comment #1

joncro says ...

Loved the piece! Have been meaning to get ET for my 3 yr old, now I have no excuse.........

comment #2

The Movie Man says ...

I agree, most of my fondest memories as a child are of seeing movies that weren't strictly for me: The Fly (Cronenberg), The Abyss, Indiana Jones, Burton Batman and Stand By Me were early favorites.

Even movies geared for children were allowed to be a little more dangerous in the '80s, correct me if I'm wrong but I can swear that Keaton says "fuck" once in Beetlejuice (even if he doesn't the film still supports the point) and Gremlins is as deranged a children's picture as you're likely to meet.

Nice post Jeff.

comment #3

MathewM says ...

I think the first "good" movie I discovered--and really moved me beyond just being entertained was "The Elephant Man". I remember watching it on cable when I was eight or nine years old and it had a profound effect on me. It would make sense then that David Lynch was an early favorite director.

Anyway I don't think you should force 'cinephile' films on youth--they should be discovered. Let kids be kids until they're ready.

comment #4

MathewM says ...

"Even movies geared for children were allowed to be a little more dangerous in the '80s, correct me if I'm wrong but I can swear that Keaton says "fuck" once in Beetlejuice (even if he doesn't the film still supports the point) and Gremlins is as deranged a children's picture as you're likely to meet."

Totally. The 80's were great for deranged children's movies--probably why so many of us raised in that decade are so screwed up today ; )

comment #5

christian says ...

i adore BEETLEJUICE but unless it was pg-13, keaton didn't say fuck, tho it may have been implied.

the main problem with today's kids films isthat they are created by soulless corporate studio committees who insure that each film, primarily cartoons, have a healthy balance of sex and shit jokes to appeal to the kids and adults.

but the 80's kids films fucked us up in one big way: letting a whole generation of geeks think THE GOONIES is a good movie. it was the first time i went to a movie -- ater cutting school -- and felt like i had been robbed. end of innocence.

comment #6

christian says ...

i swear i typed "after cutting school" -- i must have missed the day they taught the word "after"...

comment #7

dixiedugan says ...

I'm always willing to brag that my child is a Cagney and Robinson fan.

I'd like to take her to Pan's Labyrinth. She'd probably like the fractured fable portion more than the Spanish Civil War content, but it should be okay.

comment #8

Alan Cerny says ...

I would totally take my daughter to PAN'S LABYRINTH, but she has a really low threshold for gore. Whenever she's managed to see a gore scene when I'm watching something, she cringes. Other than the gore, PAN'S is very much a really intelligent children's film, with themes that I think many children could learn from.

comment #9

The Movie Man says ...

THE GOONIES is a loud, crass, stupid, unpleasant movie (I admit that I was fooled at the time) but I have to say that, sadly, it still has more personality than most children's movies today, with the exception of most PIXAR.

Another recent note of hope-while not perfect, I thought MONSTER HOUSE was a very effective evocation of the 1980s kids horror movie. Also, last year, I finally recognized Tim Burton again in the underrated CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.

comment #10

bipedalist says ...

While I appreciate the sentiment behind the article and Jeff's attempt to tell other people how to parent (cause he knows everything :-) a mom knows what a kid can and can't handle. It has to do with how many times you've soothed them down from a nightmare; how many middle of the nights they crawled into your bed, how many mornings they couldn't get up for school because they couldn't get to sleep the night before because they saw somehting scary last night. Parenting is also the nuts and bolts of daily life; it isn't all this fantasy shit about creating the ideal imaginitive mind. My daughter knows what she can see and what she can't. This year, with me, she's seen The Departed, Volver, The Dead Girl (she liked it).

The basic premise I agree with - the movies aimed at kids protect them too much. But I disagree with the irritating need by some to push parents into shoving their kids to see movies they aren't quite ready for just because A) it makes them cooler as parents, B) it makes their kids cooler. There is a lifetime of opportunity to see films, now more than ever. The best thing any parent can do is instill a love of reading. It all starts there.

comment #11

Rich S. says ...

Movie Man,

You are not mistaken. At one point, Beetlejuice knocks over a piece of the scenery in the miniature in which he's living. He screams at Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, "Nice fuckin' model!" before grabbing his crotch with a honking sound.

Kurt Russell also uses the word in Big Trouble in Little China. He walks up to a screen and taps it with his knife. He asks Wang, "Hollow?" Wang responds, "Hollow." Russell than says "Fuck it," and cuts the screen open with his knife. Not exactly a kid's movie, but also PG rated and from the mid-80s.

comment #12

Rich S. says ...

By the way, a little off topic, but did you know that Goonies and Ghoulies (a Z-Grade Gremlins knockoff) were released the same weekend (or within a week or two of one another)? That made for an interesting weekend working at the multiplex.

Not being a little kid, I actually preferred Ghoulies, though.

comment #13

christian says ...

damn rich, you're right! i fogot about the fuckin' model scene! and that was a pg flick...

but i love the moment in BTILC where kurt slices the door -- as i do the awesome moment following when burton and the others wax about their positive pre-battle attitude. i think that little scene perfectly sets the audience up for the action to follow. but that got a pg-13 rating.

haven't seen CATCF mainly due to what appears to be depp trying to do michael jackson. you know what i mean...

comment #14

The Movie Man says ...

I always remember as a kid, seeing that box of Ghoulies in the video store where the little monster is sticking out of the toilet. I never saw the movie though.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA rocks, plain and simple, no review necessary because, as an audience member, you're either down or you're not.

Off topic-I would like to see Alexander Payne do one of his brilliant perils of middle age comedies with Dennis Quaid and Kurt Russell and get them taken seriously again.

comment #15

Josh Massey says ...

You can't blame Hollywood for the endless stream of crap like "Christmas With the Kranks" and "The Santa Clause 3." Sadly, those movies make money.

The two most daring live-action kids movies of the past 10-or-so years both tanked: "Babe: Pig in the City" and "Matilda."

comment #16

christian says ...

i worked at tower video for two years and put away that GHOULIES box a hundred times and never watched it once. if you saw the poster, you saw the movie.

but a fact: everytime i put on BTILC, somebody would rent it. and i put it on a lot.

btw, tower video RIP. sigh.

comment #17

The Movie Man says ...

Josh-good call on both Babe 2, and Matilda. It's not daring but I got some major classic Spielberg vibes from HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, still the only film in that series worth a damn. Cuaron realized that total adherence to the book isn't a substitute for actual suspense or drama and the scenes between Harry and Lupin are wonderful.

comment #18

Josh Massey says ...

I think the last two "Potter" flicks have been very good, actually. It's a series that has increasingly refused to "talk down" to its fanbase, moving to a PG-13 rating when necessary instead of wussing out of some of the books' harsher elements.

comment #19

T. S. Idiot says ...

I am what HE correpondents so lovingly call a geezer and grew up making no distinction between between Disney, the Bowery Boys, Roy Rogers, and the latest from Hitchcock, Hawks, and Ford. Because my mother was a huge Rock Hudson fan (little did she suspect), I even saw all the Doug Sirks when they were fresh out of the can. This varied exposure has turned me into what I am today--whatever that is. I must admit, however, that I may carry scars from a too-early exposure to Shack Out on 101.

On another topic, those trying to find logic and consistency in the ratings should abandon ship. When True Grit was released with a G despite not only the violence but Duke's challenge to Duvall ("Fill your fist, you son-of-a-bitch!"), I dashed off a protest to Valenti at the unfairness of this during a year when Midnight Cowboy and Medium Cool (love that pubic hair) received X ratings. Uncle Jack himself responded with a lengthy type-written, non-form reponse, the gist of which was: we don't know what we're doing.

comment #20

Jean says ...

Recommended family movie: "Duma". I finally watched w/ my 10-year old niece & she was hooked in the first 5 minutes. Ebert was right: it is a true family film in that it will hold the interest of anyone at any age. It deals with death of a parent; independence; survival; responsibily for one's actions. I can't stress enough: if you have children it's a must see; if you don't, it'll still impress you with it's mature story & film craftsmanship.

comment #21

christian says ...

ditto t.s. i loved bowery boys, jerry lewis, godzilla, kong, etc.

and the late 60's was filled with inconsistent ratings. PAINT YOUR WAGON featuring rape, hookers, breasts, menage a trois, clint eastwood singing, was rated G!

comment #22

Sam Adams says ...

I hate the way "kids' movie" has become a synonym for "bland, inoffensive mediocrity." Is Hayao Miyazaki a kids' director? Is Hope and Glory a kids' film? There is something downright ugly and tyrannical about reducing the complexity of childhood to only the parts adults are comfortable with. It's like what's happened to "Christian entertainment" -- honest investigation or expression of faith has been replaced by sub-genre crap where a priest walks in for five seconds and says something about god. (I'm looking at you, Thr3e.) Meanwhile Abel Ferrara's Mary, an idiosyncratic, sometimes unpleasant, but incredibly sincere and entirely Catholic movie, has been languishing w/o distribution, even on DVD, for almost 18 months. Oy.

comment #23

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Bidepalist: What with plummeting literacy rates and all, getting your kid to be an avid reader is the thing, of course. Certainly. But hold on...you showed your young daughter "The Dead Girl"?? That film is a ticket to the absolute bottomless pit of depression. Out of Christian compassion, out of sheer tenderness of spirit, I wouldn't show that movie to my worst fang-toothed enemy.

comment #24

jeffmcm says ...

Babe: Pig in the City deserved to tank. That was one of the most painful moviegoing experiences I've ever had.

comment #25

bipedalist says ...

Gruver, well she was interested in it. I don't think she fully comprehended what it was about, though. The only thing I couldn't show her recently (that she herself wanted to see - she's pretty good about looking away when I tell her to and not watching what she thinks is too scary) was Brokeback Mountain. The anal sex scene and all. I couldn't be like..."hey, you know how women have two holes down there and men have one?" Na, couldn't go there. So I switched it off.

comment #26

corey3rd says ...

“Why is he purple?” my daughter asked in the middle of “West Side Story,” noticing the effects of an aging Technicolor print on Tony’s face
=========

a real Technicolor-IB print should not have people turning purple. I've run Tech prints that were a lot older than West Side Story and none of them had their color go bad because of age.

The big problem with taking the kids to movies is just the economics. A family of four is at least $50 worth of tickets and popcorn. it's cheaper to buy a video projector for "movie night"

comment #27

Craig Kennedy says ...

Ok I stopped chuckling over my fond memories of Big Trouble In Little China just long enough to comment. I don't know jack about parenting (which puts it in the pretty hallowed company of all the many things I don't know jack about...like pilates or the Tagalog language for example) but I've got to say I like your attempt Jeff to expose the young ones to more thoughtful movie fare. Expose I think is the correct word, because I didn't get the sense you were trying to force these things down your kids throat. Since they're going to spend many years as the target audience for most studio films, you've done the world a favor actually.

Still...I've gotta wonder: Clockwork Orange at 12???

comment #28

christian says ...

i saw it at age 14. but then i'd already ben exposed by my folks to DELIVERANCE TAXI DRIVER JAWS by age 8.

and i turned out all sensitive and shit.

comment #29

bipedalist says ...

SqueeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllL!

Jeez, I can't imagine Deliverance. With you on Jaws, though. The only movie that scared me so much I wish I'd never seen it was the Exorcist, a great film but it filled me, an atheist, with untold nights freaked out beyond belief. I do appreciate the Devil's inclination towards profanity. I'm afraid I can quote the film but don't worry, I won't.

Jaws I saw many times as a youngin' -- nothing particularly shocking about it. "Michael's in the pond."

comment #30

corey3rd says ...

after a talk with my former boss who collects Technicolor prints, he confirmed that AO Scott hasn't a frickin' clue about 35mm film and has no business repeating his blather. Vintage Techicolor prints do not lose their color. That's the beauty of real Technicolor prints. Even when they attacked by Vinegar Syndrome, they do no lose their color levels. Real Technicolor prints do not fade.

The print he saw may have been a Eastman Color transfer. But since AO spent more time telling his kid a "why the elephant has a long nose" story instead of asking the projectionist what's the deal with the print, we'll never know. Way to go, reporter.

comment #31

Hatheru says ...

I grew up in a college town with a great revival house, and my parents took my brother and me to nearly every movie they saw when we were little. One of my first movie memories is of seeing "Apocalypse Now" with my Dad at age 4 or 5. In adulthood it's become one of my favorite films, but all I remember from that first viewing was the cool scene with the severed heads. The only movies I ever had to be taken out of were "An American Werewolf in London" (the scary stretchy-hands scene) and "A Hard Day's Night" (I was expecting cartoon beetles, not mop-tops, and was vocal in my disappointment). I shared this article with my Dad today and he remembered taking me to a French film called "La Balance" when I was seven, that was rife with bloody violence, nudity and subtitled cursing. Apparently I was quiet all the way home, and then matter-of-factly told my parents, "well, that movie had everything that gets you an R rating!" Taking my brother and me to the movies they wanted to see was one of the best things my parents ever did for us growing up; they created two avid cinephiles.

comment #32

christian says ...

yeah, i liked my parents hands off approach.

but an 8 year old at JAWS? spielberg literally turned me off the ocean for years. especially seeing an 8 year old boy get eaten.

and JAWS was fucking PG!

comment #33

MovieBob says ...

The problem isn't with CHILDREN'S movies. Usually, when someone takes the effort to actually make a movie legitimately FOR CHILDREN it turns out pretty good.

The problem is with what passes for "FAMILY" movies, which out of a need to engage the grownups and kids on the same level end up playing to the lowest common thread: random slapstick, bright-colors, shiny-things.

And what's more films that really ARE great films for a whole family often aren't labled as such: The "Spider-Man" series, the "Pirates" films are all glorious mom/dad/kid/etc entertainments, but look for them in the store and they occupy the "Action" section. Ditto the LOTR cycle, which along with being the best films, PERIOD, of our young century so far the distinction of also being among the best family entertainments thereof, too.