Posts for 'Top kids movies' Category

Disney has used mythology, historical characters, fairy tales and fables as the foundation for some amazing animated films. But, curiously for such an American icon, its also drawn on the diverse world of English literature for some of its most successful projects.


Alice In Wonderland (1951)

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland became the first animated Disney feature to use classic English literature as a bedrock. In the Disney version, elements from both the original Alice adventure and the sequel Through The Looking-Glass were combined to give a strong flavour of the Carroll's perversely warped universe.

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There might be more hidden stuff than the hidden Mickey! There are many myths and rumors about subliminal messages in Disney’s films and they are.

In search for Disney’s most outrageous hidden message ever! If you go to links that play videos and cropped still caps of the Disney movies, you will see what we mean.

The Lion King, Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are one of the many Disney films that are said to have subliminal messages.

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Sometimes people like to tell you that little kids can’t be lied to, or they somehow see to the truth of things, or that in their eyes you, as person operating in the adult world of lies and deception and pregnant subtext, will be made naked before them. Naked metaphorically, I’m talking here. This, of course, isn’t true. Kids can be lied to about facts, just like everyone else.

What kids can’t be lied to about is entertainment value. Kids know what’s entertaining and what’s not entertaining much better than adults because they don’t get muddled by literary allusions, intellectual investigations, subtle uses of color and light, or the way your use of male characters brings across the impotence of patriarchy in fin de siècle America. Or whatever.

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Shares of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. dropped Monday after disappointing ticket sales for the movie "How to Train Your Dragon" during its opening weekend.

The stock fell $3.94, or 9.2 percent, to $38.87 in morning trading. The stock has ranged from $17.95 to $44.77 over the past year.

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Paramount Pictures is using high-pressure tactics against theaters to book DreamWorks Animation's upcoming big-budget 3-D film, "How to Train Your Dragon" onto scarce 3-D screens around the country, according to industry executives.

"Dragon," opening March 26, will be going head to head against the swords-and-sandal 3-D picture "Clash of the Titans," from Warner Bros., which opens a week later, and Disney's 3-D "Alice in Wonderland," still drawing audiences and expected to remain in theaters for several more weeks.

Paramount Pictures is telling theaters that if they don't show the upcoming DreamWorks-produced "Dragon," on a 3-D screen, then it will withhold from the theater a 2-D version of the movie to play instead, according to four theater industry executives.

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Over the past 13 weeks all the hyperbole in box-office circles has been reserved for Avatar, so it would be remiss not to praise the achievements of Alice in Wonderland. After less than two weeks in release, Disney's fantasy has already crossed $200m (£133m) in North America, becoming the first 2010 release to do so.

It is also single-handedly propping up the box office: thanks to Alice's commercial heft, box-office revenues are running about 9% ahead of the same period in 2009 – which, lest we forget, was a record year. Incidentally, combined with its international run, Alice has already amassed more than $420m worldwide.Summit's decision to re-release its multi-Academy Award winner The Hurt Locker is paying small dividends.

Because the movie has already completed its theatrical run and gone out on DVD, cinemas won't accommodate a wide release, ie more than 600 cinemas. However, nobody's grumbling about $828,000 from 349 venues. That puts Kathryn Bigelow's best picture winner on $15.7m. It's still the lowest grossing best picture winner since the dawn of time, but if it can get to $20m that would be a nice round number for financiers who think box-office grosses are all that matter.

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It appeared to be a match made in heaven; unfortunately, things never came together properly while making what could have been a tremendous achievement. The cinema gods decided to take one of the all-time great Disney movies that is known for its obscurity and have the two kings of weird remake the project.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have built their careers on making movies that show people things they either weren't expecting or haven't ever seen before. Speaking literally, this movie shows you plenty of things you didn't see coming. The visuals are jaw dropping on a level that competes with "Avatar," but it's not the presentation of the film that makes the movie fall short.

The movie loses its charm any time Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is on screen. When your main character is the weakest link in a film, you're in trouble. She just wreaks of mediocrity. She lacks the quirk that a movie like this requires.

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It’s often been said that Jackie Chan movies are a lot like Fred Astaire movies, only with fighting instead of dancing. With Chan’s forays into Hollywood movies, this has been less true, especially as he’s gotten older (he’s nearly 56) and more valuable a commodity — thus making studios less likely to let him take the risks with his personal safety that he’s famous for.

Chan’s latest Hollywood movie, The Spy Next Door, opens tomorrow in the U.S. and a few other places, so we thought the time was ripe for a list of Chan’s other films that kids are likely to enjoy. The plots are thin and generally quite similar, and you’ll may want to mention to your kids (to avoid them becoming copycats) that while, yes, Chan did his own stunts, he got hurt a lot in the process.

Check out our list, and, after the jump, a trailer from The Spy Next Door.

5. Forbidden Kingdom - One of Chan’s more recent Hong Kong martial arts films, and one of the best, co-starring the great Jet Li and Chan’s first film with fight choreographer Woo-ping Yuen in almost twenty years.

4. The Legend of Drunken Master - It’s rated R in the U.S., but most kids over the age of eight could probably handle it: The rating is for violence, but if you don’t want your kids to watch movies with a lot of fighting, you’re reading the wrong list. Drunken Master was an instant classic, and is considered by some to be the best Kung-Fu movie ever made.

3. Rumble in the Bronx - If you’ve ever been there, you’ll find it amazing how little the Bronx looks like the Bronx (the movie was filmed in Vancouver). But you won’t care about that any more than you’ll care about the plot, which is completely predictable. The fight scenes, and many of Chan’s stunts, will just blow you away. (This movie, too is rated R, but the level of violence isn’t high enough that most kids couldn’t handle it.)

2. Shanghai Noon - As an American-made film, this is probably more accessible to English-speaking kids than the Hong Kong-made ones, as there’s only a few subtitles and no terrible dubbing to deal with. Yes, there’s some suggestive humor, but nothing worse than is in most PG-rated movies (Shanghai Noon is rated PG-13, mostly for violence). You may have to explain to your kids why it’s funny that Chan’s character chooses the name “John Wayne,” but most of the jokes are crude and obvious — in other words, perfect for kids. The sequel, Shanghai Knights, is essentially the same.

1. Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods - Ignore the name — this is actually the first Operation Condor movie, though it was imported to the U.S. after its sequel. Made over twenty years ago, this is Jackie Chan at his young best. The plot is completely irrelevant — you could fast-forward through all the non-fight scenes and lose little — but the fight scenes are just brilliant.

Remakes have been fairly common in hollywood for a while now.  Truth be told, remakes go back a lot further than recent cinema (such as Scarface).  It isn't till the past few years though that they have become downright hated by some people.

I would say this is in large part due to the many crappy remakes we have had in recent year that add nothing to the original and if anything, ruin its legacy (Rollerball and Texas Chainsaw Massacre come to mind).  It seems like this tradition may be continued with the upcoming Karate Kid movie.  Watch the trailer here.

Now I'll admit, the original Karate Kid is incredibly dated by its 80's-ness but its still a great zero-to-hero tale held up by the great chemistry between Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita (who got an Oscar nom for his role as Mr. Miyagi.  With wax on wax off and the infamous crane kick, the movie is a classic.  My problem, however, isn't in the fact that they are remaking it.  Its in how they are doing it.

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IN A novel twist on the frog-prince fable that is as morally driven as it is delightfully nutty, an ambitious young black woman in jazz-era New Orleans kisses a frog, expecting a rich, handsome prince to appear.

Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose from Dreamgirls) hopes her faith in fairy tales will fast-track her dream of owning her own swanky restaurant. Things don't quite go as planned, however, when she turns into a frog.

In a refreshing re-embrace of colourful hand-drawn animation, directors Ron Clements and John Musker - the Disney duo who gave us.

The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997) and the unfairly trashed Treasure Planet (2002) - deliver a vibrant, funny, uplifting old-school musical cartoon.

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