Sea Level dvd review

This animated film featuring a bamboo shark who can breathe air and a larger shark who eats tires is over-the-top with the eco message.   In this film, only the 'bad guys' eat.  Pup, the bamboo shark is small and bemoans that fact several times in the first half of the film.  None of the characters is developed enough to empathize with them much.  The humans are stereotypical shark fin soup restaurant suppliers.  Many of the characters sigh a lot and look at you with their big fishy or chickeny eyes hoping you will give them what they want without having to describe it.  (Just like some bad relationships)  This movie could have done a lot more with the ecology theme but chose instead to present an extreme completely non-realistic hope about how they would like nature to be rather than how it really is.  A shark would not live long enough to become bulked up eating only tires.  There were way too many fortunate coincidences in this film.  I showed it to a room of 10, 11, 17 year olds and only one ten year old watched the film through. The older youth considered the beginning a cheap copy of 'Finding Nemo' without the interesting characters.

Hogfather dvd

Colorful british holiday tale based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld.  Death's grand-daughter, Susan, has taken a job as a nanny and finds that getting away from family ties is difficult.

The Auditors have hired an assassin, Mr. Teatime (pronounced Tee-a-teem-a) to 'take out' the Hogfather and spoil Hogmass for all the children of discworld.  Death does his best to act festive and learn the arts of 'ho-ho-hoing' and gift giving while giving Susan time to find out what has happened to the Hogfather and how to save Hogmass. 

The action moves around discworld from a shopping mall to the tooth fairy's castle to the unseen university. Humorous and fast action.

Wall-E

Heavy ecology theme with a robot romance.  The major emphasis on overweight indulgence with lack of physical activity seemed a little unrealistic.  The simplistic view that all the passengers would be inactive overlooks people's varying interests.  The movie is entertaining for one watch through but heaven help the parent whose child decides to make this a weekly or daily favorite.

My current fav is "Oh Brother, Where art thou"

Why?  Because I love the music and the characters.  From Everett to the shady politicians, Bible salesman, lots of unique personalities in this wonderful romp across the dust bowl.

Loving Lampposts; Living Autistic

“Loving Lampposts; Living Autistic” shines light on dark fears about Autism

A documentary film by Todd Drezner available on dvd.

Cinema Libre Studio

$19.95

83  minutes

UPC 881394111721

Genre:  Documentary, Autism

This interesting documentary introduces the journey parents go through when their child is diagnosed with autism, and also through interviews with various experts, parents, and adults with autism builds a picture of various ways of looking at autism. It presents the view of autism being a medical diagnosis, a psychiatric diagnosis, and a different way of being. 

The film opens with Sam, his love of lampposts, and his diagnosis of autism.  Sam’s father narrates his journey through exploring and trying to understand and deal with autism.  Clips featuring some of autism’s leading theories and treatments range from hyperbaric chambers and special diets to floor time, and even accepting autism as a neural difference that is not necessarily bad.  Some of the participants in the film include: Nadine Antonelli, a doctor and mother of a child with autism, and Noah, her son; Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of  The Autism Research Centre at Cambride university; Dora Raymaker, an adult with autism who communicates using a computer with text to speech software.  This is but a small sampling of the large number of impressive participants in this excellent documentary.

I liked the inclusion of parents and experts with varying views.  Most interesting and informative were the interviews with adults who are on the spectrum and the information on how they live their lives.

I enjoyed the interviews with the adults who have autism and how they see their gifts and struggles.

From this story I felt renewed hope that others will understand my son, who is on the spectrum, and that he will build life for himself in spite of the challenges that he will face.

This documentary is appealing to parents of children with autism, teens with autism, and others who are working with a person or people who are on the autism spectrum.  With the inclusion of material ‘debunking’ the immunization connection, parents who feel strongly about that connection may have a hard time with this film.

The film is unrated but does not appear to contain any material unsuitable for teens.

Rated ***** out *****.

Reviewed by Kathy Johnson who is an independent film and book critic, active on the local Community Advisory Committee on Special Education and working with pre-teens and teens at a Youth Center. Kathy has a son on the spectrum, a daughter and two brothers who show every sign of being on the spectrum but were never officially diagnosed.

Where the wild things are

Nice affects but the movie itself was a bit slow.  It was not quite true to the book, I felt.  Still it was enjoyable for some of the mid-range youth.  Costuming was great.  Max starts off having an awful day with the local youth and his sister doesn't 'rescue' him so he takes it out on her room.  When he gets into trouble for the destruction and things he says to his mother, he is sent to his room where the adventure across the seas of time begins.  It is a bit long for the younger ones and has many dark scenes.  It was most attractive to the 9 to 11 year olds when we watched at the center.