Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
The Wisdom of Wikipedia

Lenore Skenazy plums the depths of everybody’s favorite encyclopedia to discover a possible explanation for why parents can be just so danged crazy: Mean World Syndrome. The idea seems to fit.

Mar 16, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

Are We Still Going On About That?

Corine Ingrassia reviews Disney’s “A Christmas Carol”:

It reminded me of all the buzz I heard on twitter about children being frightened by “Where the Wild Things Are.” Should children’s books & holiday classics be turned into movies that cannot be seen by the same children who adore them and made them the success’ they are?

I cant help but feel that as the movie industry makes their advances in visual effects, they may be blurring the lines lately when it comes to Children’s movies.

Oh, the many, many things wrong with this. Let me ignore most of them and just say this: All the best movies, the movies that resonated the most with me as a kid – they blurred that line. They scared me. They didn’t tend to convention, they didn’t seem to care what a “children’s movie” was.

“E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones”… they were not “Children’s movies.” But they were the best at what they were, I was incurably drawn to them as a child, and they still sit with me and make up a significant part of who I am today.

Too scary my foot. Bah, humbug.

Nov 16, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Unleashing Life's Wild Things

A.O. Scott, of the New York Times, talks about “Where the Wild Things Are”, the upcoming (fantastic) “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, and other children’s films and books:

Will “Fantastic Mr. Fox” be too scary for youngsters? Too confusing? Maybe, for some. But so was “Coraline,” Henry Selick’s pitch-perfect adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s kiddie-gothic novel. So was “Edward Scissorhands,” Tim Burton’s indelibly dark portrait of the artist as a young goth. So is “The Wizard of Oz” and half the books in the children’s section of the library. And so, of course, is “Wild Things.”

The impulse to protect children from these kinds of stories is understandable. Like adults, they experience plenty of hard feelings in their daily lives — at home, on the playground, in the classroom, in their dreams — and they may want, as we do, to use movies and books as a form of escape. Bright colors, easy lessons and thrilling rides that end safely and predictably on terra firma have their place. But so, surely, do representations of the grimmer, thornier thickets of experience. That’s what art is, and surely our children deserve some of that too.

It seems that A.O. Scott, as a critic, is always at his best when tackling deeper, more impacting issues through the lenses of film and cinema. He certainly does a swell job here – while many critics have gotten bogged down in “how scary” for a children’s film “Where the Wild Things Are” is, Scott has gone straight to the real issue and declared that movies for children are supposed to be scary. I couldn’t agree more.

Nov 05, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

"They're Just Guys."

Because I really can’t help it (and also really, really love the movie), here’s an almost 5-year-old’s brilliant take on “Where the Wild Things Are” and whether the movie scared him:

Mom: Was it scary?

Oscar: What was scary?

Mom: Was the movie scary?

Oscar: None of it was scary. Not any of it.

Mom: Not even the monsters?

Oscar: There weren’t any monsters. Those were just guys. Sometimes you think things are monsters when they’re just guys.

That’s right. Sometimes the things you think are monsters really are just guys.

Oct 30, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

In Support of Scary Movies

Fittingly in time for Halloween, Reece Shearsmith, writing for the BBC Magazine, asks: “Is it good for us to feel scared?”

Why do we expose ourselves to this fear? In certain situations, people enjoy being frightened. Perhaps it has something to do with the primal nature of fear. As the American author HP Lovecraft wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

Horror in all its various genres can achieve many things. It reveals people facing fears and desires; it asks us to observe our social and individual assumptions; it can produce imaginative worlds in which, for a time, we escape from the problems and triviality of our day to day lives; it can make us chuckle at ourselves; and, most significantly, it can entertain and be fun.

We also shouldn’t shirk from exposing our kids to fear:

Horror stories offer a playground in which children, and adults, can play at fear. There is nothing wrong with being scared. It’s a survival response. And having young children as I now do, I am mindful of what goes into their heads.

One of my earliest terrors was the witch in Disney’s Snow White, and the image of her evil face and devil-horned head dress has always stayed with me.

Today children’s films often have the warning “mild peril”.

This indeterminate definition, I think, is fundamental when realising we don’t really know what will stay with and give children nightmares for years. It might be a face we see in the swirl of patterned wallpaper, or a smiling doll, or a painting of Jesus in a children’s bible.

It begs to be answered: How do we ever really know what is “too scary” for kids?

Forget about relying on blanket statements or ratings that label movies too “grown up” or “honest” for kids. (That was one of my huge irks about the critical coverage of Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are”. Fear is completely unique to each individual – even Max Records, the actor who played Max, said the movie’s scariness “depends on the kid. There are parts of it that are pretty intense. When I was 7 years old, I could not have seen this movie. It would’ve scared me. But my younger brother, who’s now 7, could’ve seen this a year ago. It depends on the kid.”)

But beyond that, why are we treating fear as a negative thing? We have to come to grips with fear itself, I think – and acknowledge that fear is a normal, even sometimes desirable human emotion. Kids are entitled to a full range of emotions, and we have to give it to them. We can’t stop them from seeking it. Children need to feel an edge of un-control sometimes – they need to feel that wildness.

The great thing about stories and books and movies, though, is that it gives children – and adults – a place to play out these fears and emotions.

Appropriately, the guys at We Love You So have just put up a post about the scary and frightful movies from their own childhoods and beyond – from “Poltergeist” and “The Watcher in the Woods” to “Paperhouse” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.” And they want to know: what are some of the favorites from your own childhood?

Oct 30, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , :: #