Strollerderby : DVDs

Review: Unstable Fables Goldilocks and the Three Bears Show

JeanneSager — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:36:00 GMT

The girl who's always looking for "just right" and the family of bears that shows there's always three sides to every story gets a full-length feature in the latest installment of fairy tales with a twist.

Fresh to DVD, the Unstable Fables version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears puts the golden girl on the tube as a reality show host and fleshes out the story of the bears who usually come in at the tail end of the fairy tale.

Lisa Henson (you know, daughter of Muppet creator Jim) told Babble editor Gwynne back in October that the Unstable Fables would give some of the shortest stories of our childhoods new life, using them as jumping off points for entirely new family-oriented adventures.

That's exactly what they've done with Goldilocks, reimagining the little girl lost story as The Goldilocks and the Three Bears Show. Underneath the CGI animation, satirical fun poked at reality show programming and - of course - the kiddie jokes, the fable still has its morals. The bears start looking for "just right" only to find they had it all along, with a tight-knit family that the lonely TV host Goldilocks (voiced by a pre-pregancy Jamie Lynn Spears) would trade her eyeteeth and screen fame for.

Spears as the whining Goldilocks can be grating, but then again, she's supposed to be a starlet who always wants the best and the brightest (remember, papa bear's porridge was too hot, mama bear's too cold and baby bear's just right . . . ). Tom Arnold as papa Mac Bear is the typical slightly loser-ish, lumpish dolt with a big heart, while mom Brooke Shields is the consummate earth mother as Ruby Bear, the mom who takes the Paris Hilton-esque Goldilocks (complete with dog companion) under her paw and slips her some honey.

It's not exactly a fractured fairy tale - with the hilarity and ribald (read adult) take that genre has come to convey - but Goldliocks and the Three Bears Show is, after all, a kid's movie. Come at it expecting anything else, and you may be disappointed, but it's got the kid concept just right.

Image: Amazon

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WALL-E: Do you really need 3 DVDs?

editors — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:05:00 GMT

I'm way into Pixar bonus features. I've spent an embarrassing number of hours reading those fake-superhero bios on Disc 2 of The Incredibles and watching the fish in the Finding Nemo aquarium swim by. However, I'm also really skeptical about this super-all-inclusive DVD trend, which too often involves paying a lot of money for fancy packaging and none-too-illuminating special features. It's like paying $20 extra for a fancy steak so the chef will throw in some potato chips. Given this attitude, I was a little conflicted when I found out that Pixar's WALL-E would be released tomorrow as a deluxe-edition 3 DVD set. What could possibly fill 3 DVDs? I decided to find out. Below, a breakdown of every single special feature on the WALL-E DVD, and a verdict on whether you should put it on your Christmas list. -- Gwynne Watkins

DISC 1
- Why do all these Disney DVDs start with 800 previews? My finger is getting tired from hitting "skip."

- Okay, first up, we have that funny little short about the magician and the rabbit that we saw in theaters.

- And here's a new short, BURN-E, about an accident-prone repair robot who gets stranded outside the space station during the events of the film. Cute but has a lot of recycled film footage, which feels vaguely like cheating.

- Next, a 20-minute feature on the sound design. No, really, it's interesting! The true geeking-out commmences.

- DELETED SCENES! Unlike the half-finished scenes on past Pixar DVDs, these basically look and sound like the real thing. Includes a mildly disturbing sequence (with at least a dozen Star Wars references) in which a trash compactor nearly kills Eve.

- Director commentary -- okay, I don't have all day, people.

- Preview of WALL-E's Tour of the Universe -- I watched this -- it's 50 seconds long -- and I still have no idea what WALL-E's Tour of the Universe is.

- Easter egg featuring Pixar guys bragging about what nerds they are. Adorable, but I'm seeing a serious absence of lady Pixar employees. Hire me, Pixar! I can hold my own with the Star Trek references!

DISC 2
- This disc is divided into 2 categories. Let's start with "Humans: For Film Fans."

- A "Behind the Scenes" section contains six different featurettes (average length: 10 minutes) on animation, design, character concept -- I'm going to get any work done today, am I?

- Deleted Scenes. Yes, more deleted scenes! Unlike the others, these are all sketchy-looking and prelimary.

- BnL shorts - A history of the Buy N Large corporation, in commercials. Awesome.

- The Pixar Story -- a feature-length documentary about Pixar. Unquestionably biased, and yet, it had me from that first montage of the history of animation. What can I say, I'm just a sucker for lovable big-eyed creatures that talk with celebrity voices.

- Now let's check out the "Robots: For Families" category.

- WALL-E's Treasures and Trinkets -- Against a blank screen, the film's robots interact with objects from the human world. Hi-larious! I may need to watch this twice.

- Bot Files - Oo, it's like those superhero bios on the Incredibles disc! But about robots! And better!

- "Lots of Bots" Storybook - Not so much a book, more like a combination educational game/story/stylized cartoon, but it works.

DISC 3
Ohhh, Disc 3 is a digital copy. What are digital copies for again? So I can put the movie on my iPod? Yeah, now that you mention it, I want WALL-E on my iPod.

Verdict: If you're a Pixar fan, you want this. The deluxe DVD set retails for $40, but I bet you could find it at a pre-holiday sale for $25 or $30, or pre-order it before tomorrow on Amazon for a hefty discount.

Five Movies You Shouldn't Watch While Pregnant

JeanneSager — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:58:00 GMT

Some women will tell you pregnancy was the best time of their lives. I'm not one of them, but hey, good for those skin glowing, energy flowing, cankle-free ladies. I still have one very big thing in common with most of them - I wanted to know all I could about the next step.

So I did what any good '80s kid would. I went to today's version of the video store and started checking out movies. To save you the sobbing and more than you'll ever want to know about urinary incontinence during pregnancy, here are the movies you SHOULDN'T be renting in your condition:

1. Nine Months: Going on name alone, you'd think this Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore '90s flick was a perfect choice for at-home date night when baby's daddy and your cankles propped on the coffee table. After ~~Pugh~~ Hugh starts showing his pregnant girlfriend he's nothing more than a commitmentphobic prat, you'll start glancing first at your fat feet and then at him, second-guessing ever iota of every conversation since you jumped up and down and yelled "it's blue!" When he sees her turning into a praying mantis (because females are known to eat the male after sex), you'll just get indignant. As the same old story you've seen in every movie continues, you'll start yawning, and by the time Moore's screaming and pushing, you'll be asleep. Get it while you can.

2. Sophie's Choice: I've got to hand it Meryl Streep. If she's not wailing about the dingo eating her baby, she's rising above her own happiness to repent for making the most horrible of choices a mother has ever made. It's a movie everyone should see simply to understand yet another piece of the Holocaust, but not one I'd wish one anyone. It's the choice you must make yourself.

3. Problem Child: The be all and end all movie to make you wonder, can one little kid really make life that insane? Macauley Culkin at his home aloniest (oh come on, what would you call it?) could never wreak the kind of havoc Junior Healy enacts on the ever affable John Ritter (still miss that guy) and his brow-beating b***h of a wife Flo. You know it's fake, you know it's played up, but a little part of your brain starts to wonder, what if I give birth to one of those?

4. Steel Magnolias: Plucky Julia Roberts defies the odds (and Sally Field, and her doctors, and diabetes, and a whole bunch of wise-cracking Southern broads) and has a baby. Plucky Julia Roberts' body can't handle parenting. She collapses on Halloween with her little boy watching. Cue tears. Buckets and buckets of tears. And that's when you're not carrying a baby and a rolling mess of hormones. If you must attempt this one, find a friend who doesn't have anything nice to say about anyone and tell her to come sit by you.

5. Terms of Endearment: Didn't I already mention dead mother and buckets of tears? Then throw in a love-hate relationship between a mother and daughter (mirrored famously by the actresses who played the roles) that will make you cross your fingers there ISN'T a girl in there, a mother-daughter reunion, a mother finding love again . . . aaaack. I'm all ferklempt.

Image: Amazon

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The Poison Bottle: Canada and Walmart Take BPA Off Market

Cole Gamble — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Canada’s proposed ban on plastic baby bottles with the chemical BPA, Walmart stores have announced they look to have such bottles free from their stores by next year.

Playtex, manufacturer of baby bottles, has also jumped aboard the anti-BPA bandwagon, announcing the company will discontinue BPA products by years end.

BPA, or bisphenol A, is a common plastic component found in dental sealants, baby bottles, the liners of food cans, CDs and DVDs, eyeglasses, water bottles and hundreds of household goods. If you are not familiar with the possible dangers of BPA, check out Amy’s or Madeline's post. Among the concerns over BPA addressed in a recent report from the U.S. government's National Toxicology Program are changes in behavior and the brain, early puberty and possibly precancerous changes in the prostate and breast.

While the National Toxicology Program’s findings have found the evidence of BPA damage in animal tests to be “limited” this report states the possible effects on humans “cannot be dismissed.”

Evidence of BPA’s dangers has been around for a while, but this is the first major government initiative to get them out of circulation. How about you, have you been BPA free for a while or is this all news to you?

On a complete unrealted note, take a look at thebaby picture in this post. Are those infant's ears pierced? Who does that?

Photo: www.growingkids.co.uk

Sesame Street Unsafe for Little Kids?

Amy Kuras — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:18:00 GMT

Awww. Sad. According to this witty article by Virginia Heffernan in the Sunday New York Times magazine, Volumes 1 and 2 of the Sesame Street: Old School DVDs carry a parental warning.

To wit, according to the story: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Seriously? Have we lost enough of our sense of humor that Cookie Monster smoking a pretend pipe (and then eating it) during the "Monsterpiece Theater" sketch is considered enough to make Sesame Street adults-only? I've seen spoofs of these characters on YouTube that would make Howard Stern say "too far, dudes" so a pipe? Really?

Sesame Street, people. The epitome of innocent childhood times for, well, everybody my age and younger, I'd guess. I grew up with Sesame Street. I was born seven months after they aired their first episode (yes, I am old as hell, it's amazing I have even figured out this blogging thing) and watched it constantly as a kid. One of the biggest payoffs of this kid thing is hanging out with my daughter, giggling our fool heads off over Cookie Monster and Oscar – on a fast track to diabetes and clearly clinically depressed, respectively, according to Heffernan's article.
Admittedly, it's lost some of its subversive edge since becoming the kid's show to which all others are compared, instead of the new, fresh idea. But I'll take the Sesame Crew, even Elmo, over one minute's worth of that simpleton Dora any day.

Peppa Pig and the Adorable Accent

Gwynne Watkins — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:46:00 GMT

Oh, British children's cartoons, what is it about you? Granted, I have slight Anglophile tendencies, but if an animated cat starts talking about prams and teatime, I'm totally mesmerized. When I was in London earlier this year, I made my husband sit through an entire episode of Postman Pat, during which absolutely nothing happened except that cute clay characters puttered around being British. So I'm pleased to present the latest UK cartoon import: Peppa Pig, which comes to DVD today. Normally, this much grunting and burping in a children's cartoon might get to me, but in this case, the accents make it worthwhile. At least, for the duration of this clip. Anybody out there actually seen the show?

Knocked Up on DVD: Like Being Pregnant All Over Again

Gwynne Watkins — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:00:00 GMT

More than any other major film this summer, Knocked Up was worth the cost of a babysitter. But if you missed it, the DVD goes on sale Tuesday – in both a thrifty Unrated Edition and a Two-Disc Collector’s Edition. Fans of the Special Features menu will get good mileage out of the two-disc set, which features very funny deleted scenes, blooper reels, and “documentaries” about the making of the film, not to mention extra footage of the director’s adorable children. You can preview some of the deleted scenes on the Knocked Up website – and while you’re there, check out the disturbing “Babymaker” game that allows you to meld two pictures into future-baby photos. I don’t care what you say, Babymaker – Paul Rudd and I would make beautiful children.

UPDATE - Win a copy! Karen Rani on Droolicious is hosting a Knocked Up DVD giveaway here.

Russell Crowe's New Flick: Parenting DVD

Kelly Mills — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:37:00 GMT

The Australian government is giving away a free five-hour parenting DVD to every new parent. The interactive DVD, creatively named The Raising Children DVD, features celebs like a couple rugby players, a television personality, and Mr. Russell Crowe, as well as some regular old parents (we call them "rising stars"). The whole thing was reviewed by a couple parenting experts, who said, "I laughed, I cried, I loved it" and "A roller-coaster ride of thrills. Don't miss it!" In addition to resources and information about child development, the DVD includes parenting tips. Crowe has a nice moment when he gets all oiled up and shares this bit of wisdom: "To my son - I tell him I will see him again soon. To keep his heels down while riding his horse." Wha? Oh sorry, that was Gladiator.

Actually, it's pretty nice that the Australian government is giving this resource to all new parents, and I'm sure they'll find it useful. Well, the ones that have DVD players, that is. Whit over at Famecrawler thought it could use some serious editing, but you know blogger critics, picky picky. I dunno, I still think it loses something unless you watch it on the big screen, but maybe that's just me.

Straight-to-DVD Disney Sequels Get the Axe

Alisyn — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:20:00 GMT

When superstar Pixar animators and new Disney hotshots John Lassetter and Ed Catmull announced last week that Disney, now their parent company, is putting the kibosh on their extremely lucrative and truly crappy straight-to-DVD sequel line, my first thought was "What took so long?"

Those movies are truly lame. Have you seen Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure? Don't. The only things dumber than the story is the music, which is grating at best. And don't even get me started on Return to Neverland, the sequel to Peter Pan, which is set against the charming backdrop of the Nazi regime's blitz on London during WWII. You know, because you're never too young to learn about the Third Reich. Good times!

Dan Kois over at Slate does not share my opinion - he thinks Bambi 2 was better than the original, which made me laugh out loud - but we do agree on one thing: unlike today's more modern fare (Shrek 3, Surf's Up, Ratatouille), the Disney sequels make a concerted effort to emulate the rich, soft, glowing animation of their predecessors. They're proud to be cartoons, and aren't trying to fool the audience into thinking that they "look real." The plots are less slick, move at a slower, more child-friendly pace, and the conflicts are kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, though, they're not interesting or good, and are more like the bastard cousins of the originals, than prodigal sons.

The films of Hayao Miyazaki are the closest thing to a middle ground that I can think of - sparkling animation, great stories, strong lead characters (some are even girls!), with nary a whiff of fart jokes or sexual innuendo. Disney was smart to buy them up.

One-Stop-Shopping for Cool Music and Media at Pokey Pup

Alisyn — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:09:00 GMT

The Pokey Pup is a sweet online resource for parents looking to expand their kid-friendly music and media collection. Don't roll your eyes - you won't find any heinous "Music Together" or Barney sing-alongs here. What you will find is cool for all ages, and maybe even something for the hard-to-buy-for dude in your life for Father's Day: classics like The Electric Company Greatest Hits and Bits, and thoughtfully selected discs like The B-52's Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation, Bruce Springsteen's The Seeger Sessions, and Shonen Knife's Let's Knife - music that is not made with kids in mind, but that kids can appreciate, enjoy, and even learn from.

The media section boasts oldie-but-goodie books on CD like Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Dr. Seuss Presents: Greatest Hits, and Casey at the Bat, as well as DVDs like They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABC's and several Pancake Mountain selections, which rock so hard, I watch them without my kids. There area also some really intriguing "world music" selections that don't include Enya - stuff like New Orleans Playground, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Los Lobos. You can search the site by age or category, and everything that pops up is virtually guaranteed not to make your ears bleed. Pretty cool, right?

I had no earthly idea that Johnny Cash made a children's album but, thanks to Pokey Pup, it's what my girls are getting their dad for Father's Day! Check their selection out, and tell me what you were happy to find.

Babble Talk: New Children's DVDs Reviewed

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:19:00 GMT

Television. Love it or hate it, there will come a time when you'll need/want your kids to watch it. The nice thing about DVDs is you can free your kids (and yourself) from the undue influence of TV advertising and unknown content streaming into your living room. Lucky for you, Babble reviews a slew of new children's DVDs to save you from Barnie hell, or Dora overload. Think of this as your Netflix and Blockbuster Clif's Notes.

Here is a selection:

1. Free to Be You and Me - A classic from the 1970s that is at times dated, but still a great watch. Marlo Thomas and friends sing songs and tell stories.

2. It's a Magic Al World - Potentially annoying for parents, but great for kids who appreciate magic (aka: "loving lie").

3. Gustafer Yellowgold Wild Wide World - Apparently, best viewed when high (parents only). Lisa Carver's kids thought it was boring.

4. Peter Pan Two Disc Platinum Edition - You'll feel guilty as hell letting your kids watch the totally inappropriate racist carryings-on with "injuns" and sexist nonsense about how girls and boys act, but the children will enjoy it, so fair warning.

For more suggestions, go here.

Gimme a Beat: Hip-Hop for Preschoolers

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:02:00 GMT

Entrepreneurial mom Candi Carter noticed that her son loved rhythmic music so much that she decided to create a beat-heavy video called It's Hip Hop, Baby to get her kid (and your kid) moving.

After scouring the market for "cutting edge" musical DVDs she found nothing that she liked so she went out and did it herself. It's Hip Hip, Baby contains a mix of kid classics and original songs. Even though Carter says she is more of a Pat Benetar and Foreigner fan (rawk!), she felt that hip hop music had broader appeal to kids.

On the next CD, crunk kings Lil Jon and the Eastside Boys teach your kids how not to "Act a Fool," Akon reworks his ode to strippers "I Wanna Love You" into a lullabye, and Ciara teaches kids the "1, 2 Step." (Um, which my kids already know. *Hangs head.*)

It's Hip Hop, Baby is available on Amazon.com.

Disney Expands Popular Electronics Lines in Time for Summer

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:34:00 GMT

Disney is launching new electronics products for summer, including mobile DVD units with panels for more than one viewer, video MP3 players, and other tools to help stressed out parents get through road trips as well as the "I'm bored" complaints of family vacations.

The Disney Mix Stix Audio MP3 players allow kids to listen to their favorite music and videos, as well as view personal photos. All of these electronics come in popular Disney themes such as Hannah Montana and Pirates of the Carribean.

My kids are still young enough to be entertained in the car by reading books and eating graham crackers. If we ever get to the point of requiring movie-watching to get through a road trip, I'm sure we'll turn to Disney, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.