in for a feed and another outfit-ruining shart, as seems to be the tradition for these movie outings.  

He didn't even really take an interest in the ending, when the three other babies there all seemed to be overcome with emotion (or perhaps relief).

Rating: **** (definitely worth leaving the house for)

The Sailor's movie meanderings: Cuban Fury

Last week, The Sailor's Grandma was visiting, so we took her to Cuban Fury.

It's a familiar plot line.  Underdog Bruce (overweight, middle-aged, single guy) can't get a girlfriend, and must rediscover his talent for Salsa dancing in order to do so.  It's not spoiling the movie to say that he does.

The comedy is in how he gets there, complete with nasty dance teacher, a Will Ferrell-lookalike and act-alike asshole boss who also wants the affections of this girl and will stop at nothing to thwart Bruce's attempts at romance, a gay Middle Eastern salsa-dancer (he has the best lines), and mates and family to cheer Bruce on.

The Sailor's quite keen on a bit of music and dance, often insisting on both to get to sleep, so it's no surprise he enjoyed this movie.  First he managed to do one of those outfit-ruining sharts, but this time the lack of subtitles meant changing him in the dark was not so difficult.  He then settled in for a nap to wait for the real music and dance to start.

There are a fair few laugh-out-loud moments here, as well as a bit of cute thrown in.  The writers and directors of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are onto a winning formula with that awkward British The Office-style humour and a bit of slapstick thrown in for good measure.  With both British and American humour types covered, the film will have broad appeal.

It's unlikely to win any awards, but I recommend it for an outing with your mother-in-law.  Funny, a bit crass, and feel-good.  And the music was so toe-tappingly good that The Sailor, upon waking from his nap, insisted I get up and dance with him for the last half hour.  I would have preferred to stay seated, but he insisted, reasoning that I needed to start working on that baby flab.  More on that crusade later.

Rating: *** (worth leaving the house for)

The Sailor's movie meanderings: The Monuments Men and Wadjda

The Sailor insisted we see two movies last week: The Monuments Men and Wadjda.

I wasn't so sure about George Clooney's latest offering, but The Sailor reasoned we should get out of the house, even if George wasn't such a great incentive.  The Monuments Men is the *true* story of how the Americans heroically saved almost all of Europe's great works of art from destruction by Hitler during WWII.

It's like George Clooney, after reading the novel of the dramatisation of the true story, decided it would be fun to get all his best mates together to make a film.  He's managed to collect together a bunch of his favourite actors to make up the unlikely band of stragglers that are the platoon tasked with rescuing the art that defines civilisation (*ahem*).

This movie should have been called The Monuments Men and Women.  The movie's website itself says that both men and women were part of the 345-strong platoon that worked to save these cultural artifacts.  The Sailor complained that it was sad to see gender stereotypes being perpetuated.  I couldn't have agreed more.

It was great to see Cate Blanchett in the cast, but The Sailor and I wanted to see more of her.  In fact, she was the highlight, among an otherwise all-male cast who relied mostly on charm and/or good looks to get through the film.

The Sailor then complained that perhaps we shouldn't have come to see George Clooney after all.  I reminded him that leaving the house was his idea, and if he wanted to cry about it, he could.  A few whimpers soon turned into full-blown anti-George screaming.

Noooo, not George Clooney!!!

The Sailor soon quietened with a nipple in his gob, and the stodgy dialogue lulled him off to sleep, leaving me to contend with George and the full-blown all-American arrogance on my own.

Thank goodness those Americans saved all the world's art - even if it was just so that George Clooney had the chance to make a mediocre war film to tell the tale.

Rating: ** (only worth seeing if you're desperate for an outing)

The next day, The Sailor said we should maybe see something a bit more women's lib, a story where the underdog triumphs, something with a sassy female lead.  Luckily, Wadjda was showing.

Wadjda is a 10-year old girl living in Saudi Arabia.  As far as strong, sassy female leads go, she has it in spades.  The plot is simple enough.  All Wadjda wants is a bike so that she can race (and beat) Abdullah, the boy from next door.  Riding bikes and playing with boys are both frowned on in Saudi Arabia, because of the threat both cause to a girl's virtue.

Wadjda is rebellious, enterprising and smart - so she finds ways to save for the much-desired bike. Then along comes a Koran recitation contest, with prize money that will more than buy her the bike...

The Sailor was so excited about the movie, he let out an enormous shart, leaving me to contend with a nappy change in the dark, while trying to read the subtitles on the movie.  I quickly discovered the shart hadn't been contained to The Sailor's nappy - I too was covered in baby shit.  With that incident cleaned up, The Sailor soon snuggled in for a nap, leaving me to cheer on Wadjda.

This is a story that will open your eyes to life as a woman in Saudi Arabia, and make you grin with glee as the sassy Wadjda takes on the establishment in her own way.

Rating: **** (definitely worth leaving the house for)

The Sailor's movie meanderings: 3 Mile Limit

Today marks the beginning of a new series on this blog: The Sailor's Movie Meanderings.  As you may have gathered, we've had a new addition to our household.  I've dubbed him The Sailor, since he was born in the caul and according to ancient lore, will be forever protected from drowning.

Last week The Sailor suggested it was about time I took him to a movie.  He reasoned that no age is too young to enjoy a film, and I thought it was about time we got out of the house.  Movie theatres here in Wellington have special screenings to which you can take your baby and not have to worry about whether he fusses through the entire film.  I'm going to try and get to at least one film a week until The Sailor's naps are incompatible with movie watching.

Last week we went to The Penthouse to see 3 Mile Limit.  It was actually supposed to be another film, but a technical glitch meant that The Sailor and I, as the only viewers, got to choose something else.

It's lucky we had the friendly projectionist to guide us through the options, as we would have skipped over this one based on the title alone.  I thought it might be another rap artist's drama, like Eminem's 8 Mile.  Surely someone could have come up with a catchier title?  Something that more accurately foreshadowed the content, like Pirate Radio?  Or The Boat That Rocked?  Oh that's right, a movie with both those titles has already been made (they used Pirate Radio for the North American release).  What about Six Months in a Leaky Boat then?  That would have had broader nostalgic Kiwiana appeal.

3 Mile Limit is the New Zealand version of Pirate Radio, based on the true story of Radio Hauraki - New Zealand's first commercial radio station.  One thing I'm always curious about with these "based on a true story" movies is how closely they resemble the truth.  Of course real life is never as exciting as the movies, so I am willing to forgive a bit of creative retelling.  As far as I can tell, this creative retelling has most of the elements of the original story, albeit in slightly different order.

The movie did miss one event however: the time that the Radio Hauraki director ran into my dad's car as he was driving down Wellesley Street.  As narrated by Dad:

It was Wellesley St East, about 9:30 pm....rainy night, I had been studying at the Auckland Uni library and was heading home, David Gates came out of High Street and turned onto Wellesley St in front of me, with brakes applied my 52 Austin went into hydroplaning mode and slid down the street towards Queen St and a telephone box, where, on the left hand corner there was a telephone booth of the old red variety.  Someone was talking on the phone and as I came sliding towards it, I saw her step out of the box while still holding the phone at the length of the cord.  I stopped just short of the box.  She stepped back in and continued the conversation and Gates stopped and came over and asked if everything was ok..He was driving a very flash Jaguar, which in the early 70s in NZ was certainly a money car!  He gave me his details and drove off.  I had no need to contact him.

I guess, in the big scheme of things, such an event didn't change the course of Radio Hauraki's history (nor my dad's), so I can understand why it ended up on the cutting room floor.

Back to the movie, in all its 1960s New Zealand cringe-worthy glory.  In short, this is a feel-good David vs Goliath drama, with a bit of comedy, romance and adventure thrown in for good measure.

• the David and Goliath bit: it's Radio Hauraki vs the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, which has a stranglehold on NZ radio
• the comedy: it's 1960s New Zealand for a start - you probably couldn't get a more stodgy era in NZ history - this is personified in the character of Morrie the dorky radio engineer who is the brains behind the operation
• the romance: the visionary, Richard, and his wife have a cute little romance going on
• the adventure: there's a leaky boat, multiple storms, and about six crazy guys - all the ingredients you need.

The New Zealand accents were a bit overdone, but the movie captured the stiffness and conformity of NZ society of the 1960s - as well as the exciting undercurrent of rebellion that the Radio Hauraki directors and DJs tapped into.

And most importantly, what did The Sailor think?  Well, he had trouble staying awake.

Rating: *** (worth leaving the house for)