Archive for the ‘Children’s’ Category
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 18th, 2011
Sometimes, I look through my collection of dvd and blu-rays. I tend to notice patterns fairly well. First, I like plenty of science fiction or thriller types. On the animation front, for the most part I tend to like anything oddball or superhero. Plain jane ordinary kid cartoons never seem to be my thing. The weirder the better. Today, I review Hey Arnold!, the first season. Perhaps I can give this Nick classic some bland cookie cutter love.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 24th, 2011
The story of Romeo and Juliet is a story that is retold at least once every generation. It can be retold using a different time period or with alien races or perhaps even in a thirty second commercial. It is a fairly easy story and parts can be tweaked given the audience and intention. So begins the story of Gnomeo and Juliet. Take one part animation, one part garden gnomes and a dose of laughter that could be just what the classic play needs. Or it could become a tragedy of the highest order.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 29th, 2011
“Jellystone Park, one of the nation’s oldest and most beautiful stretches of wilderness. For years, families have headed out from the busy city eager to enjoy a little camping, fishing, and, of course, observing the park’s natural wildlife…”
He’s smarter than the average bear. Children and adults alike have been watching his adventures since 1959. Yogi and his young sidekick Boo Boo were one of the most popular of the Hanna-Barbera stable of talking animal characters
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2011
The more famous a star, the more curious their early, pre-icon efforts become. Thus, we watch agog as Humphrey Bogart plays a murderous, blood-thirsty zombie in The Return of Doctor X (1939). And here, a 16-year-old Nicole Kidman makes her debut as a BMX-obsessed teen who runs afoul of a group of not-very-competent gangsters. Once again, one watches agog.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 16th, 2011
The American Girl series appears to have started as a collection of dolls. The collection featured various girls from a wide range of historical periods. The dolls came with rather unique histories that provided both a chance to bring the doll to life in the imagination of the child and also teach a little of what life might have been like for girls that lived in these different eras. Of course, the collection had to have accessories, and before long an entire industry was born. The dolls led to a series of books that fleshed out the adventures these characters might have had in their time periods.
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Disc Reviews by BABY on February 12th, 2011
You know you’re in a lot of trouble when a movie opens up with the wedding of two dogs. Hi, I’m Baby. I’m the German Shepherd who runs security here at Upcomingdiscs. If you work for either UPS or Fed Ex, no introductions are necessary, and that spells R U N. I want to know why it is that you humans think that dogs want to look and act like people. We don’t need no stinkin’ sweaters. We don’t want to walk on our hind legs. And we don’t want to get married.
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Disc Reviews by BABY on November 23rd, 2010
“Sometimes you just gotta let a dog do his thing.”
Hey everybody. Baby back again to bring you yet another dog movie from a dog’s point of view, which is the floor, in case anybody out there really wants to know. You see, Gino won’t let me on the furniture in the theater. He says that just because the seats look like chew toys, and smell like chew toys, doesn’t mean they actually are chew toys. I mean, really, people. You wanna talk about your special effects,
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2010
“Things never happen the same way twice.”
C.S. Lewis created an incredibly imaginative world when he wrote his Chronicles Of Narnia. The stories were an escape, of sorts, from a war-torn Europe. They integrated elements of Christianity in an effort to provide a semblance of hope in the form of a children’s fairy tale. And like all such tales, the world of Narnia was first and foremost a place of magic and bewilderment. It was a place where fantastic creatures of both good and evil thrived,
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 19th, 2010
Here is a second volume of episodes from the Marvel cartoon’s first season, which is geared towards young children. The review for the first volume, written by the highly skilled and suspiciously well-dressed Michael Durr, can be found here: http://upcomingdiscs.com/2010/07/12/marvel-squad-vone/ . Dr. Doom is still using his many evil minions to obtain fractals of the shattered Infinity Sword before the Superhero Squad, a team of Marvel heroes assembled for their unique skills depending on the mission as led by Iron Man, can stop him.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 9th, 2010
As was the case for my two previous Madeline reviews (http://upcomingdiscs.com/2010/07/20/madelines-great-adventures/ plus http://upcomingdiscs.com/2010/09/21/madelines-halloween-other-spooky-tales/#more-13938) there is little more I could say about the general premise of Madeline. But as I slowly become a connoisseur of this particular character (as this website feels I should be, it seems) I have a few more insights brought on by this Christmas themed edition.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 21st, 2010
When Jim Henson had finally finished up with The Muppet Show, it was time to take his puppet creations in a slightly different direction. Fraggle Rock, like The Muppet Show before it, was originally produced and aired outside of the United States. With the Muppets it was England that gave the guys their break. This time it was CBS in Canada. The show did quickly find a home in the United States, this time on cable. HBO was just beginning to stretch its legs and break out of its reputation as merely a place to watch movies after their box office run was completed. The network also had a bit of a reputation as more of an adult network.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on September 21st, 2010
The only difference between this collection of episodes and the one I reviewed on this site previously (http://upcomingdiscs.com/2010/07/20/madelines-great-adventures/ ) is the Halloween theme implied in the DVD’s title. In fact, in terms of quality and material I could almost quote that review word for word. So feel free to refer to my previous review and I hope to avoid redundancies while writing this latest one.
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Disc Reviews by BABY on September 7th, 2010
Gino likes to listen to some guy named Warren Zevon who says that all of the werewolves are in someplace called London. He also sings a song that says “Don’t knock on my door, if you don’t know my Rottweiler’s name”. Well … I ain’t no stinkin’ Rottweiler, and you know my name; it’s Baby. But I wouldn’t knock anyway, ‘specially if you are trying to deliver more of these movies. I don’t know what the Rottweiler’s planning to do, but I promise I’m not going to lick you, and that spells B I T E. Don’t you guys know we got too many movies in here already?
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 4th, 2010
“This is James Henry Trotter. He lived with his mother and father in a cozy little house by the sea. It was a wonderful life. They had each other, and they had their dreams. Then, one day a terrible thing happened. An angry rhinoceros appeared out of nowhere and gobbled up his poor mother and father…”
Pretty bizarre for a kiddie flick, wouldn’t you say? Not when Roald Dahl is penning the story. Roald Dahl was no stranger to children’s movies. Some of the most beloved classics in that genre were once just a thought in Dahl’s rather eccentric and delightfully twisted head
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 20th, 2010
This compilation of cartoons takes from different Madeline series’, produced from about 1993 to 2001. Each episode is in the half-hour long format, with different title cards, theme songs and narrators, but all following the same format of rhyming narration, and imaginative story lines, songs peppered throughout, and a couple even dipping into the supernatural.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 12th, 2010
Marvel Superhero cartoons come and they go. For every Spider-Man cartoon, there is an X-Men cartoon, or Wolverine or perhaps even Iron Man gets one. Some of them last more than one season but more often than not they are replaced by shows telling the same stories but in a different style. Marvel Superhero Squad show attempts to break the mold by providing fresh stories with a rather interesting and unique animation style.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 14th, 2010
I’d like to think that the concepts of what makes a good children’s movie is somewhat international. While cultures may vary, kids all over the world are pretty much the same. They look for the same kinds of characteristics in their heroes. While the martial arts film is somewhat cultural, there have been more than enough child-friendly martial arts films for me to conclude that these kinds of acrobatics and old fashioned good kicking-evil’s-butt themes work for kids of any nationality. The recent Jackie Chan The Spy Next Door outing is one good example of the genre-crossing martial arts children’s movie.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 7th, 2010
In countries all over the world, there is still the prevalent issue of not being able to read. Even in advanced countries such as the United States, there are reports that suggest that many adults don’t ever pick up another book after leaving college. This reviewer was fortunate enough to have two adults in his life that read to him all the time when he was an infant and thus developed a desire and ability to read very early on. But for those who don’t have that luxury, perhaps they can find entertaining television programs such as Ghostwriter.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 10th, 2010
In September of 1993, an animated series using the wonders of stop-motion animation was broadcast on ABC. The name of the series was called Bump in the Night. It would run for twenty six episodes, spanning over two seasons. It was created and directed by Ken Pontac and David Bleiman. It also featured the vocal stylings of Jim Cummings, a man perhaps most famous for his Winnie the Pooh performance.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 4th, 2010
Most of my growing up and living occurred in the 1980’s. From ages five to fifteen, I grew up in an era that was famous to many different types of cartoons. It helped to shape my personality, from bad jokes to that unmistakable sarcasm. So, it was easy to attract me to a cartoon set that showcased odds and ends from that familiar era. Join me as we take a step back in history, a history that hits very close to home.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on April 25th, 2010
C.O.P.S aired in 1988, one year after the debut of Robocop, and the future-cop theme and design is clearly influenced by Verhoven’s violent satire. As a child I caught onto this influence immediately and a part of me always saw it as derivative (along with some Judge Dredd influence). Watching it now I get an eery knot in my stomach as I realize just how silly and loaded with slapstick this cartoon really is, and yet cannot help but still recognize the design influence of Robocop. Throughout there is this strange paradox of immensely threatening looking characters doing terribly silly things.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 7th, 2010
“We’re back…”
The Chipmunks began life oddly enough as a singing group, of sorts. They were the brainchild of struggling songwriter Ross Bagdasarian and were named after the three chief executives at Liberty records. His own alter ego David Seville’s name came from his World War II Army station in Spain. The Chipmunks first appeared in a 1958 record called The Witch Doctor, but wouldn’t officially become The Chipmunks until later that year when The Chipmunks Christmas Song was released. It is for that Christmas music that I most remember the group
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2010
One might have to legitimately ask about the thinking behind this particular children- targeted release. I have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of reviewing this film at this particular time. I have two issues that are just unavoidable here:
They both deal with the film’s two central stars here. Bindi Irwin is the daughter of famed Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. You all remember Steve. He used to approach some of the most dangerous animals on the planet and quite casually tell us just how deadly they were while tempting them to tag him
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2010
Anyone who has come here long enough to get to know my likes and dislikes probably knows what a Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse fan I am. The man and the character opened the road for so much of what we have today, from Pixar to Tom and Jerry. But, if you’re looking for the kind of cartoons you and I have grown to expect, this one is bound to disappoint you. It’s an episode of the current television series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It’s an animated Sesame Street, however, and not really a cartoon adventure.
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Disc Reviews by BABY on February 9th, 2010
“This is the story about a football team. From the beginning this football team had heart and ability. But there was this one big problem. They didn’t believe that they could win. And then this dog came along, and this dog could do amazing things, and suddenly, the team started winning. But the truth is, even without the dog, they were winners, each and every one of them. So, if you believe that a dog can play football, then you better believe that we’re gonna win this game.”
Nah, this story isn’t about that. It’s about me … Baby.
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