Saturday, December 10, 2005

Movies for Children which Don't Make the Parent Want to Drink. Part One.

Daughter only sees television on the weekends, and then only for a couple of hours, so she gets pretty choosy. So when I say that a DVD has been watched for three weeks in a row, you know we're on to something. When I realized that I was still stopping in to watch a few minutes, I knew I had to tell the parents who read this.

The movie is "The Cat Returns", and it's an anime film, dubbed into English. How to describe it...

Girl saves cat from certain death. Cat turns out to be the Prince of Cats. The King of Cats, in gratitude, insists the girl marry his son, the cat. The girl goes off the find someone to help her get out of the marriage. Eventually, they all end up in the Kingdom of Cats.

I am being deliberately vague, because I want you to have the pleasure I had, and Daughter had, in seeing it for the first time (It had been recommended to me, but equally vaguely). Being anime, it's lovely to look at, but it's also very funny (the voice-over actors are terrific), completely clean (not always a given in anime) and not scary. I add this because I have a child who doesn't appreciate the Walt Disney entertainment dictum "Make the child cry in Act One, preferably by killing a parent." There is a bit of implied violence, but Daughter didn't seem to pick up on it.

Anyway, if you have Netflix, here is the link:
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70019058&trkid=189530

2 Comments:

Blogger houseband00 said...

hi quinn,

great post! i can totally relate with your experience. once in a while, his classmates would lend him anime that have scenes which are, let's say, "adult." Although the story and plot are tolerable for kids, some of the visuals deserve a PG rating. like you said, just as long as it doesn't seem to affect them, then hopefully it's ok.

disney does have a way of making kids cry, but i'd be more worried if the kids didn't.

6:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks, Quinn, I'll take a look.

Lyd

7:16 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home