Posts Tagged ‘children movies’

by Sine Thieme, a writer and mother of four who is new to South Africa and busy chronicling her experiences on her blog, Joburg Expat.

I admit it. I’m one of those moms who need to bring a pack of tissues when taking the kids to a movie. Even if it’s an animated movie. When my oldest son was about 2 years old and a friend had loaned us Lion King, I wanted to make sure it was going to be appropriate, so I watched it first on my own. Within minutes I was totally absorbed by the story and soon sat there bawling, making for a very surprised husband when he came home that night and saw me so distraught.

So you might take any movie advice of mine with a grain of salt, but I can highly recommend the movie Rio for your entire family, especially with kids in the 5-12 age range. It’s about a parrot named Blu who was taken from the rainforest as a baby and has lived all his life in Minnesota with his loving owner Linda. But his quiet and somewhat neurotic (because human-like) existence is suddenly interrupted when an ornithologist from Brazil brings the news that Blu is the last remaining male of his species and that they’ve found his female counterpart, Jewel. At first Blu and Linda are very skeptical at the prospect of traveling to Rio to bring the two together, but they are soon persuaded by the very charming Túlio to set out on the adventure of their lifetimes.

As you can imagine, things don’t go smoothly once they arrive in Rio. Jewel turns out to be very beautiful but not cooperative, and her only goal is to break free and return to the rainforest. Meanwhile, a group of nasty kidnappers – or rather birdnappers – is after the two rare macaws to sell them for a high price. A high-speed chase ensues when Blu and Jewel, with the help of some whacky friends they make along the way, try to escape the smugglers while Linda and Túlio set out to find them, complicated by the fact that Blu has never learned to fly. Of course, this being Rio de Janeiro, their adventure takes place during carnival, which makes for some additional excitement as well as a great soundtrack (though Blu, at some point when he’s very exasperated, confesses that “I hate Samba,” causing his new Brazilian friends to gasp in shock).

Blu is an endearing and funny character whom your kids will love for his courage as well as his weaknesses and fears. He reminds me of the giraffe Melman in Madagascar, while the movie itself has a similar feel to Up (another one of my must-bring-tissues experiences). While Up perhaps had a more captivating story line, it was also a bit scarier for the younger audience. Rio does feature bad guys – which story doesn’t – but most of them are also a bit simple-minded, like the robbers in Home Alone, so I think you can safely bring even your smaller kids to Rio to enjoy a feel-good and entertaining story.

Rated: G

Length: 1 hr 36 min

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez

Corinne Lamoral is a freelance writer and media consultant and mother of three children 3-9yrs. She reviews books and movies for a living which has sharpened her eye to spot out the must see’s  and must reads out there.

Having watched more than my fair share of Barbie DVD’s about princesses and fairies I was not sure what to expect from The Princess and the Frog, but I was wonderfully surprised.  Disney has reverted to their classic hand-drawn style and produced a visual feast of a tale with engaging characters and memorable side- kicks.

This is a modern day fairy tale in which the ‘princess’ – Tiana – is really a hard working young girl from the wrong side of the tracks who wants nothing more than to own a restaurant and cook food for everyone. Prince Naveen is a spoilt but well-meaning young ‘eurotrash’ who arrives in New Orleans looking to have fun while hopefully snagging himself a trust fund princess to pay for his way of life. Throw in the menacing magician cum voodoo man, Dr Facilier and Tiana and the Prince get turned into frogs sending them on a wild adventure deep into the Bayou (swamps) to find the good medicine woman who will return them to their human forms.  Along the way they learn about love, friendship, and wishing upon a star.

The spirit of 1920’s New Orleans with its mix of jazz, blues and gospel inspires a foot tapping soundtrack and the hand drawn and painted animation has a warmth and richness that we’ve really missed with the digital age. Do children care about all this? Well, maybe not, but it stirs their imagination and is culturally entertaining.  Did they notice that all the main characters were black or Hispanic?  My daughter and her friend didn’t mention it, even though this has been both hailed and deplored in the US where it’s seen as being either ‘about time’ or too PC.  I think its just part of the story and helps to level the surplus of white princes and princesses out there.

AGE RESTRICTION: I was glad I left my five year old at home. The age restriction is 10, and my 9 year old and her friend were happy watching it.  The restriction is for the scare factor and I do wonder why Disney has to go quite so dark in enacting the Voodoo shadows and masked figures. Yes, it is artistically done, but it’s scary! Having said that a few of my daughter’s friends apparently felt the movie was boring. In the age of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar – it is refreshingly simple and ‘old-fashioned’.

The Princess and the Frog is currently on circuit at Ster Kinekor cinemas around the country.