Tivo it up, Bright Eyes

Week of May 10-16, 2010

Pick of the Week:
Planet of the Apes (G 1968 - AMC Thur May 13, 7:30am)
This fantastic sci-fi flick works on many levels. Who can resist gorilla soldiers on horses? It's a two-fer -- your kids'll love the talking apes and you get the social commentary. Watch the this one before you see Tim Burton's 're-imagining' or any of the sequels. Watch it for the great make up or for the cool writing, watch it for the great quotable scenes or for the cool, mind-bending time warp of it all. You may have to explain the ending to your youngest, but it doesn't detract from it's awesomeness.

The Secret of NIMH (G 1982 - HDNETMV Sun May 16, 6:45am)
This beautifully drawn and animated feature from Don Bluth was a renaissance of the old Disney style back when feature animation was in an all-time slump. It's a classic good and evil struggle set against the backdrop of a race of super-intelligent mice escapees from a government testing program.(I still wish the story had stayed true to the scientific angle and didn't feel like it had to inject a magic element, but it's still a pretty cool story.) Might be a little dark for the littlest, but lots of fun to look at.

Forrest Gump (PG-13 1994 - TNTHD Fri May 14, 6pm)
Sometimes Zemeckis is like a box of chocolates ... and I pretty much like anything in the box. Gump is that toffee caramel that you remember savoring. Hanks, Wright, Sinise, and Field are all great. It's a fun romp through recent history. The kids will be enamored with the ping-pong and the running and the shrimping and the war and all of the other stories of the doofus done good with the goofy diction. (I still can't get my son Jack to stop referring to his bottom as his butt-ocks.)

Big (PG 1988 - HBOFHD Thur May 13, 1:40pm)
I could make a cruel Penny Marshall joke about the title, but I'm pretty sure the tabloid photo I saw of her over the weekend did it for me. Anyway it's a Tom Hanks buffet in DVR-worthy fare this week. He and the rest of the cast are really good. Big let's the kids see how silly we grown ups are and reminds us how cool kids are.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (PG 1989 - ENCRWA Wed May 12, 10pm)
My kids love to one-up each other and make up fantastical stories (read: 'lie through their teeth for the fun of it'). And they love to hear 'em. This little-seen Terry Gilliam gem takes you on a ride with one of the best yarn spinners in history in classic Gilliam style. Oh and I think there are larger themes there but I got lost somewhere in the moon people and the airship...