Cats & Dogs **** 1/2

James (age 6): ***** 5 stars. I liked the part where the 7,000 mice get sprayed with the sickness and take it out into the world. And I liked the ninja cats.

Jupiter (age 4): ***** E stars. E stars is even more than google stars. I thought it was funny when the sister took the cat to her house with the other sisters and they put outfits on the cat and took his picture. That was so funny. That part right after the sweet part. The sweet part was when the whole family was together playing with the ball.

Justice (age 2): Google stars. I love you (mama.) I love movies about you.

Popi: *** It made me kind of yearn for Abbot & Costello. It wasn't like Monsters Inc. where there was a whole level meant for adults, but I laughed out loud in a couple of spots. I liked that old dead guy in the bed, and how the evil Mr. Tinkles still has to get a bath and wear that maid's uniform. That made me laugh. And I guess we get to feel some of Mr. Tinkles pain. And it was funny when they take Mr. Mason back to his factory and just the visual of all of those i.v.'s and oxygen bottles strapped to his wheelchair--I thought that was pretty funny. You could tell they were having a good time making that part of the movie. The hairless dog who did high-tech was cute. Weird how they put so little thought into the central character of Lou. He didn't have any lessons to learn or reasons to grow. He was just a puppy, I guess. Pretty boring. All the joy was in the set-up. Once you figured out how everything was going to play. Now I have to eat my dinner while it's hot.

Mama: ** 1/2 After a spate of movies that seemed targeted at James it was time for a Jupiter movie. There were some complicated negotiations that went on this morning--i.e. if James got to watch Tom & Jerry in the morning, Jupiter would get to pick tonights movie. We've been dogsitting Milly the Spaniel this past week, and Jupiter has had playdates with Izzy a couple weeks ago, and then Emma, both of whom have cats, so she's become obsessed with having a pet. She surfs the internet for cats to adopt and I finally got her to quit hounding me about adopting a cat TOMORROW by reminding her that we would be going on vacation int he summer, and we had to wait until we got home to really talk about adopting a cat. So Dogs & Cats seemed right up her alley. It was a pastiche of a spy movie, with lots of stuff that went completely over the kids heads. We kept pausing the movie to explain things, like "See, a secret agent dog was supposed to protect the family because the Popi is a scientist who is trying to invent a cure for dog allergies. And see, the dogs want humans to be cured of dog allergies, because then all humans will want dogs and not cats. But instead of sending a secret agent dog, Lou got sent to the family and he's just a puppy and doesn't know how to be a secret agent." The kids seemed very interested in having us explain all of this though, and they certainly enjoyed the movie (except for Justice who clomped around in her Popi's shoes.) There were lots of slapstick moments, dogs slamming into window, walls and boomerangs that got laughs out of Jupiter and Popi, and I always laughed at the moments when a human jogged by and the dog agents put away their spy equipment and started sniffing each others butts. There was a real extravaganza at the end involving fire, an explosion and fake snow and I think both Adam and I dozed off during that. But when Lou is seemingly dead in the boy's arms, I know the formula was working on Jupiter, and when he came back to life, the old tricks were made new in a four-year-old's eyes.

Igor ** 1/2

Jupiter (age 4): ** two stars
I gave it two stars. Because I didn't really like it. (I wish it had) lots of women in high heels and pretty dresses.

James (age 6): *****five stars
I liked the evil bone. I liked the alligator mouth, downstairs. And my most favorite part was when they were in the Igor recycling machine and they were going to get chomped up into bits, and blades might stick through their skin. And he (Igor) was like, "I don't really want to be saved. This is what happens with all Igors." And, have you got the part where he was like, "Just scratching my invisibles?" Oh, remember when the cat guy was like, "You spent the whole time playing with a piece of ribbon." Oh, there was another funny part, when Igor was like, "Pull the switch." And the brain, or Brian, was like "Count to three," and then the cat guy pulled the switch on the count of one. And that is it. Oh, yeah, yeah. The battle. There was like a dragon, and there was like a gooey ball bouncing everywhere and the ball sprayed goo all over Eva, and Eva broke the goo and she killed the dragon, killed the bear, killed those other evil inventions, and she almost broke down the whole castle and all the people were like "Oh, look up there!" Psshht, psshhht and all the things were about to fall on them, but it (the castle) fell in the battle. Or maybe on the battle. And now, that's it.

Popi: * 1/2 (one and a half stars)
I give it 1 1/2 stars for concept. The world is cool, where downtrodden Igor's strive to fulfill their own dreams and our Igor hero creates a monster thespian and Steve Buscemi as an existential eternal cat was great. But the movie's execution in every instance, is wrong. The situations are overwrought, there are too many characters, there's no tension or drama and the characters aren't sympathetic. Sadly, the animation, composed in Vietnam, is flat. The backgrounds look like pencil drawings. This movie was really a short, blown up into a feature and at 79 minutes, they couldn't even bloat it all the way. It should be 22 minutes, stripped of all its foof, with nothing but characters and good dialogue. If that were the case, no one would even notice the animation. It could be drawn in charcoal.

Mama: ** (two stars)
Let's just put it out there, that we were supposed to watch "The Sound of Music." It's kind of Jupiter's turn after to all, to a have a movie with lots of pretty girls in pretty dresses in it--and singing? I had the kids all prepped for it--we'd watched some of the musical numbers on Youtube, we'd talked about how the Von Trapp children needed a babysitter, and I'd even told them about Austria, and Nazi Germany, and escaping into the mountains....and then through an error in communication, that probably had nothing to do with Adam grumbling about singing, and movies with singing in them, and we'll see if you like a movie with a lot of singing, James, it turns out neither Adam nor I had secured The Sound of Music for movie night. I sent Adam out into the cold to get us a four dollar movie, and he came back with Igor. When I read the back of the DVD it actually sounded like a really cute movie.

However, from the start, with Igor's voiceover explaining his world to me, I was never really sucked in. In Monsters, Inc., my gold standard, they drop us right down in the middle of the day-that's-going-to-change-things, and they provide all the rules for the monster world in the form of action, a monster-in-training flubbing up and getting to meet the great scarer, Sully. I can't put my finger on why this world (Igor's) didn't engage me. Was it the insect-like appearance of the characters? Was it the yakking? It was a very talky script, yet with little in the way of revealing character. Then there were the chase scenes. I've got nothin' against a good chase scene. My latest favorite show is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and there's always a chase scene. But in Igor, I felt like I'd seen these chase scenes a thousand times before.

Justice fell asleep within minutes, which is probably a good thing, because the overall feel of the movie was probably too intense and grotesque for her. (About a family favorite, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Justice says, "I don't like that movie--it's really is creeping me out!") Jupiter never really engaged with this movie either. Though it was chock full of characters, there plain ole' weren't many girls. In fact there were only two. I think every script out there should be doctored by a female script doctor--there are just so many things a team of guys writing a script don't think about. I love the stories where a role originally written as a male character is cast with a female actress. Aliens is made so much more interesting because Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley instead of Harrison Ford. I think in Igor, one of the two sidekicks could easily have been female, and why not one female evil scientist amongst the many male evil scientists? Even the talk show host in Igor was male, for crying out loud! Jupiter can appreciate a creepy, gothy female character, with stitching around her neck, as much as anyone, so long as the character's pretty on some level. And I hate to say it, but in terms of character design, the assymetry of Eva the Monster was disturbing. With one huge arm/one skinny arm, one huge leg/then a skinny leg, a huge neck--and smaller head, she just seemed ill-suited for a four-year-old girl to fall in love with her. As for James, he woke up talking about the movie, and had more to say about it than any of the other movies he's loved recently. He even wants to add more to the blog about the movie, probably tomorrow. He even asked me if we owned this movie. He even cleaned up tonight, to earn money, to buy this movie.

As for me, I'm making a case for The Sound of Music next week.

Man on Wire (Our first family documentary) **** 3/4

Jupiter: ***** 1 star. No, I tricked you. Google stars. My favorite part was when he went out on the wire.

James: ***** 5 stars. My favorite part was when Phillipe Petite first stepped out on the wire.

Popi: **** The kids are still at a point in life where a dream, a movie, a story and reality all have the same power. So I'm not completely sure they understand the difference between a documentary and a dramatic feature, especially when the documentary has fictional recreations, but they seemed intrigued by the idea, especially James, who kept asking, "Is this real? Is this part real?" I'm a documentary fanatic and love the power of nonfiction. But I understand it's hard to compete with kid candy, like The Spiderwick Papers. Still, James being the oldest, asked all day, how tall were the twin towers, what happened to the twin towers and he did seem curious about a movie that existed in his real life, rather than real life that existed in a movie. "Is this hill we're on taller than the World Trade Center? Is the World Trade Center taller than Mount Everest?" It was a sweet movie. It could have been 20 minutes shorter. Lots of chatting and prep, and frolicking in French fields, but that's all the footage they had. It would have been nice to hear soem New Yorkers experience of it, but obviously the film crews didn't get that.

Mama: ***** This documentary was really, really gripping! It combines interviews, ("Mama, when will that guy quit talking?") real footage, still shots and reenactments. Normally Adam and I cringe at documentary reenactments, but it was completely necessary with kids. And the story really is marvelous: Phillipe Petit brings his mad, passionate vision into a reality and walks on a tight rope between the World Trade Center. When we are so used to the most amazing CG effects, and seeing Spiderman crawl up walls, it remains amazing, thrilling and beautiful to watch what Phillipe Petit does. I particularly loved seeing what a group effort it was for him to pull this stunt off. He manages to attract disciples who are dedicated to helping him pull off his fantastic dream. The documentary takes a surprising and poignant turn at the end, when we find out the effects Phillipe's walk between the towers has on his relationships with the friends who helped him. I found this moving, on more than one level.

But ultimately, I always judge a Family Night movie by how it lives in the imaginations of the kids. This one stirred James even before we watched it. Based on the book "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," he taped pieces of paper together to make 3 ft. twin towers, drew a cityscape at the base of the picture, and then a man on a tightrope at the top. That was the day before the movie. The day after seeing the movie, he tied various sashes and shoelaces to toys and strung a makeshift highwire, the likes of which only a Bionicle could cross, between the two sofas. And then, today, while walking in the Yerba Buena Gardens, he balanced himself on a hand rail, and walked along it. That makes for a smashing success on Family Movie Night. Even though Justice fell asleep in the first ten minutes.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the PG-13 rating (James is obsessed with ratings) it's a gratuitous sex tableau at the very end when Phillipe Petite cheats on his girlfriend. James, who believes that PG-13 ratings are given because of the fear factor, said, "That's why it's PG-13? What's scary about a naked lady?"

Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein *****

Here's a New York Times movie review from 1948.
James (age 6): ***** I liked the part when they tried to take Wilber's brain. (It should be noted that James was completely tense during this part. Since he doesn't know how these movies work the next development really could have been that the evil doctor takes the scalpel to Wilber's (Abbott) forehead and removes his brain--instead of Chick (Costello) running in for a comic distraction. James asked Adam during this sequence: "Popi, is this rated R?")

Jupiter (age 4): ***** I liked the part where the girls wore the pretty dresses.

Justice (age 2): ***** Google means the Google bus.

Spy kids ****1/2

James (age 6): ***** Five stars. I liked the part when the robot kids get the third brain. When he (the Alan Cummings character) pulled all of the brains in the robot children and it was a cool movie and that's it.

Jupiter (age 4): ***** (Google stars) I liked the robot kids. And I liked the mommy and poppy. And I liked the kids.

Justice (age 2): ***** (Google stars) It's a secret. I can't tell you. I liked the robot kids.

Popi: *** 1/2 (3 1/2 stars.) 88 minutes is the perfect length for a family night movie. It was nice to see a kids movie with a couple of good acting parts--Antonio Banderas and Alan Cummings. I thought Alan Cummings was great. The premise that kids discover the secret lives of their parents is a good one and presages their own entry into adult themes. I also like that the movie didn't take itself too seriously though I wished it was a little less frenetic in terms of pacing, because I came at the expense of some character moments. I would have liked to have seen a brother and sister interact when there wasn't a crisis and a parent and child do something together that wasn't plot related. It was fun when it was happening, but boy, it evaporated afterward.

Mama: **** This really was a pleasure to watch. Of course I'm a la Femme Nikita fan (the USA network TV series from the 90's, not the movie) so disguises and gadgets and martial arts moves all play really well with me. I loved the beginning of Spykids, when the daughter asks her mother to tell the story of two spies falling in love, not knowing the mother is narrating her own history. The romance between the mother and father was really fun--Antonio Banderas is a very sexy spy. The brother and sister in the movie were always likable, and there was an awesome chase scene involving rocket packs. I also loved the sets, that seemed to be some Earth Two combination of California and Mexico, with luxury homes atop ocean cliffs, and the sprawling CG cityscape of San Diablo. As so often happens in these movies plot takes over from character. This never bothers kids, but it does lower the parent enjoyment. We know from Monsters Inc. and Toy Story that character and story and cool effects should be able to go hand-in-hand but rare is the script that even tries.

As for the kids, they seemed to greatly enjoy the chase scenes and there was an interest in spies and spy gadgets that lingered even a week after the movie. There were some visual grotesques, spies that had been turned into monsters, and a tense scene where the father character, played by Antonio Banderas, gets hooked up to the monster machine and turned into a design created by his own son. I wasn't sure James, with his very intense imagination, could handle that, but there doesn't seem to be any fallout from it. He's still too obsessed with robbers, from our Home Alone viewing....