This is Super Exciting to be Hosting the First Ever Family Friendly Movie Reviews. I hope you’ll add your link and then put a comment in the comment section to let us know you are participating:
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Share your Family Movie Night Reviews here!
Movies for young people have always intrigued me because of the layers included into the movie to make it interesting to older people. I remember first realizing this when I was a teenager and babysitting. There were things about Sesame Street that were hilarious to me as an older kid, that the little kids I was watching were happily oblivious to as they watched silly monsters dancing.
The most successful children’s movies are written for multiple audiences, with multiple levels of understanding built into the script. There is no way we could tolerate an hour and a half of something completely ridiculous and geared only to the sensibilities of our kids. In order to make a movie work for the grown-ups, all sorts of hidden meanings, and secret society understandings are included. Sure, there’s big funny things bouncing around in the forefront. That’s for the kiddos. Then there are the metaphors and symbolism floating in the atmosphere that keep our attention.
I would love to start a dialogue with other Moms where we share the movies we watched with our kids over the weekend. We don’t have to give away any plot points, but it would be a fun discussion to share the parts of the movie that spoke to you as an adult, and what makes this a successful movie for multiple audiences.
My dream is to carry this on week after week on Sundays. I understand that it takes a while to get momentum built on a new idea, so I will continue sharing my family friendly movies and hope we can build a community of other moms who see the poetry or philosophy behind the silly dancing bears and want to have a grown-up conversation about the ridiculous kids’ movie you just watched. Hurrah!
Kirsten, great minds think alike! Would also recommend My Neighbor Totoro. Magical, moving, strange. For more mainstream movies, I was surprised by how much we liked Despicable Me. And for really, really mainstream, my favorite Disney princessy thing is Snow White — I love the scene where the dwarfs are dancing and playing the organ.
Your first is something I’ll have to explore, because I’ve never heard of that one either. Yay. And Despicable Me – fantastic. And yes, the dwarfs dancing scene is so much fun. I smile just thinking of it. Thanks for playing!
My Neighbor Totoro is from Japan, like Kirsten’s other suggestions. You have to kind of get used to a different way of storytelling, but it’s really beautiful, and both my kids really loved the fantastic creature who’s in the title. There is some real emotion in it, and young children might need to be helped through a couple of parts: the fact that the two sisters in the story are trying to get to their mom, who’s in the hospital (for TB — it’s set in prewar Japan), and when it appears as if the little sister has drowned. But it is so gorgeous (and all turns out fine) and sort of a window into a different culture.
Thank you. I am very interested in sharing these with my kids. I have a sister-in-law who is Japanese. One of the boys’ cousins is Japanese. This will be a fun immersion into a beautiful culture!
Oh, that’s great — so glad I could help!
What a fun idea. I will put something together and write back.
No review yet, but we love Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Howl’s Moving Castle.
This is excellent, because I have never heard of any of those movies. Now I have more options. Thank you!
Getting back to you on this soon! 😀
This is a great idea!!
Kathy
http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com
I’ll go first – We watched “Where the Wild Things Are” last night, and it completely floored me. I have long loved the book, but the nuances of the story that they put into the movie were brilliant.
http://waffle-wednesday.com/movie-review-where-the-wild-things-are/