Entertainment and Media

Jungle Book has some of the swingingest songs ever set to a Disney movie. And yet, I can't help but feel it's totally generational. I was groovin' with it when I was a kid, but my kids just don't care to watch this movie. Ever. Seriously, they will pick Pocahontas 2 over this. Yikes!!

I think one of these days, I'm going to have to sit them down and have them watch it. It's too good to miss.

Shrek is extremely crude, and to be honest, I didn't care for it that much. Let me spell it out for you like a friend made it clear to me. He was watching Shrek with his evangelical sister. He had not seen it before and when Lord Farquaad came on, he started laughing lewdly. She asked him what was so funny. He said, "Farquaad. Get it??" She didn't, so he explained further, "He's a jerk, otherwise called a F*ckwad." NIIIIIICE once, Dreamworks. My kid will go to school talking about Farquaad now, and get sent to the Principal's office because of it.

Over the Hedge is a fairly cute little movie, even if it's a little crass at times. But I'll admit, there's something about the Dreamworks animated films that I don't like quite as much as the Disney ones. They are somehow geared more towards adults, or at least older kids. I cannot put my finger on exactly what it is, but it's affecting even Disney.

See, the main players at Dreamworks used to work at Disney. They go for a script geared towards a slightly older audience. Meanwhile, Disney has lost some of its best minds, AND it's got Pixar to worry about. So it sees the success of Dreamworks animated films and begins to copy them. Suddenly, the quality slips, and you aren't talking about the amazing Disney films of the 90's anymore. You've got these horrible messes. Pixar is busy staking out the younger crowd with their clean jokes, cool stories, and amazing computer animation. Disney did a smart thing by acquiring Pixar. It helped get them back to their more wholesome beginnings. But what do you do about the older set? I would say, let Dreamworks have them.

What does all of this have to do with "Over the Hedge"? I hope I never hear a joke in a Disney film where a squirrel asks someone else to help him find his nuts.

Okay, so I'm writing about kid's movies this week, and despite having kids and watching kid's movies ALLLLL week, EVERY week, I drew a blank. So I ask my husband to recommend some. And lo and behold, he brings out The Mighty Ducks. That's right, the Mighty Freakin' Ducks. Well, sorry sweetpea. I haven't watched this in years, so I barely remember it. But I do remember it was a hell of a phenomenon. It has to be to get a professional sports team named after it.

Where Jumanji succeeded, Zathura really failed. In essence, I think people thought that it was nearly the same movie as Jumanji. And when they heard that it was written by the same man, they just tuned it out. Zathura is a good movie, and Chris Van Allsburg has a magic that is hard to deny, but it works more in books than in movies. All comparisons to the book aside, the real problem with the movie is that none of it works as well as it does in Jumanji.