Oddball Kids' Movies

[filkertom]

Only a few miles away from me, on Huron Street in Ypsi, is a reasonably new Kroger. I wanted to see if it was as nice as the one on Maple Road, where I have been shopping for a number of years. (The one on Carpenter, technically closest to my new address, and the one up on North Campus are big and clean and have maybe 60% of the stuff at the Maple Road one. The ones at Georgetown and on South Industrial... the less said, the better.)

Not bad. The produce section is huge, and very well organized. The butcher shop and deli seem decent. No Chippery or Boston Market. Very good pharmacy and magazine sections, much larger than any other Kroger in town. One cheapie DVD rack.

And on that rack was a movie I've been meaning to get for years: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

Live-action musical adventure, starring Tommy ("Timmy and Lassie") Rettig as Bart, a kid who dreams of a tyrannical piano teacher, Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried in fine form), determined to prove his "Happy Fingers" method is the ultimate way to learn piano. Bizarre, goofy flick -- one of those that you have to show people to prove it exists.

Did I mention that the story, screenplay, and lyrics are by Dr. Seuss?

What are some of your favorite non-standard kids' films? Things like The Phantom Tollbooth would count here -- most of us in fandom know about it, but it's not a "recognized classic" like Mary Poppins or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or The Wizard of Oz. Oh, and, just to make it more interesting, try to keep away from fully-animated films. As an example, Mary Poppins is only partially animated.

ETA: Oh, let fly on the animateds. Heck, my freakin' example, The Phantom Tollbooth, is about 90% animated.

ETA2: As long as I'm thinking of it, the animated Snow Queen -- the one shown in the U.S. with the live-action intro by Art Linkletter.

Comments

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

Your mentioning The Wizard Of Oz made me think immediately of 1985's Return To Oz with Fairuza Balk as Dorothy (although I wasn't a child when it came out). Beautifully done, and far truer to the Baum books in look and feel than the classic Judy Garland film (much as I love it). I always found the whole wardrobe full of heads thing so deliciously horrifying in the books, and they did a fine job of it in the movie, too.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

We used to have The Worst Movie Critic In History™ at the Ann Arbor News. His name was Christopher Potter, and he was one of the biggest idiots, most pretentious jackasses, and most wrong critics EVAR. Not so bad on theater (although still pretentious), but at movies, feh. He actually wrote at one point that David Lynch's Dune just might be the best movie ever made, because of the clarity of the vision of the director.

Over a period of twenty-odd years, Potter and I agreed on precisely one movie: Return To Oz. When I read that he also thought it was a dark, complex, very well made film, much deeper and more interesting than the usual Disney fare, I spent a moment reflexively considering if I really felt that way about it -- if Potter liked it, what shit was I overlooking?

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

We used to have The Worst Movie Critic In History™ at the Ann Arbor News

Heh. I like the "tm." Sounds like the morons who criticized The Fellowship Of The Ring and The Two Towers, because a) they just didn't get why people liked this stuff and b) the story wasn't finished in installments 1 and 2, even though they were fully aware that the tale was a *trilogy*. <headdesk>

Over a period of twenty-odd years, Potter and I agreed on precisely one movie: Return To Oz. When I read that he also thought it was a dark, complex, very well made film, much deeper and more interesting than the usual Disney fare, I spent a moment reflexively considering if I really felt that way about it -- if Potter liked it, what shit was I overlooking?

Well, hell, I agree with him on Return To Oz, too.

I guess even a pretentious jackass idiot can get it right once in his life. *g* But I can definitely see it giving you pause.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

The biggest off-putting moment in Return to Oz, for me, was the opening in Kansas, where they are putting Dorothy Gale through electroshock to make her forget that "stupid" Oz stuff.

At least, that's what I remember from the movie. Then again, this was the Ron Miller era at Disney, when everything tended to be done horribly wrong.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

One reason I liked Return to Oz was that it was partially based on my absolute favourite Oz book, Ozma of Oz. Of course it was chopped up and intermixed with bits from The Marvelous Land of Oz, but I thought they did a pretty good job of making all of the different elements work together.