Disney movie extravaganza

In the last week, we have watched three Disney movies: two new releases and one a year or so old. By coincidence, in Slate today, Emily Bazelon decides to rail against the inadequacy of ratings for kids movies. She was reacting to a non-Disney movie, Tales of Despereaux, and pointed to a ratings site -- Kids-In-Mind -- that I have written about before. Her point is that a G-rating doesn't necessarily give parents all the information they need and they need to look beyond to fully pre-screen a movie to see if kids will be OK. All true but I must admit the experience of the past week has led me to wonder if 'protection' is really enough.

I'll explain that in a minute but let me first review this week's offerings. First up was Bedtime Stories that we saw on Christmas Day (part of a family tradition of seeing movies that day). This is basically a fairly standard Adam Sandler comedy that happens to be a Disney-kids flick. By standard I mean, Adam Sandler is a flawed but life-losing character who then meets someone (kids + girl), engages in heartbreaking conflict, develops an understanding of the way the world works, blocks the even more flawed but more life-successful bad guys, and lives happily ever after, content with the simple life. By Disney-kids, add a seemingly magical run of coincidences that are related to kid's bedtime stories and some computer generated animation. All in all, the movie worked. It was as funny as any Adam Sandler comedy but also funny to the kids as well. My son, who is my barometer for kid-funny, cacked himself throughout the movie while my youngest daughter, my barometer for plot coherence, kept up her usual running commentary of understanding. The movie also used foreboding in a good way -- how will those stories play out in the real world. Not something you see everyday. As Sandler's character thought there was magic in the air, it was he who had to deal with the nexus between fiction and reality.

Let's jump a week to New Years Day, today, when I took the kids to see Bolt. Bolt is a dog-star who doesn't realise life isn't a movie and he doesn't have super-powers. So he is delusional but less so the Buzz Lightyear and what is more, when thrust into the real world, he realises it pretty quickly; certainly more so than Buzz but with a similar existential angst. Because we adults had seen delusion before the movie was no Toy Story but the opening sequence, in particular, left my son in hysterics (those bad guys were cleverly goofy) but my youngest daughter with her head buried in my chest so there was a mixed reaction there. But the movie sustained itself even if the 4 year old was a tad scared. Again, the primary issue was the main character dealing with real vs fiction and their role in life.

One night, we watched with our eldest two kids, Bridge to Terabithia. This movie is based on a book about friendship between two kids who are both isolated from others for various reasons but share an imagination and build an imaginary world, Terabithia, to escape in. They have no delusions between reality versus fiction but others want them to be more grounded in reality. That conflict is brought to a head by a shocking event (I'll spare you in case you haven't seen it but if you want to know Emily Bazelon discussed it all here). Suffice it to say, the movie is a downer but on a classic level on a higher plane than other movies. But it is a movie aimed at kids -- maybe between 8 and 14 -- and is useful preparation for life's issues. It also has its entertaining moments. However, you could hardly describe it as light.

So how would one sort out which movie to see? All three movies are rated PG or below and so are deemed safe for kids. According to Kids-In-Mind, each rates 3 or 4 out of ten for violence. As I worry about that characteristic for safety more than others, they are all within acceptable parameters. But Bridge to Terabithia is the one I would agonise over on protection grounds more than the others. Why? Because it actually has hard substantive content. It is the most real and therefore, the most emotionally wrenching. Amazing. We talk so much of getting our kids into real art and literature but when confronted with a piece that gets them there, we hesitate.

This suggests to me that protection should be one criteria but should not hold a veto on our decisions. I am confident that we will face moments where we are grateful our kids saw Terabithia in ways in which I won't care about the others. It is disturbing and so you need time to deal with it but with that time, there is a good investment to be had.

But beyond a meaningful message, this week highlights to me the problem with rating systems and most reviews. Kids-In-Mind is useful input on the protection -- or cost -- side of taking kids to movies. But there is the benefit side too. I hardly know any reviewers (although I guess I and parent bloggers are an exception) where the reviewers attended movies with kids. How can you possibly give a kids movie 2, 3 or 5 stars without having seen it with a kid? We want to know whether it actually held attention, what type of kids it might scare, whether the plot was comprehendable to a child and, most critically, whether kids actually laughed. I can go to all manner of crappy kids movies but if my son sits besides me laughing all the way through, I just don't care. It is worth taking him and worth paying for the extra adult ticket to sit next to him. For a proper screen, we need a child whose eyes and ears to see the movie through.

You let your child watch what!?! LOTR

There are only a few parenting blogs that I read; one of them is GeekDad at Wired.com. Jacob Russell has an on-going series: "You let our child watch what?!?" It is very amusing. Recently, he has been running through the original series of Star Trek.

Of course, that blog implies a dispute between parents. That isn't the case in our family where it is mutual consent. However, it can still inspire horror in others.

Our latest controversial move was to let our 9 year old watch all 12-odd hours of the extended version of Lord of the Rings. It was over several weeks in six sittings.

Now there are several levels of horror at this. First of all is the horror of not having her read the books first. To which my reaction is: I tried but didn't manage it, no need to expect any more from our daughter. Why restrict access to a ripper of a yarn?

The main reaction of course is that it is a tad violent. Thousands are killed in graphic detail, with lots of scary monsters, one big spider, murderous thoughts and a dual personality creature peppered with lighter moments consisting of talking trees and merry small folk. Suffice it to say, our daughter whose preference is the scarier the better, just loved it.

But I think what really worked for her was the premise of the trilogy. The basic idea what armies would fight for centuries over the possession of a ring played right into her materialistic tendencies. Why wouldn't they do this even if the 'powers' it possesses are relatively undefined? From her perspective it was enough that the ring was unique, rare and precious. Indeed, I think she related most with Gollum who sacrificed everything just to own the ring and never used it for world domination. She felt he died happy; there were no losers. She too would not have cast the ring into the fiery depths of Mount Doom except, of course, if that was the only way to keep others from possessing it.

To be sure, this is unlikely to be the reaction Tolkien would have been going for. But that is the thing with great literature (movies). Everyone takes away something a little different.

Kids and movies

Has The Age gone completely mad? It's opinion pieces are simply crazy. Last week we had private education, this week Jim Schembri wants to ban kids from movies: even Shrek!

CHILDREN should not be allowed in cinemas. Please don't take that the wrong way, especially if you are a kid. This is not an anti-kid tirade. Kids are wonderful and endearing and full of energy. Kids are our future and are also the best source of non-electronic entertainment we have.

But they also have their place and that place is at home watching new-release movies on DVD, not in the cinema sitting next to some hapless adult who is sitting through Shrek the Third because he has to.

Let me begin with his Top 10 list. I defy anyone to identify an item there that does not apply to some adult, somewhere who has attended a movie. Do you mean no adult has ever not followed a plot (perhaps all of them in Russian Ark), asked stupid questions (Jerry Seinfeld admitted that one), are loud (!), light up (well adults have big hair), don't understand furniture (have you ever fought over an arm rest), stare (that isn't movies, that's kids in public), make weird sounds (listen to anyone eat popcorn), kick (what happens when an adult wants to go to the bathroom in the middle of a movie?), have lousy parents (umm, adults don't have parents?), are violent (our prisons are apparently empty).

It turns out Jim that movie theatres have worried about this sort of thing. First, they schedule some movies late at night (if you want to see Shrek kid free try tonight's 9pm session) or on school days. Second, kids generally go to movies for kids.

Now I am willing to admit, some kids aren't well-behaved. But an outright, age discriminatory ban. Look, even with a grain of salt, the column wasn't even funny. If you want a funny take on kids at the movies; see here.

Baby-sitting at the movies

In 2002, Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff wrote the following in Forbes:

* Baby-sitting at movie theaters--

If Ikea can make this idea work, why can't the local cineplex? For a fee parents could drop off their tots and go beeper-in-hand to that R-rated movie. The kids might watch videos in a day care room or, better yet, be chaperoned to watch a G-rated movie in the next theater.

Well, we have 'crying rooms and sessions' now but that doesn't really make the movie experience much better. But a chain Muvico in the US has gone the Ikea route. For $9 extra (a big saving on baby sitters) you can drop the kids in a playroom. They can play and you can go to the movies. Indeed, they will even show them movies. How much would you pay to not have to see Meet the Robinsons?

Movie ratings for kids

I came across an interesting website, "Kids-In-Mind" that provides movie ratings that might be useful. Like most countries Australia has a one dimensional ratings system designed to tell you which age groups should watch what. However, I have found it almost useless in really giving parents information in terms of what their children should see.

To see this, the first thing we have to note is that parental preferences are different. I do not feel the same way about profanity and some forms of violence than other parents do. I would prefer to avoid sex scenes if only to avoid questions that just do not need to come up yet (for 8 year olds or under). So I struggle in that there are some M movies that I am happy for my 8 year old to see (including Star Wars III, Superman Returns and any Harry Potter) but there are PG ones which I am not sure are suitable.

Kids-In-Mind cuts through that with a three dimensional rating system. Here is what they say:

Our ratings reflect objective categories of potentially objectionable material. Unlike the MPAA, we do not assign a single, age-specific rating. Instead we assign each film three distinct, category-specific ratings: one for SEX & NUDITY, one for VIOLENCE & GORE and one for PROFANITY. Each rating is on a scale of zero to ten, depending on quantity (more F-words, for instance, will mean a higher PROFANITY rating, and so on) as well as context (especially when it comes to the categories of sex, nudity, violence and gore, since they are not as easily quantifiable as profanity). Hence, two movies which have received the same rating -- let's say a 9 in VIOLENCE & GORE -- will not necessarily contain an equal amount of violence; they are only similar in the level of violence they contain. Plus, like most numerical rating systems, the numbers are inherently approximations (think of them as plus-or-minus-one). Only the detailed descriptions we provide with each review will give you the proper context.

So Star Wars Episode III gets a 2.7.0. Lots of violence, little sex (actually 2 seems alot) and no profanity. Superman Returns gets a 3.6.2 while Harry Potter 4 gets a 3.6.3. On those scores, that is fine by me. We were thinking of taking our eldest to Dreamgirls. It has a 4.3.5 so I am a little more uncertain but this suggests that it is probably OK but last year's the Da Vinci Code with 5.7.4 was probably good to miss. Although that one raises another issue -- historical and cultural knowledge required for the movie to be understood -- something that would make a good 4th dimension.

This system also allows us to tailor things to the child. Child No.2 gets scared and so anything above a 3 on the violence dimension is surely out. But Child No.1 loves it. I remember taking her to see the second Harry Potter movie (1.4.3) when she was only 4. Kids in that movie were balling their eyes out (with the spiders and such). My daughter's only concern was when a scary thing appeared her popcorn would go flying everywhere. That issue got resolved as the movie progressed. But suffice it to say, three dimensions of ratings (and accompanying reasons) is much more information than one letter.