They Say: Maybe a Little Screen Time is Not So Bad

It seems that the recent refund offer by Disney was the spark that reignited the flame of a decades-old controversy:   Is television harmful to tots?   Are we a society of lazy, selfish parents that use the screen as a live-in babysitter?  And if so, are we creating a society of mush-brained mutants that call the remote “Daddy”?

Julia Pimsleur Levine, mother of 2 and creator of Little Pim, an educational foreign-language DVD series for the toddler set, has weighed in with the following letter:

Continue reading »

10 Movies that Won’t Drive Mom to Drink

“So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.”

I don’t know about you, but Gene Wilder still does it for me in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  I never fail to laugh at the devilish candy titan’s reaction when he watches Mike Teevee disobey his warning and hop onto the Chocolate Television machine:  a very unenthusiastic,  ”Stop. Don’t. Come Back.”

Thank God for  kid movies that don’t make parents want to slit their wrists in boredom.  Andrew O’Hehir of Salon recently set down a list of his Top 10 Kids’ Movies That Aren’t For Kids.  Here’s his take: Continue reading »

What’s Cooking With Wallace and Gromit?

I should have been born in Britain. Because even a fairly derivative Wallace and Gromit flick is going to leave me giggling on the couch.

Enter Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. The new short film is the first from favorite clay-mated dog and dimwit combination since their feature-length Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

It’s no wonder it’s had die hard fans salivating. Enter the good news . . . and the bad news. Continue reading »

Five Movies That Came From Books No One’s Heard Of

I spent a lot of time reading old books for our latest Babble list, 10 Kids Movies That Were Better Than the Book, only to realize there are a lot of kids movies based on books . . . which I never read.

Chances are, most of you haven’t either. So to go along with the other list (which you should totally read - hint, hint), we’ve got a list of the books which you probably haven’t read . . . made into movies you probably saw. Continue reading »

It’s the ’60s Remastered Charlie Brown!

Oh good grief! Expect to be dropping a little extra cash on a new DVD on Tuesday - your childhood’s back, and it’s been remastered. Yes, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy and most of all Charlie Brown will hit shelves in a “cool collection” of sixties hits.

And this is one of the days I love my job at Babble: I got a sneak peek at some very cool nostalgia.

The good news? Continue reading »

Pixar’s Saddest Movie Story Yet

Finding Nemo made you cry? Then don’t read on about what Pixar’s done now.

The movie company got a call recently - a ten-year-old with terminal cancer wanted to see Up. Only Colby Curtin was too sick to be taken to a movie theater for a screening.

So the company did the unheard of. They let go one DVD of the only-in-theaters movie, sending it with a Pixar employee (on hand to keep the movie off the streets) to Huntington Beach, Calif. for a private in-home screening at Colby’s house.

Seven hours after she watched the movie, little Colby died. She got what she wanted - she’d promised her mom she’d hang on long enough to see the movie.

It’s such a sad story, I almost didn’t write about it here on Babble. But what prompted me to was the news that this wasn’t some Make a Wish Foundation gig. Continue reading »