Born
Free
(1966/Columbia/Sony/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/A
Brilliant Young Mind
(2015/Samuel Goldwyn/Sony DVD)/Elmo's
World: Elmo Wonders
(2015/Sesame Street/Warner DVD)/General
Spanky (1936/Our
Gang/Little Rascals feature film/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Nickelodeon
DVDs: Shimmer & Shine
+ Whiskers &
Paws (2015
releases)/Secrets Of War
(2014/Film Movement DVD)
Picture:
B-/C+/C+/C/C+/C+/C+ Sound: B-/C+/C/C/C+/C+/C Extras:
B-/D/C/D/D/C+/C Main Programs: B-/B-/B-/C/B-/B-/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Born
Free
Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is
limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last,
while General
Spanky
is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Usually
our children's titles are shorts and TV shows with maybe one feature
film, usually animated, but we have several feature films this time
in what is a different mix of such titles than usual...
James
Hill's Born
Free
(1966) is a well-liked nature drama that asks the still-hotly debated
question about keeping wild animals in captivity. Based on a true
story, a smart, nature and animal-loving couple (Virginia McKenna and
Bill Travers) have to take on raising the tiger cub Elsa, only to
release her in the wild later. Of course, this had never really been
done before and little goes as planned. Part of a cycle of such
films and TV shows of the time (plus Jungle genre adventures like the
latest Tarzan revivals), this film has some amazing nature footage
and charming moments, but the more violent and even bloody moments
are no for young children even as this film was often recommended for
just about all ages.
As
for the film itself, Director Hill was best known as a documentary
filmmaker before this film, but he had shown his narrative chops on
hit TV series (soon to be one of the key directors on The
Avengers
with Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg & then Linda Thorson of some
classic shows) plus a Sherlock Holmes film A
Study In Terror,
The
Corrupt Ones
and Captain
Nemo & The Underwater City.
Here, he gets to show off both disciplines and though there was
tension on set on how to make the film and the film has lulls from
this, Hill is one of the few filmmakers at the time who could have
made this work. The cast is good and animals hard to resist, plus
John Barry's score has not only held up and not aged, but helps the
film stay timeless.
The
song tends to be more well-known and popular than the still-discussed
film, but Sony/Columbia has still decided to allow Twilight Time to
issue this one as a Limited Edition Blu-ray. Guess the Living
Free
sequel will get issued the same way?
Extras
include another in the solid series of nicely illustrated booklet on
the film from Twilight Time in all their release with including
informative text and always-reliable essay by Julie Kirgo, while the
Blu-ray adds a fine new feature length audio commentary track
with Kirgo and fellow film scholars Nick Redman & Jon Burlingame,
an Isolated Music Score of Barry's music and Original Theatrical
Trailers.
Morgan
Matthews' A
Brilliant Young Mind
(2015) is based on and inspired by a documentary like Born
Free
and also happens to be a British film, but this time, we meet a young
man named Nathan (the impressive Asa Butterfield, who almost was cast
as the new Spider-Man, which would have worked) who has autism and is
also has a mind at genius-level. As a young child, he was
traumatized by the death of his father, but his mother (Sally
Hawkins, good as usual) does what she can to help him and connect to
him. He also gets help from a teacher (Rafe Spall) who has MS, but
fights it and knows something Nathan loves, math!
Known
as 'the maths' overseas, he gets Nathan involved in a math olympics
and thinks start looking up, but personal problems persist and one of
the main guides of that project (Eddie Marsan) who knows Nathan's
teacher ad is able to reach out to Nathan. Can he qualify and even
win the competition? He'll have to go overseas to find out.
This
also starts out slowly and predictably, but fortunately starts to
pick up and is the pleasant surprise on the list. The supporting
cast is also solid and this is well-directed, worthy of discovery and
will hopefully catch on soon now that it's out on DVD. Why did this
not get more accolades?
There
are very sadly no extras.
Elmo's
World: Elmo Wonders
(2015) compiles several older episodes of the series/segments tied to
the title theme and this one is not bad, though they show their age a
bit not being widescreen. Still, not bad and worthy of the show. A
bonus song by Ernie (the only cast member strictly from the show to
date to have a hit record) and Elmo's
World: Transportation
are the few extras. The high quality of Sesame
Street
continues!
Though
you might think the hideous 1994 feature film revival and
forgettable, ineffective TV and home video follow-ups of The
Little Rascals
were the first feature films with the characters (they're going to
sadly try again!), but Hal
Roach (starting the series in the silent era, known as Hal
Roach's Rascals
in 1922!) squeezed a few attempts at feature films with the Our
Gang
cast and the (apparently) first was Fred
Newmeyer & Gordon Douglas' General
Spanky
(1936) with some of the best-known sound cast members.
Unfortunately,
this is far from politically correct starting with black slaves in
the south singing about eating watermelon (!!!) as a showboat rolls
by, then we get Spanky (!) shining shoes. The series was always
subversive, but not enough to shake the more racist moments. Of the
slaves being transported as The Civil War starts heating up, young
Buckwheat is causing trouble, great smile and all. As soon as he
befriends Spanky, they land up falling off the boat, but not before
starting some trouble. When on land, they're back in the thick of
the war and adults usually acting like dolts. Parts are very funny,
but too much is not and this is NOT for children, but adult fans
only. Alfalfa also shows up, but don't expect the whole cast of the
time.
There
are no extras, though Warner could have offered some bonus shorts and
passed on that.
Next
we have two Nickelodeon DVDs. Shimmer
& Shine
(7 episodes, 156 minutes) is the channel's new series about young
female genies in their child-friendly, child-safe animated adventures
that is a huge a sampling of the show as you could expect. It is not
bad (adults will keep thinking of Barbara Eden, children of Bratz)
and especially aimed at young ladies, yet the show is consistent
enough to attract a broader audience. We'll see how far this one
goes.
There
are no extras.
Whiskers
& Paws
(7 episodes, 156 minutes) is
the latest compilation DVD from the company with six episodes from
different shows including Shimmer
& Shine,
Paw
Patrol,
Dora
& Friends,
Fresh
Beat Band Of Spies,
Bubble
Guppies
and Blue's
Clues.
I've lost track of these compilation singles, but they apparently
sell, so here's a new one. Though
the actual disc has no extras, for good measure, our copy came with
the DVD Peter
Rabbit: Spring Into Adventure,
which we reviewed at this link....
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12578/Drawing+With+Mark:+Good+To+Grow!/Life+Farm
It
also has no extras.
Dennis
Bots' Secrets
Of War
(2014) wants
to deal with the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust from the
lives of children in Germany, but despite a really good cast, the
script is too lite and dangerously close to trivializing history in
too many early scenes in the film despite good intents. In the
Summer of 1943, Tuur (whose father is secretly part of the
Resistance) and Lambert (whose father is a full-fledged Nazi,
secretly hunting Jews and subversives) are best friends having fun
despite occasional shelter stays when The Allies start bombing their
town. Things are getting darker, even unbeknownst to the adults.
Tuur
also starts getting interested in Maartje, a gal who is secretly
Jewish and whose family is hiding in plain sight. Lambert is not
hateful (he hasn't been taught hate yet) and his father wants him to
join the Hitler Youth League, with the irony that Lambert has a
leg/foot deformation that his father may even be blind to realizing
means his son would be sent to an extermination camp. Being only 95
minutes-long is no excuse for the early problems, but this does
fortunately pick up in the last reel and saves itself from being a
problematic dud. It could have also used more character development,
but is worth a look. It is also child-friendly, but too much so in
this case considering the subject matter.
A
Making Of featurette (at a half-hour) and bonus film, Kate Tsang's So
You've Grown Attached, are the extras.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Free may be
the second oldest release here, but is the best performer here that
you would expect from it being the only Blu-ray on the list, but the
print is inconsistent with some shots grainier and more aged than
others at times, we do get some color here that gives us an idea of
how fine the dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor 35mm prints of the film would have looked.
The
1.33 X 1 black and white transfer on Spanky is the oldest
release here and has the softest, weakest transfer here with the film
print(s) showing the age of the materials used, so this one could use
some work. We could say that about many Little Rascals/Our
Gang shorts.
That
leaves the rest of the DVD transfers in between the two with Elmo
and the Nickelodeon DVDs offering 1.33
X 1 transfers in the middle of an anamorphically enhanced 1.78
X 1 image or some 1.33 X 1 on its own in some of the Nickelodeon
cases. Mind and War are decent anamorphically enhanced
2.35 X 1 transfers that would look better if issued on Blu-ray.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless mix on Free
may be the second oldest release here (again!), sonically, but it the
best overall by default and John Barry's score sounds decent (though
it sounds better on the isolated music score) and the film will
likely never sound better.
The
runner-up performers are the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Mind
and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on the Nickelodeon DVDs are about
even with each other, though Mind
has slightly more depth and detail. Wish it were lossless. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on War
is a little more problematic and not as clear as it ought to be, but
I don't know if it is a problem with the transfer, or soundmaster and
recording. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Elmo
is a little weaker than usual for that series and the lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono on Spanky
shows its age like the film print with sometimes brittle sound and a
few pops on the soundtrack.
To
order the Born
Free
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and other great exclusives while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
… and
to order the General
Spanky
Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo