FrumpMama Reviews Children's Movies

Our toddler came down with a little flu bug, and spent most of yesterday sick on the sofa.

Isn't that the most pitiful thing you've ever seen?

Yeah, well whenever daddy is home (which he is this week), I'm pretty much just scenery around the house. Totally taken for granted.

But when either of our boys is sick, who is the one they want tending to them hand and foot?

Me. And only me.

So yesterday, little Judah looked up at me with glazed over eyes and said, "Mama...thit he-ow" (which in toddlerese is, "Mama, sit here") and he pointed to the narrow little strip of sofa next to him.

And he didn't want me to leave him all. day. long.

Thankfully daddy was home, and went out and rented a pile of movies for us to watch while I held him for most of the day.

Among them...the Bee Movie. Which the boys both enjoyed. Jericho especially, judging by his new artwork already displayed at our family gallery refrigerator door.

I, however, am more than a little weary of it after three showings.

And am I the only one, or did anyone else find it disturbing that the protagonist bee Barry had a relationship with a human woman that bordered on romantic (enough that her significant other seemed to view Barry Bee as a threat)?

We also watched Charlotte's Web a couple of times through. This was a movie I used to love as a child.

Seeing this one on the heels of the Bee Movie, however, revealed a disturbing trend, yea, perhaps even an agenda among children's animated movies...the propensity to turn children against the very food on their plates.

No wonder we parents have so much trouble getting our children to eat their food!

What child wants to eat bacon or pork after watching poor Wilbur's plight in Charlotte's Web?

And what child is going to want to eat honey after watching the Bee Movie?

Or beef or milk after watching Barnyard?

Or chicken and eggs after Chicken Run?

Or venison after seeing Bambi?

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I'll give you that this is one of the more difficult lessons a child has to learn in life. It's a hard day when they are informed that their hamburgers came from those docile looking creatures they pass while on drives in the country...or that their chicken drumsticks ultimately came from those adorable little fluffy yellow chicks they saw at Easter.

But as much as we try, we can't--and probably shouldn't--shield our children from every difficult thing in life if they're to ever learn to cope on their own one day.

My husband, whose family raised an occasional beef cow, remembered his own coming-of-age the summer he was 7 years old. After feeding and petting Brownie the cow one morning, his mom took him along with her on a daylong errand running-shopping trip. That evening when they returned home, he saw that the pasture and the pen were empty, and little Jeff knew that Brownie's time had come.

Sensitive to her younger children's feelings, his mom very carefully planned the menus over the next few days to exclude the freshly frozen beef now stocking their chest freezer. This all changed a week or so later when Jeff's older brother Butch came home for a visit and a good home cooked meal. Their mom broke out the best steaks, and planned one of the delectable meat-and-potato kind of meals she is famous for. The family sat down to ask the blessing, and when little Jeff noticed what was on his plate. He gulped and looked at his next-up sister Tammy who had had just glanced up mournfully from her own steak and said, "This is Brownie...we're eating Brownie!" and they both burst into tears. His mom even got a bit teary after that episode, but his dad and brother, hardworking guys that they were, promptly dug in.

Jeff survived unscathed, as have millions of other children, and by the time future beef cows Spot and Baby Bull were butchered, it was no big deal to eat a steak the day they took delivery of the flash-frozen beef. Even knowing that it came from a cow that once grazed in their pasture.

Getting back to children's movies, another prevalent theme is the concept of humans and animals conversing with each other. This always intrigued me as a girl. Especially considering I told everything to my beloved cat Smokey.

However, after watching these movies repeatedly, I became downright critical of their content.

Spelling Spider aside, the scene that takes the cake for being over-the-top in Charlotte's Web was when folks from all over came to see the Zuckerman's "Radiant" pig, and there was Wilbur showing off below the web by dancing back and forth in the barn entrance on his hind feet!

Only to later be hailed as "Humble". What was humble about that?

And why do male cows in Barnyard have udders? Isn't that a bit confusing to the kiddos?

Sick to death of such movies and not wanting anything to do with talking Cars, I requested one of the movies I'd been wanting to see in the theater, but due to being surrounded by males continually got vetoed.

A new release just hitting rental stores a couple of days ago...one that was purported to bring out sighs and the belief in Happily Ever After.

Disney did not disappoint.

From the first moment of the movie to the very end of the special features, I was absolutely Enchanted.

Even when my oldest son laughed and made fun of various elements of the movie as being 'so unrealistic'.

Funny, I didn't see him complaining when the bees were taking humans to court in Bee Movie, or when the Barn Animals were having a Hoe-Down and ordering pizzas in Barnyard!

And speaking strictly from my graphic design and artistic point of view, might I say that the pop-up storybook element was FAB?! They captured the essence of pop-up books-turned-animated-turned real-people movies brilliantly.

And that is the opinion of someone who has spent countless hours creating many one-of-a-kind pop-up cards over the last 17 years or so.

I absolutely loved this movie, however satirically Disney-esque.

Amy Adams, nailed the part of the fanciful dreamer and cartoon-come-to-life Giselle. James Marsden and Timothy Spall did a terrific job as Prince Edward and the queen's steward, respectively. Incorporating elements from several other Disney Princess movies really made this movie sparkle.

In spite of my dislike of dancing pigs, I had no problem whatsoever with Giselle's beautiful vocalization out the window, and the creatures that were summoned to help her clean up the messy home of our fine hero (played by Patrick Dempsey).

Except perhaps the cockroaches. Well, that and the wad of hair from the bathtub drain. But hey, the cleaning song was great.

I loved Giselle's wide-eyed innocence, and love-love-loved the scene in the the Law Office when she learns the cold reality that her hero's client was separating from her husband forever and ever...

...soooo many things about this movie that I loved.

Since watching Enchanted, I've found myself gliding into my kitchen (where the acoustics are best) and singing the little aria that Giselle sang out her window...

...and dancing around the living room in slow ballroom moves while holding our youngest son, and singing the musical numbers from the movie.

In fact, it was so delightful, I think I'm going to go and watch it three times in a row, lol.