Hey everyone! I hope you are doing well! I have another diverse and interesting group of new films to tell you about. I've been a contrarian of late on a lot of the big releases so it's nice to have a group of movies I overall enjoyed. Let's talk about them:
JIM HENSON: IDEA MAN-
I'm a huge Muppets fan. In fact, I just finished up my 7th year of Muppet May on my channel and the final entry is a new documentary about Jim Henson entitled Jim Henson: Idea Man and it's a wonderful celeb bi0-doc about the creator of the Muppets. As a big Muppet fan I must say most of the information in the documentary wasn't new to me but I still enjoyed hearing it again and all the archival and new interviews with Jim's friends and family (I think 4 out of 5 of his children were interviewed.)
There actually have been several good Muppets documentaries including I Am Big Bird and Street Gang about Sesame Street. Both of which I've reviewed for Muppet May.
Smile Worthy
YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA-
If you are new to my reviews you might not know that I am an avid swimmer and have even completed over 15 open water swims in my lifetime. There is nothing better than being in the water trying to get to that finish line! Several years ago I read a wonderful book about female open water swimming pioneers that was highly entertaining called The Great Swim (ad) One of those women profiled in the book is Gertrude or Trudy Ederle who was the first woman to cross the English Channel in 1926. Her story is thrilling show of determination and grit and I was thrilled when I saw that Disney was making a movie about her story.
Swimming is a hard sport to make cinematic because unlike a basketball or running the athlete's face isn't visible because it is in the water. This is particularly difficult in an open water event which takes many hours. How does the director keep interest with so little happening to the athlete in question?
It's tricky but director Joachim Ranning meets the challenge by carefully setting the framework of the risks of Trudy's swim and having enough side characters (even her Mother in New York waiting at the radio station to hear news) to build tension through them. Jerry Bruckheimer produced the fim in and in many ways it has that 90s feel-good picture approach to it. It's got a nice message, about appealing people and makes you want to go out and finish whatever goal you've been sitting on.
I also loved the tiny lap pool they found hidden away in a boiler room in New York City. I'm not sure if that was a set or not but it was very convincing and cool. The dialogue was a little clunky at times but it reminded me of Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken or even Rudy in its old-fashioned charm.
Smile Worthy
BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY-
I guess this is just the week for sweet documentaries about icons of public television because we have one on Jim Henson and one on LeVar Burton and his program Reading Rainbow. It's called Butterfly in the Sky and it is another sweet documentary that fans of the show like myself will really enjoy.
Reading Rainbow ran for many years and it sought to introduce kids to great stories and encourage overall reading. It was neat to get the backstory on how Burton was hired, what books they chose and why and the writing of the iconic theme song. They also have a lot of interviews with now grown kids who read stories on the show and celeb fans who were influenced by the show. This is not groundbreaking film like Won't You Be My Neighbor was but it's a pleasant watch on Netflix I'd recommend.
Smile Worthy
BARBIE & STACIE TO THE RESCUE-
If you don't follow my youtube channel you might not realize I have been reviewing the Barbie movies for many years. I still have 4 more to go but I recently caught up with the latest entry Barbie & Stacie to the Rescue. Like most of the Netflix Barbie movies it's a serviceable entertainment for little kids but these latest instalments have lost some of the moxie and ambitious storytelling of the early part of the series.
In this 43rd entry in the series we have Barbie becoming a hot air balloon pilot and her sister Stacie wanting to help her as co-pilot but she is too young. Sister Skipper is also there with her own attitude and problems. It's fine and pleasant enough but just to give you an idea of the change in ambition here's the plot summary for To the Rescue:
In contrast here is the plot for Barbie: Fairytopia:
And I get it. It's probably ridiculous for me a grown woman to be complaining about the simplicity of animated Barbie movies but nobody else is going to point it out so why not me? The animation is better in these Barbie movies but like so much in streaming ends up as pale imitations of what once was.
Frown Worthy
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