Thursday Movie Picks - Farms

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're going to the country, to visit some farms!

I grew up in the suburb state of Connecticut, where seasonal apple-picking orchards and corn mazes are plentiful. One of my grade-school friends actually lived on a family farm, and while I know we went there a couple of times on field trips, I do not remember anything about those trips. But these farm-based movies, now these I remember really well.

Cold Comfort Farm (John Schlesinger, 1995) This hilarious send-up of British narrative tropes is an underseen delight. Kate Beckinsale, in her film debut, is a perfectly prim (and vaguely lesbionic) Londoner author who goes out to the country in search of "real life", and some long-estranged relatives, and ends up bringing a bit of big city flair to the drab country farm and its inhabitants. If you are a fan of British literature and/or film, there is much to enjoy here, including Ian McKellen as a countryside fire-and-brimstone preacher and Joanna Lumley as Beckinsale's even more lesbionic friend from London.

Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995) "That'll do, pig." This gentle bedtime story of a movie, about a farmer who adopts a runt-of-a-litter pig who becomes a "sheeppig" when the farm's mother sheepdog takes him under her wing, is one of my all-time favorites. The real live talking animal visual effects hold up spectacularly, the performances are all perfection, the production design is lovely, and on top of all that is a message extolling the virtues of kindness and acceptance that plays well to anyone from ages 1 to 101.

Chicken Run (Nick Park, 2000) I am a huge fan of Nick Park's Wallace & Gromit shorts, and this, his first feature, combines a lot of the things that I love about those shorts into one full-length feature-sized package: the fun, endearing characters, the clever and hilarious Rube Goldberg-esque machines, and the ever-so-slightly dark, ever-so-British humor. And a delightfully twisted story: The chickens on Tweedy's farm come up with a plan to escape the POW-camp-like existence with the help of a circus-performer American rooster, as Mr and Mrs. Tweedy develop a new plan to increase production of their chicken pies. The whole film is funny and clever, and endlessly delightful.

Thursday Movie Picks - Kids Movies That Adults Would Enjoy (Non-Animated)

Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Play along by picking three movies that fit the weekly theme and telling us about them!

Well, color me stumped. I kept thinking of movies that I THOUGHT fit this category, only they turned out to be animated, or really for teens not kids, or some such. It's hard enough to make a good film for adults, but a film specifically aimed at children that adults would also enjoy? No mean feat, that. But I think I've found the answer.

A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuaròn, 1995) Maybe it's just because it was when I grew up, but the 90s were something of a Golden Age for family films. There were excellent versions of The Secret Garden and Little Women (directed by Agnieszka Holland and Gillian Armstrong) in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and then a year later there was this, directed by recent Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaròn. The story of A Little Princess is a bit trite (single father brings daughter to boarding school when he goes off to the army; father dies in battle, leaving the girl with no family and no money to pay for the school, and the Evil Headmistress turns her into a sort of elementary school-aged Cinderella, but she perseveres through strength of character and ability to tell stories), but the filmmaking and performances here are top-notch. Cuaròn showed such promise here - it's not hard to see the seeds of the auteur who made Children of Men and Gravity.

Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995) If you don't love this movie, there might be something wrong with you. Just saying. The story of a pig who becomes the world's greatest sheepdog through the power of kindness, Babe is just about the cutest damn movie you ever did see, and somehow manages to make live-action talking animals NOT creepy. Surely the film's Oscar-winning visual effects help, but the great vocal performances go a long way in that regard as well. James Cromwell and the hilarious Magda Szubanski lend perfect human support. In a just world, this would have won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1995.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (Brian Henson, 1992) Words cannot express how much I love this movie. And while I would say it's more clearly aimed at kids than the previous Muppet movies, this one holds the exact same pleasures for adults as those earlier hits. Michael Caine makes for a wonderful Scrooge, the concept of Gonzo (and Rizzo) narrating the story as Charles Dickens provides tons of laughs, the Muppets are all perfectly cast, and the design of the ghosts is perfection. And of course, there are the delightful, tuneful songs.