In the winter of 1990, audiences had all kinds of acclaimed, or at least halfway decent, movies to choose from. Yet when all the smoke cleared, it was Home Alone that had captured the box office. What's more, it kept on capturing the box office, for months. The wags of the time wrote hundreds of column inches trying to figure out why such an obviously horrible movie had caught the public's fancy. Perhaps it was because of the Gulf War, the columns guessed, and people wanted pure escapism. (A scene in Kevin Smith's Dogma suggested that its success was a result of a deal with the devil.) The most likely excuse, however, is the fact that the kids were home from school and it was the only family-friendly movie playing at the time. The Godfather Part III opening on Christmas Day may have seemed like a big event to most movie buffs, but not to an eight year-old.
This phenomenon has more or less repeated itself year after year. We critics tend to shrug off movies like Night at the Museum, National Treasure: Book of Secrets and Alvin and the Chipmunks while we're busy devouring the high-protein items that will make our ten-best lists. Excepting those three examples, two of which are still doing boffo box office and the third of which is in DVD oblivion, I thought it might be fun to evaluate some of the current below-400-screen family movies and consider their fates. Mainly, I wanted to concentrate on the differences between Fred Claus (240 screens) and Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium(248 screens). Mr. Magorium has a devastating 34% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 48% on Metacritic, while Fred Claus is even lower with a 23% on RT and 42% on Metacritic. But Fred Claus has outgrossed Mr. Magorium more than twice over, earning $71 million to Mr. Magorium's $31 million.
My earlier column about the controversy swirling around The Golden Compass generated a lot of thought-provoking comments, and I thought that, with the film's opening date coming up on December 7, this might be a good time to address one of the questions underlying a lot of the comments we've had on the subject: Is a story, in this case, just a story? Or is it a tool with which to push or indoctrinate a set of beliefs?
One of our commenters, Rodway, included a link to this post titled "Sympathy for the Devil" over on Plugged Online, a movie blog arm of Focus on the Family. The site's "About Us" section says about its mission: "Plugged In is a Focus on the Family publication designed to help equip parents, youth leaders, ministers and teens with the essential tools that will enable them to understand, navigate and impact the culture in which they live. Entertainment is a potent influence on our culture for both good and evil. Through our reviews and discussions of that entertainment, we hope to spark intellectual thought, family discussion, spiritual growth and a strong desire to follow the command of Colossians 2:8. "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."
So you can probably figure out going in which side of the debate this post is going to weigh in on. Nonetheless, the piece does offer a fairly reasoned argument to its target market for why Christian parents should keep their kids away from The Golden Compass, both in its (likely to be) watered-down film form, and its even "more dangerous" written form to which your children (so implies the author) will surely be led if they watch the film.
If you wondered when it came out if there needed to be a third Shrek film, all you need to do is ask the kids. Adults may be growing tired of the clever plays on modernity -- mascot contests, bubblegum-blowing teeny-boppers, endless takes on modern store names made to sound "fairy-taleish" -- but kids never seem to tire of the toilet humor that permeates the Shrek series.
The advantage of making a film with ogres and a donkey at the center is that you can acutally (kind of) justify the endless stream of projectile vomiting and fart jokes, and my own kids, at least, never seem to tire of them. And when you have the film on DVD, well, they can rewind to watch the baby spewing green-pea vomit out of the baby carriage over, and over, and over again. So, rejoice, parents, Shrek the Thirdis here.
Actually, for a third film in a series, Shrek the Third isn't a terrible effort. While it's not as strong as the first two films (the second was surprisingly good for a sequel) and at times it feels that the filmmakers are really reaching by stretching the franchise to support a third film, if you compare it to, say, the dreadful Happily N'Ever After, it's pretty tolerable. Any time you can find a kids' film that the adults in the household can stomach watching multiple times, that's a good thing -- but you might want to make sure to have Shrek and Shrek 2 on hand as well.
More signs of a slow, post-holiday news day: Cinematical reports on the completion of a sex change operation. Yes folks, we're going there. According to Rated-M, the man formerly known as Larry Wachowski has officially completed his full sex change. Now, I'm not sure whether he had an actual operation, or if he just underwent hormone treatments (I'll admit to not being an expert in this area), but Larry is now Lana Wachowski. Say goodbye to referring to the writer-director duo as the Wachowski Brothers; I imagine from here on out, the PC thing to do will be to call them The Wachowskis, or Lana and Andy Wachowski. Which is fine by me. If a sex change helps make a person feel more complete, and subsequently brings happiness to their lives, then I'm all for it. On behalf of Cinematical, we wish Lana good luck moving forward.
Interestingly enough, Lana will speak to the press about this -- which is rare for the Wachowskis since they're not ones to speak to the press about anything, let alone something this personal in nature. However, rumor has it that she will not openly speak about the sex change until after Speed Racer hits theaters on May 9. On top of that, sources say that Andy Wachowski will do all the press for the film as well for fear that the whole sex change thing could potentially harm the family-friendly film. Aside from a newly-released photo showing Lana's full change (which you can see above, and click on to see the full pic), Rated-M also claims that Dateline NBC has nabbed the rights to Lana's first public interview on the subject. Going forward, it will be fascinating to see how Hollywood and the Wachowski fans handle the sex change. Will everyone embrace Lana, or could this damage their careers?
A large gap exists between children's movies that engage the imagination and much of the actual children-oriented products that are produced and released. In a perfect world, children could watch movies that would allow them the opportunity of entering into the movie world and actively taking part, using their growing little brains to fill in gaps or to place themselves within the story. But Hollywood doesn't work that way; it's uncomfortable with unknowns and gray areas, opportunities that allow the audience to think for itself. Rather, they want totally pre-programmed and controlled product, everything tested and committee-approved and based on pre-existing factors. And hence we have Firehouse Dog.
Directed by Todd Holland (Krippendorf's Tribe) and written by Claire-Dee Lim, Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, Firehouse Dog is a mostly inoffensive and professional job, with all the plot details carefully worked out according to standard guidelines. Not much goes amiss. The advertising materials use images of the heroic dog (played by four identical real-life pooches: Arwen, Frodo, Rohan and Stryder) riding a skateboard and wearing sunglasses, but thankfully such nonsense is kept to a minimum in the actual movie. The dog doesn't talk through CGI dog lips, but we do get three farting scenes, and -- you guessed it -- a burst of George Thorogood singing "Bad to the Bone" (get it?)
If you wondered when it came out if there needed to be a third Shrek film, all you need to do is ask the kids. Adults may be growing tired of the clever plays on modernity -- mascot contests, bubblegum-blowing teeny-boppers, endless takes on modern store names made to sound "fairy-taleish" -- but kids never seem to tire of the toilet humor that permeates the Shrek series. 
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Full 'G.I. Joe' Cast Photos!
