The Black Stallion (1979) and Walking with Dinosaurs (2013)

The perfect examples of the most polar of children’s films. The best. The worst.

The Francis Ford Coppola-produced “The Black Stallion” is one of my absolute favorite films to watch, it’s cinematography unparalleled, and I knew that awe even as a child, although I had no idea about cameras or light or imagery. It was instinct. I knew I was watching something special. 

This is an emotionally-charged and assured film so confident in its story, human and animal actors, and visuals that an entire 30 minute section plays with do dialogue, only music (by Carmine, Francis’ father) and sound effects as a young boy (Kelly Reno) lost on an island befriends a rampaging horse, the Black, after the two are thrown from a sinking ship. 

No movie would do that now. The trust in children to *get* emotion and relationship, no explanation needed, is gone. (Just wait a few paragraphs to see.)

Also gone: The nerve to have a child onscreen breakdown, as Reno’s boy tells his mother (Teri Garr) months after the fact of his father’s death on that sinking ship, and that he did not save the horse’s life, but it saved his life. That scene wrecks me still, and I’m 40. 

Reno, by the way, gives one of the great child performances of any film, much of his performance relying on eyes or body language, his interaction with the horse. A long, wide shot – uncut – of Reno offering the horse seaweed to eat is stunning, visually and through acting and framing. 

And patience. That’s a compliment. We watch the relationship between the boy and horse birth and grow. A lesser film would have cut, moved on. 

Yes, the story goes to the races, literally, with Mickey Rooney (God, he’s so grand here) as a trainer, but so what? This is pure adventure, beautifully told by director Carroll Ballard and photographed by Caleb Deschanel. (They later made the equally smart, deeply emotional “Fly Away Home.”) 

Now, the recent BBC-made “Walking with the Dinosaurs” is the full opposite, poison to a child’s mind as “Black” is a gift. In short, I hated this film like no other that I have since 2004’s “Phantom of the Opera” or 1997’s “Batman and Robin,” films that have nothing but visuals fireworks and effects endlessly vomited on screen as painfully inept dialogue and pop-music music hammer constantly and ceaselessly at any sensible person’s ears and soul. 

(It doesn’t help that I watch these films back-to-back.) 

We open in present day as a sullen teenager –- we know he’s awful because he wears a hoodie, instant fashion accessory for human scum I suppose –- talks in movie character exposition to his best pal via cell phone about being stuck with his uncle and sister on a dinosaur dig. Yes, really. Stuck. 

No worries, though, as a talking bird – voiced John Leguizamo – soon lands and tells teen boy about the winders of the dinosaurs. Here we flash back millions of years to a dino family of father, mother, and new hatchlings, including runt of litter Patchi (Justin Long) as their dino heard makes eats, travels in season, and avoids hunting beasts. So, nothing happens. “Land Before Time” was better.

The story is abysmal and simple-minded, jumping to jokes about poop showers after another dinosaur defecates on baby Patchi. More pop and shit jokes follow. Really, if you want your child to repeat “poop shower” on end, this is your bag. Of shit. That Patchi is a moronic child is of no help. 

Leguizamo narrates in a cringing, whining voice every pierce of action as if we cannot see it, and throws out witty sayings such as, “Don’t get too attached, this place will be an oil field one day.” He says, “whatever!” a lot. He makes pop culture jokes that fall flat. 

The voice actors talking for the dinosaurs re-explain everything going on, for the really stupid audience. When the father dies on screen, we are told he is dying on screen. “Stallion” uses silence to tell its story. “Dinosaurs” won’t shut up. 

The talking is ceaseless and grating, and when it pauses, light FM music that could lead to elevator suicides, pops in. 

There is always noise. Constant noise. Every time a new beast appears, the film stops dead so a random girl can repeat the name of the beast and spell it out. I cringed every time. None of the character’s mouth’s move, so we’re led to believe all the talk to telepathic or the animators could not swing mouthing. 

At one point this movie was to be a near-silent film, only a small bit of narration. The studio -– 20^th Century Fox -– got scared, and brought in the voice “talent” and the poop jokes because they think children are stupid or trusted to pick up on story beats. Every frame is a condescending slap to any girl or boy who enjoys learning.

“See and feel what it was like when dinosaurs ruled the earth,” the tagline promises. No. Dinosaurs didn’t laugh. Dinosaurs didn’t make movie references, or jump in rivers to save their girlfriend. Dinosaurs didn’t make poop shower jokes. Nor did any dinosaur ever bet money on another set of dinosaurs fighting. Nor did ninjas exist back then. 

I’ve read suggestions to watch the movie with the sound off. That won’t help.

Black: A+

Dinosaurs: F- (I have not given a film this grade in a decade. A regular F will not do.)

Dredd (2012) and Mad Max (1979)

It’s the future, so bring on the apocalypse. I downed cheapo, gonzo 1979 Australian classic (and Mel Gibson debut) “Mad Max” as a fast antidote to “Dredd,” the second cinematic coming of comic book anti-hero killer cop Judge Dredd after the God-awful, terrible 1995 Sylvester Stallone film of the same name that put freakin’ Rob Schneider in the sidekick role. 

(The less said about that debacle, the better. It took me months to recover from just one viewing.)

Is “Dredd” better? By far. Miles. It’s still crap. For myriad reasons. The plot: It’s post-nuclear war U.S. of A., and the whole East Coast is a godless concrete jungle of high rises and crime. The police and courts have been merged into the Judges: Leather-clad, masked cops with guns and a glint to kill. Basically, it’s like present day America except everybody is an unarmed young black man. You can get “judged” and end up in a body bag just for walking. Sorry, I digress. Still on a “FrutivaleStation” kick. Can’t help it.

Anyway, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the best (read: most ruthless) cop in Mega-City (because Metropolis was taken) and we follow him here as he takes on a high-rise apartment tower that reaches for the heavens, but might as well plunge low to the pits of hell. As in 1995, Dredd has a sidekick. And it’s a she, and not Schneider in drag, thank the gods. Helmetless because why stump the fan boy’s eye candy factor, Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) also is a mutant who can read the thoughts of others. Why are there mutants popping around? No idea. 

Dredd and Anderson enter the complex to investigate a grisly drug-related triple murder and within minutes find themselves at the mercy of the building’s ruthless drug lord (Lena Headey). Mama she is called, and she places the building on lockdown and tells every thug ruthless, shitty, one-eyed, tenant over an intercom that she wants Dredd’s head now. From there it’s war, the tenants attack our hero (and the girl rookie) and he shoots, bombs, kicks, scowls, and grimaces his way through the lot to the top.

If One Man Against an War Zone Apartment Complex and the intercom bit sounds familiar it’s because the plot and details were done exactly point-for-point in “The Raid,” an kick-ass Indonesian action/blood fest also from 2012. Literally, this is a replica. Down to camera angles. Everything says director Pete Travis is innocent, it’s a mere coincidence. If it is, “Raid” is still the better film. And Travis has the luck of a rat. “Raid” has a hero that means something and is one hell of a sight to behold, has a human trait, and a reason not to fail. It’s also a spectacular feast of stunts. Seriously, see it.

This has CGI glut, a zero hero with Urban (good actor, no slam, I like him) doing Eastwood as an unkillable tank, and it all means nothing. Absolutely nothing. I get it. Dredd is supposed to be the darker Dark Knight. Great read for a book, I’m sure, bur a lousy watch and with so many wasted opportunities. Dig it: Mama has created a nasty drug that slows the brain to a crawl so every movement feels wicked trippy, lights pop, and rushing water stands still, and the effect is crazy wicked on screen. So let’s see Dredd on that shit, right? No. Dude just kills and scowls. I won’t watch a third film. C 

“Mad Max” I can watch endlessly. You know the plot: It’s the near-future, meaningful authority is dust-bin history, and the highways are open roads of lawlessness akin to old Australia or the American West than anything we’d call the future. Zero horses, all cars. Gibson is Max, a highway cop trying to maintain some order against roaming bikers who steal, rape, and kill for the pure glee. The bikers make the error to wrong Max’s friends and family, and Gibson as Max explodes like a fuel-air bomb in a film that feels not scripted or planned, but captured out of a complete drug-fueled nightmare. Not slow like in “Dredd,” but warp-speed head-rush fast.

Whole sections of “Max” are incomprehensible and wreck loud, but few films -– especially chase ones -– have ever felt more in the moment. It vibes like a tale that had to be made or writer/director George Miller and his star would just die. And for all the story’s debauchery, Miller shows little blood or gore. It’s just over the camera frame’s edge, way deep in our skull, and that is scarier than anything anyone can put before our eyes. Gibson is young and scary fanatical, is that acting? A-

The Muppet Movie (1979)

“The Muppet Movie” is perfection. This is one of the first movies I saw in a theater. The very Jim Henson fourth-wall tweaking story has Kermit the Frog making his way from his tiny swamp to Hollywood, meeting his felt gang (Fozzie, Piggy, Scooter, Gonzo, and even Big Bird) along the way, and outsmarting Charles Durning as a seller of fried frog legs. Yikes! The kick, so to speak, other than seeing the Muppets move freely, ride bikes, and drive cars: Henson’s unparalleled love of entertaining children with no pandering still warms my soul. He celebrates each child in the audience, upholding above all the joyous wonder, curiosity, imagination, and intelligence of the very young. No studio does that now. Not one. “Rainbow Connection” truly is one of the greatest film songs, that final verse saying you -– the children -- make all this possible. For the adults, the humor – loner Rowlf takes himself for a walk -- and guest stars –- Richard Pryor! -– never tip toward concession or ridicule. I can drone on forever of my love for “Muppet Movie.” I love it now as I did at age 5. A+

Argo (2012)

Ben Affleck’s directing career has hit orbit. “Agro” is the crazy/ genius/brilliant/true tale of CIA agent and the Iranian Hostage crisis of 1979. I was five. “Star Wars” defined me. Thousands of miles away, Iran burned under a sick and violent Islamist dictatorship. Our embassy was rushed by zealots out for blood. Hostages were taken. The world panicked. War considered. A ray of hope unbeknownst to us: Six Americans escaped and hid inside the home of the Canadian ambassador, blind from Iranian grip. (Chris Terrio’s crackling script takes liberties here, as the six were split up. But never mind that.) How to extract the six? Enter CIA agent Chris Mendez (Affleck) and a bold plan: Ferret the group through the main airport as a “Star Wars” rip-off film crew, all under the Iranian Army’s watch. Pumped with tense drama, and dark political and Hollywood humor, “Argo” may be 2012’s best film, gripping and ingenuously played from the start. Affleck as a Hispanic-American is bullocks, but 10 minutes my qualms fell silent.The kicker: Our 2012 is no different, outside of shaggy hair and five channels. “Star Wars” still defines me, our embassies fall to madness, and Iran burns. I love this film.  A