Kid flicks
As usual, it was a comment I made on another blog that inspired me to post on my own. I've had a few conversations with my mom in recent months about kids' movies, and the apparent dearth of them compared to when I was a kid. She and I both remember us going to the movies a lot more than I do with my own daughter. There are several possible reasons for that:
1) It is ridiculously expensive to go to the movies now
2) All the movies are shit
3) uhm...some variation on 1 and 2
3) There are just no movies being made for the 8-12 age range.
I think in the past year or so I've taken J to the movies twice: to see Harry Potter and Narnia. She has gone with her dad and other people to see fare such as Hoodwinked (which I wanted to see but never got around to), Chicken Little, and other things, but there really haven't been many films that I've felt would be fun and appropriate for the two of us. And just forget trying to add my boyfriend into the mix. With him we've watched DVDs like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but it doesn't go much beyond that.
BUT. In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine there was an article about kids movies and the movie company Walden (apologies if that's a dead link...I'm not sure at this point how persistent it is). I suspected that the name came from the Thoreau work, and I was right, a fact that only endeared me to the company more (the fact that I *loved* Narnia was the first reason). But then I read that Walden has made a movie of the Carl Hiaasen book Hoot, which J received as a gift I think, and which we read together with great pleasure. It's a lovely story of a kid who accidentally falls into the middle of an environmental issue, with themes of kids making things happen despite not being authoritative or even heard voices, and kids falling through the cracks but somehow managing to make life work anyway. Pretty good stuff. So we loved the book and I'm hoping the movie will be great too. But the thing is, it doesn't really matter.
Walden's mandate is apparently to adapt children's books into children's movies. They've done several, with mixed success, including Holes, which I've heard is very good but I've never gotten around to seeing it, and Because of Winn-Dixie(which I confess I've never been too ambitious to see), and Narnia, of which they are planning to adapt the remaining 6 books (yay!). And they are doing Hoot, and How to Eat Fried Worms, which was a book I read in elementary school, Charlotte's Web and some others. Generally, I'm a bit of a snob about these things. I'm an avid reader, I love books, and I'm often disappointed with film adaptations. But I think this company might have something good going on.
The main thing in their favour is the fact that this is all they are doing. They aren't trying to fit kids' movies into their larger agenda, they are focussing on making quality kids' movies out of quality kids' books. I am a parent who will always encourage my kid to read first, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because she has developed into a voracious reader just as I was at her age. And she is eager to read books whether there is a movie version or not. But I'm just glad that the key word here is quality. I wish other studios had the same ambition for adult movies, because the remakes upon remakes thing is really starting to get old, and Arethusa pointed out that someone has made The Celestine Prophecy, that quasi-spiritual sensation from the early '90s, into a film, which to my mind is completely ridiculous because it was an overblown piece of crap in print, so why will the film be any different. That said however, I *am* looking forward to the film version of Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, a writer whose autobiographical works I have loved. The film is apparently starring Annette Bening, which is enough reason to go see it.
So there are some good things in store for me and my 9-year-old, and I look forward to heading out to the movies with her.
1) It is ridiculously expensive to go to the movies now
2) All the movies are shit
3) uhm...some variation on 1 and 2
3) There are just no movies being made for the 8-12 age range.
I think in the past year or so I've taken J to the movies twice: to see Harry Potter and Narnia. She has gone with her dad and other people to see fare such as Hoodwinked (which I wanted to see but never got around to), Chicken Little, and other things, but there really haven't been many films that I've felt would be fun and appropriate for the two of us. And just forget trying to add my boyfriend into the mix. With him we've watched DVDs like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but it doesn't go much beyond that.
BUT. In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine there was an article about kids movies and the movie company Walden (apologies if that's a dead link...I'm not sure at this point how persistent it is). I suspected that the name came from the Thoreau work, and I was right, a fact that only endeared me to the company more (the fact that I *loved* Narnia was the first reason). But then I read that Walden has made a movie of the Carl Hiaasen book Hoot, which J received as a gift I think, and which we read together with great pleasure. It's a lovely story of a kid who accidentally falls into the middle of an environmental issue, with themes of kids making things happen despite not being authoritative or even heard voices, and kids falling through the cracks but somehow managing to make life work anyway. Pretty good stuff. So we loved the book and I'm hoping the movie will be great too. But the thing is, it doesn't really matter.
Walden's mandate is apparently to adapt children's books into children's movies. They've done several, with mixed success, including Holes, which I've heard is very good but I've never gotten around to seeing it, and Because of Winn-Dixie(which I confess I've never been too ambitious to see), and Narnia, of which they are planning to adapt the remaining 6 books (yay!). And they are doing Hoot, and How to Eat Fried Worms, which was a book I read in elementary school, Charlotte's Web and some others. Generally, I'm a bit of a snob about these things. I'm an avid reader, I love books, and I'm often disappointed with film adaptations. But I think this company might have something good going on.
The main thing in their favour is the fact that this is all they are doing. They aren't trying to fit kids' movies into their larger agenda, they are focussing on making quality kids' movies out of quality kids' books. I am a parent who will always encourage my kid to read first, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because she has developed into a voracious reader just as I was at her age. And she is eager to read books whether there is a movie version or not. But I'm just glad that the key word here is quality. I wish other studios had the same ambition for adult movies, because the remakes upon remakes thing is really starting to get old, and Arethusa pointed out that someone has made The Celestine Prophecy, that quasi-spiritual sensation from the early '90s, into a film, which to my mind is completely ridiculous because it was an overblown piece of crap in print, so why will the film be any different. That said however, I *am* looking forward to the film version of Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, a writer whose autobiographical works I have loved. The film is apparently starring Annette Bening, which is enough reason to go see it.
So there are some good things in store for me and my 9-year-old, and I look forward to heading out to the movies with her.
posted by infobabe | 8:54 a.m.
1 Comments:
hey, i read how to eat fried worms too!! and so did darth jr.! he loved "holes" too, both the book and the movie (plus most of sacher's stuff)..but i'm pretty scared of the charlottes web movie. enough dakota fanning already :mad:
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