14 Best Pg-rated Releases on Netflix
Trolls
SimilarAladdin (1992), Billy Elliot (2000), Chicago (2002), Dances with Wolves (1990), Dirty Dancing (1987), Enchanted (2007), Fantasia (1940), Forrest Gump (1994), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Ice Age (2002), Italian for Beginners (2000), Mary Poppins (1964), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Muriel's Wedding (1994), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Princess Mononoke (1997), Shall We Dance? (2004), Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Stranger Than Paradise (1984), The Terminal (2004), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Studio20th Century Fox,
The Trolls movies continue to indulge in their best and worst impulses in a third installment.
The poster for this past summer's R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings had a reasonably clever tagline to explain the strained dynamic between the film's two leads. Against an image of Jennifer Lawrence squeezing Andrew Barth Feldman's cheeks, a single word is placed on top of each person's face: "Pretty" and "Awkward." Nothing revolutionary in design, but it gets the job done. Best of all, that tagline also makes for an apt descriptor for Trolls Band Together.
The third entry in the Trolls trilogy (based on the popular 80s dolls), Trolls Band Together does indeed live up to the phrase “Pretty. Awkward.” The animators at DreamWorks keep coming up with gorgeous-looking environments for the titular critters to inhabit that look like they emerged from the wreckage of a craft store explosion. Unfortunately, the writing remains as stilted as ever. Continue Reading →
The Deepest Breath
How long can you hold your breath? A minute? Maybe? Kids time these sorts of things when swimming, but it's not something most of us think about in our waking lives. But I know that when I swim and misjudge the time it takes to surface, panic sets in almost instinctively. The body wants to live. It takes a particular personality to ignore the body's demands in apparent life-or-death circumstances. Stephen Keenan and Alessia Zecchini are two such people. Zecchini's first words in The Deepest Breath, Laura McCann's documentary about Keenan and Zecchini's goal to become legendary deep sea free divers, are about how she's never associated diving with death. I'll grant a writer is more likely to associate everything with death. But I cannot understand plunging into the darkest depths of the earth while holding your breath for minutes at a time and passing out before you can return without thinking of your own demise. Some of us, I suppose, see a Way where the rest see a void. Continue Reading →
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
SimilarAladdin (1992), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), King Kong (1933),
Live and Let Die (1973) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974),
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Evil Dead Rise (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023),
It’s been almost 40 years since that little plumber in the red hat jumped into a warp pipe and into our hearts. Super Mario Bros., released for the original Nintendo system in the US in 1985, is still the perfect video game. It’s simple (you just got to jump around), it has iconic music, and its colorful world is hypnotic even with all those cute creatures trying to kill you. Continue Reading →
The Magician's Elephant
For a movie about the power of faith, hope, and belief, The Magician’s Elephant is markedly unsure of itself. Based on the 2009 children’s book, Wendy Rogers’ feature debut creates a visually stunning fantasy world that ends up feeling completely hollow. A modern fairytale, it follows young boy Peter’s journey to find his long-lost sister after a traveling fortune-teller informs him that she’s alive and all he needs to do to be reunited with her is “follow the elephant.” As luck would have it, a magician’s act gone awry has dropped an elephant in the center of town and the king declares that Peter can have it if he performs three impossible tasks. Continue Reading →
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
SimilarDie Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Free Willy (1993), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Superman Returns (2006),
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
As Puss in Boots: The Last Wish begins, it’s evident that this movie is aiming for a different vibe compared to not only the first Puss in Boots but the greater Shrek series as a whole. A visual aesthetic that evokes hand-drawn animation and rapid-fire editing summons memories of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse or fellow 2022 DreamWorks Animation project The Bad Guys rather than Shrek the Third. Even the handful of pop culture references are more specific and idiosyncratic—Nicolas Cage’s take on The Wicker Man, for instance—than the very broad references the original Shrek movies became famous for. Continue Reading →
Slumberland
Little Nemo is a property rife for play. The dream world of Slumberland is vast, its rules deliberately obtuse — it’s a wonderland full of slippery dream logic where its only limit is a child’s imagination. That Netflix’s spin on the 100-year-old tale should feel so dull and bloated is only the beginning of its problems. Continue Reading →
Falling for Christmas
At this moment, combining Lindsay Lohan and Christmas movies sounds like a gift to viewers. It worked for Vanessa Hudgens with The Princess Switch. Her fellow Mean Girls co-star Lacey Chabert has cornered the market. Now Lohan returns from a 3-year acting hiatus after various setbacks to take on the holiday season in the direct-to-Netflix fluff Falling for Christmas. It seems a sure thing for loyal Netflix and chill folks. Unfortunately, the film fails to capture any true romance, landing flat on its face. Continue Reading →
The Munsters
SimilarBack to the Future Part III (1990), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004),
Ever since Rob Zombie dug through the ditches, burned through the witches, and slammed it in the back of his Dragula, it was inevitable his career would lead to The Munsters. It’s where the coffin car originated and feels like the Rosetta Stone for Zombie’s lifelong passions for the weird and macabre. The TV show aired on CBS in 1964, just six days after the premiere of that other spooky household, The Addams Family. Both shows were satires of the lily-white (and, thanks to racially discriminatory laws, literally White) suburbs that were taking over America. The Munsters was the more popular show then--and the kitschier--which might explain why it holds a special place in Zombie’s heart. Continue Reading →
DC League of Super-Pets
Watch afterThor: Love and Thunder (2022),
StarringJameela Jamil,
Being a pet owner can enrich your life and open your heart to certain movies you may otherwise ignore. If I had watched DC’s new animated children’s film, League of Super-Pets, before being a proud doggy dad, I would have rolled my eyes. I likely would’ve declared it a blatant cash grab that distracts kids with cute talking animals, loud explosions, mediocre animation, and plenty of needle drops that date the film quicker than Shrek. Continue Reading →
Home Team
SimilarAnnie Hall (1977), The Big Blue (1988),
The 2012 Bountygate scandal pushed New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton toward his son, as he spent the season he was suspended from the NFL on the sidelines of a sixth-grade football team. Briefly: “Bountygate” sprung out of a system that Payton, his assistant Head Coach, the Saints’ former defensive coordinator, and the team’s General Manager put into practice that paid players bonuses for injuring key members of opposing teams on the field. Unfortunately, this is the true story at the heart of Home Team, a trite Kevin James vehicle depicting the public suspension of Payton just two years after the Saints victory at Super Bowl XLIV. This isn’t a rise and fall story. It’s a continuous landslide, 95 minutes that reaffirm Payton as an unsupportive father, a way-too-intense football coach, and an all-around negative person to be around. Continue Reading →
Back to the Outback
Sometimes, it takes a moment for a movie’s subversive qualities to register. Bold artistic swings can take a moment to settle in. In the case of the new Netflix animated feature Back to the Outback, it wasn’t until after the credits began to roll that I realized something astonishing: Back to the Outback needle drops Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy”, but not Men at Work’s “Down Under.” It’s a rug pull if ever there was one. Continue Reading →
The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star
SimilarBeverly Hills Cop II (1987), Brazil (1985), The Holiday (2006),
The temperatures are dropping and the stores are getting crowded, which can only mean one thing...it’s time for another installment of Netflix’s holiday cavity-maker...no, not that one. Noth that one either. That’s right, we’re talking Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star, so grab your peppermint martinis and your fuzziest slippers as we delve into the film that begs the question “Is Vanessa Hudgens using Netflix as a vehicle to kiss cute boys?” Fair warning, there are some spoilers ahead. Continue Reading →
Vivo
Vivo, the third Sony Pictures Animation film on Netflix this year, certainly opens on a promising note. We get a full scope of a pristine, modern Cuban setting, awash in warm, vibrant colors and a more textured approach to characters compared to their previous, still-admirable effort, Wish Dragon, though still a milestone away from The Mitchells vs. the Machines, one of the best movies of the entire year. Then, well, Lin-Manuel Miranda starts rapping. Continue Reading →
The Conversation
Not many artists have stretches of greatness so profound that they transcend their medium. They’re not looked at as just a musician or athlete or director, but part of the fabric of modern pop culture at a particular time. What The Beatles meant to the 1960s, or what Michael Jordan meant to the 1990s, is how Francis Ford Coppola defined the 1970s. Continue Reading →