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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Adventure > Animals > Wild Life > Comedy > Intelligence > Illness > Math > British > Satire > Educatio > 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 (19

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


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