When Can I Watch 'Rise of the Guardians' with My Kids

Do your kids still believe? 

 

It's an important question as we head into the holiday season. Do they write letters to Santa Claus? Do they put cookies out on Christmas Eve? Or carrots for the reindeer? How about a tooth under the pillow? Is that faith in holiday mystery and wonder still present? 

 

My boys still believe, but I’m not sure how much longer we have left with our observant eight year old. Which helps explain why the warm-hearted, imaginative and effervescent Rise of the Guardians weaved such a spell over our entire family unit. It should do the same for you. 

 

So, let’s figure out when you can watch Rise of the Guardians with your kids. 

 

 

Green Lights: “Everyone loves the sleigh!”

 

How is it no one thought of this before? The larger-than-life symbols of the various holidays – Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Toothy Fairy and the Sandman – form an Avengers-style superhero team to combat the forces of evil around the globe. 

 

Novelist William Joyce gets proper credit for pulling off what amounts to an “origin story” for this group, while Guardians director Peter Ramsey scores points for adapting the narrative with such wit and vivacity. 

 

Guardians also walks a very difficult line, however, in dealing with characters who are far more real to a child than the Hulk or Captain America. At least, that’s what I was reminded while sitting next to our oldest son, P.J., during our Guardians screening. He was more interested than usual at the peeks inside Santa’s workshop and the Easter Bunny’s lair that Guardiansprovides. He relished the answers the film provides about how toys are made, how teeth are collected (and stored), and how Easter eggs are hidden. These are real locations to kids, and Ramsey keeps his animation grounded in a touch of reality that helps sell the mystery to kids and parents alike. 

 

P.J. also trembled, slightly, at Pitch – the film’s chief baddie – but more on him in the Red Flags section.

 

Guardians trades in roller-coaster animation… the perpetual motion of energetic swoops and dives. It utilizes 3D – which is fantastic, by the way – and propels the audience forward to the next emotional cue. There’s a fantastic scene where an innocent, young girl named Sophie runs loose in the Easter Bunny’s lair, and that’s one of many sequences bursting with the joy kids feel during the holidays. 

 

The winning character, though, is the one your kids likely don’t know before heading intoGuardians: Jack Frost, voiced with bravado and tenderness by Chris Pine. The character’s heroism and eventual selfless attitude are the finest Green Lights in Guardians. Jack’s emotional hook also happens to be the fact that he’s invisible to kids because they don’t believe in him just yet. His search for an identity, for a purpose, will connect with several kids in the audience. And his ability to unite the Guardians in their final fight against Pitch, givesGuardians that thrilling punch… making this a memorable holiday adventure that families will adore for years to come. 

 

    

Red Flags: “A touch of fear…”

 

Every superhero group needs a nemesis, and the Guardians – in their debut episode – face off against Pitch (Jude Law), a black-clad demon focused on introducing nightmares into children’s dreams. 

 

“He’s creepy,” P.J. whispered to me after Pitch’s first scene. Every time the character returned to the screen, P.J. leaned a little closer. Stuff like this normally doesn’t phase him. Pitch, however, genuinely unnerved my boy. 

 

It didn’t help when Pitch “killed” a Guardian. It isn’t brutal (and it’s a short-term effect), but at the moment, the loss of a hero bothered my kids. They automatically were attached to these characters. They believe in these characters. And losing one of the Guardians made my boys nuts.

 

They believe. 

 

The final Red Flag might be more for parents, as they realize Guardians addresses the realities and fears that chip away at our kids’ holiday faith. They’re growing up, and there isn’t a single thing we can do about it. Sooner or later, real-life versions of Pitch will eliminate that inherent holiday belief system. Thinking about the day when Michele and I won’t get to do all of the cheesy holiday traditions tied to Santa and the Easter Bunny breaks my heart. At least we’ll always have Rise of the Guardians to return to and relive the joy that comes with such activities.     

 

 

Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson Discuss Violence and Messing with the Audience

This is a great video. It's not a direct conversation between the two filmmakers (although I believe they're friends), but instead is a video comprised of two scenes one fromReservoir Dogs, the other from Boogie Nights -- with commentary from each director on the scene from their movie. Essentially we're talking about on-screen violence here, and the differences between working an audience and letting an audience work you. 

In QT's clip, from the famous ear-cutting scene, he talks about how much he gets off on consistently misdirecting the audience. One scene will be pure comedy, then he'll shock them with extreme violence and make them laugh at the same time. "I love playing with an audience and conducting an audience's response," he says. 

Meanwhile, PTA talks about the first time he watched Boogie Nights with an audience, and how their first reaction to the scene where William H. Macy kills himself completely screwed him up. Comprised entirely of college students, they started laughing and cheering when Macy's character killed his wife and her lover, forcing PTA to freak out a bit. "I sank in my seat and thought what have I done -- I really, really f**ked up," he says. "I've done something wrong in storytelling; I've guided this toward being a funny moment somehow and it's not what I intended. How did I do this? I really started to panic."

Anderson goes on to add that he realized it wasn't him, but the audience, and their reaction to the scene's finale helped him feel more comfortable with its overall effect on people. "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And now we hurt.
Watch the video below:

Watch New, Trippy Videos from Spike Jonze, John Hillcoat and Elijah Wood

Where the Wild Things Are director Spike Jonze started his career making skateboarding videos and is co-owner of skateboard company Girl Skateboards with pro skate dudes Rick Howard and Mike Carroll. It's been a while since Jonze set his camera on the wheels of notable people in the sport, but a new video has surfaced via Slash Film that features Eric Koston, Guy Mariano, Sean Malto, Marc Johnson, Elijah Berle, Jesus Fernandez, Brian Anderson, and others.

Michael Bay's 'Almanac' Sounds Like a 'Back to the Future II' Remake

We first heard about Platinum Dunes’ new sci-fi projectAlmanac back in October, and details were hard to come by. Basically, all we knew at the time was that Dean Israelite would be directing, Michael Bay would be involved in a producer's role, and that the project was being compared to the found-footage film Chronicle. That has apparently changed today.

A Bleeding Cool source has revealed some of the inner workings of the film’s plot – Almanac won’t be a superhero film, but will instead revolve around time travel. Here’s the basic breakdown from Brendon Connelly at the site

Looking to the Future: 8 Science Fiction Movies to Watch for

Since this is a science fiction column, how about we do a little time traveling? After all, 2012 is just about over -- so what awaits us in the years ahead? Although smaller films are surely going to emerge at festivals, here are eight science fiction films coming out within the next year or so that may very well deserve your valuable time and money. Since we're using a time machine (and because this is the Internet), I will also prejudge each movie without having seen a frame from most of them.