Little Dinners reader, you may never encounter this, an Australian series designed for tweens and their parents. 40 episodes. The setup is four 10-11 year olds set up an ‘agency’ to solve mysteries that as it happens are small by cinematic standards but loom largish in...
It's been five years since everything was awesome and the citizens are facing a huge new threat: LEGO DUPLO® invaders from outer space, wrecking everything faster than they can rebuild.
Eggo concept is gone. We are in a golden age of concept folding and our experimental loft is popular film. When the filmmakers hit a sweet spot and adventure in self reference is carried in a hit movie, the whole society becomes more cognitively elaborate. The original...
Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve the mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community
Embraced Balusters watched this version and the one with the same title from the thirties back to back. Originally it was in the service of my history of mysteries, but neither qualify. Only this one is worthy of comment, because of the apparent excellence of...
Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.
Stealing Energy is well enough made to hide its nature, what we used to call Hallmark movies. These are films that tell a story without irony, narrative elaboration or recognition of its cinematic conveyance. The closer to reality and the fewer theatrics the better. Ideally,...
A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.
Multipurpose knives think I would like to hang out with Taika. At any rate, I believe him to be a genuinely good man in a business fraught with otherwise. I actually like when a personal style is deeply reflected in a film or collection, and...
American expat Mickey Pearson has built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business forever it triggers plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.
Movie Scripts likely Ritchie’s best. It has his comic characters oscillating between real and unlikely. It has a fully created world, less exotic than Wick’s but more accessible. Super-snappy dialogue. But most of all, it has the double, triple, quadruple con in layers, where the top...
Poor Planning the overarching narrative here is that our scam artist planned this to the last detail while in the slammer. With the main trilogy, we never know, but the impression is that Danny and co agily adjust as difficulties and exceptions appear. The fun...
Detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson join forces to investigate a murder at Buckingham Palace. They soon learn that they have only four days to solve the case, or the queen will become the next victim.
Deductions did not make me laugh. Apparently it had the same effect on almost everyone. But I credit these folks with taking risks. Humour is an evolving quality, and some brands of humour demand being on an edge between the unexpectedly awkward and the emotionally...
Follow Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall. With no ropes or safety gear, this would arguably be the greatest feat in rock climbing history.
Needy are stories. When the story is in the real world, a different set of narrative engineering principles come in to play. A default is that somehow the filmmaker and crew present their own story of the quest for what we separately see. But there is...
Fourth-grade friends George and Harold have a shared love of pranks and comic books -- and turning their principal into an undies-wearing superhero.
Underawares actually steer my kids to this area rather than ordinary fare. It has silliness and poor production values. While the stories are vacuous, they are refreshingly free of messages and morals. But the value to me is the incredible fun they have with shifted...