The only magazine dedicated to SW Washington families.
The only magazine dedicated to SW Washington families.
January often pales in comparison to the glitz and joy of the holidays
that precede it, so here are two feature-length animated films to spice it up.
Family Flicks
Classic and new family movie reviews
By Teresa Difalco
The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
This is one of the most entertaining movies I’ve ever seen. There is virtually no dialogue, but its color and action and wonderfully eccentric characters are completely engaging without it.
Squat, club-footed Madame Souza lives with her grandson, Champion, in a rickety little house on the Metro line. It’s a sometimes lonely, colorless life, interrupted only by the thundering trains until she gives Champion a bicycle. When he outgrows it, she gives him another, then acts as trainer until Champion is racing in the Tour de France. The plot twists when Champion is kidnapped mid-tour by block-shaped thugs hoping to exploit his athletic talent for ill gain. Madame sets off to find him and meets up with the title triplets. They’re aged and kooky, but fine-tuned, and the four characters join forces to make the most unlikely, and captivating, heroines ever.
The best scene in the film is its first, though. It opens on stage, in an electrifying 1930’s Paris music hall when the Belleville triplets are in their prime. Fred Astaire, Josephine Baker and Django Reinhardt make hilarious and mesmerizing appearances, director Sylvain Chomet pokes cheeky fun, and the music is fabulous. However, these first few minutes are what much of the PG-13 rating is based on. It’s worth screening ahead of time and can be skipped without detracting from the film. Just make sure to go back and watch it when the kids are in bed.
Available to order or stream from Netflix, or you can stream it from Amazon Instant Video. Not available in Vancouver Blockbuster stores.
DVD Release: 2004; Rated PG-13 – Comedy, Foreign; 78 minutes.
Grade: A
View the trailer here:
Teresa Difalco is a freelance writer in Vancouver. Her work is inspired by her movie- loving children, Anthony and Gianna. She is a strong speller, a menace at badminton and makes a passable soufflé.
A Town Called Panic (2009)
Netflix knows I like fun and offbeat family films so it suggested this. Think Gumby meets Monty Python, after a long stop at Starbucks. The movie’s directors take small plastic toys – a horse, an Indian and a cowboy are the stars – and throw them into one goofy scene after another in a fast-paced stop-motion delight.
Horse, Cowboy and Indian are roommates. Horse is the levelheaded one. The action starts when Cowboy and Indian inadvertently order 50 million bricks for Horse’s present. They hide the bricks on top of the house, which backfires when the house crumbles. The rest of the film is the trio’s ridiculous mission to put it together. It lands them, among other places, inside a giant robotic snowball-tossing penguin at the mercy of three mad scientists.
In the opening scenes Indian uses a hair dryer, Cowboy screams for a turn in the shower and Horse, casually reclined on the sofa, reads the paper before checking his email. There’s not an errant scene in the entire 74 minutes. The frenzied speed is half of the movie’s humor; the rest is its madcap screwball characters. It’s the kind of zany, nutty stuff that gets laughs from any age group. Little plastic toys drive cars and fall and run really fast and then ping-pong tables pop up out of nowhere to be played. What’s not to love?
The film is in French with subtitles, but the pace is so fast you’ll miss most of them and it hardly matters. It’s easy to follow either way.
A Town Called Panic is not rated (NR) but is intended for all audiences. There are five curse words but they appear in the subtitle so briefly that children will likely miss them. There is also a bar scene at Horse’s birthday party which is unfortunate, because it’s the only questionable moment (when viewing with children) in what is otherwise a sheer delight.
Available to order or stream from Netflix, or you can stream it from Amazon Instant Video. Not available in Vancouver Blockbuster stores.
DVD Release: 2010; NR – Comedy, Foreign; 74 minutes.
Grade: A
