The Children's Film Festival still has four days left, and it is fun, whether you are a child or a man-child or me or just a child enthusiast. Kids' movies can be as complex as grown-up movies, and they're often more beautiful and weird. And I apologize for using the phrase "child enthusiast" earlier. If you are the wrong kind of child enthusiast—the kind who has to register with the government—please do not attend the Children's Film Festival.

FROGS AND TOADS (Sun Jan 31, 3:30 pm)

Are foreign children cuter than domestic children by default? Because seriously—if someone told me that I could get knocked up right now and a little Dutch boy holding a baby frog and a magnifying glass would come out and run around pretending to be an airplane and then fall in a mud puddle all Dutch-style, then, um, direct me to the nearest, well, penis, I guess. (That's how it works, right?) Anyway, this is a movie about a little Dutch dude whose asshole brother tells him that frog spawn is the only cure for a tonsillectomy. So he is all, "PEACE, BITCHEZ," and runs for the countryside and makes a new best friend and eventually arrives (frog spawn in hand) at the house of his grandma—a hilarious old gal who cooks pancakes and nurses meadow animals back to health. WHY DIDN'T I HAVE ONE OF THOSE?! God, Europe makes me angry.

MOOMIN AND MIDSUMMER MADNESS

(Sat Jan 30, 1:30 pm)

Clearly the only things that could make hippos better are if they had downy fur, no mouths, and were Finnish. Right? Lucky for everyone, we've got the Moomins—a family of furry hippo-trolls who have picnics, learn lessons, and live in the Finnish forest like a bunch of assholes. God. They're so cute. I hate them. (WHY WON'T THEY COME SNUGGLE WITH ME?!) But here's what I learned from this movie: Furry hippo-trolls? Not so great to have around in a crisis. Those are some nonchalant little dudes. When a volcano erupts and causes a tidal wave that floods their entire Moominvalley, the Moomins are all (paraphrasing), "Don't you hate it when your toothbrush falls into a crevasse? That is like the number one inconvenience of volcanoes." And (not paraphrasing), "The end of the world? I doubt it. Why don't we all go to bed now." Priorities, Moomins! Priorities! Then the Moomins move into a floating theater and learn about prima donnas, raging against the machine, and the existential pain of incarceration: "Before one has lived behind bars, one cannot understand how fine it is to be free and how beautiful open space can feel."

That's the sort of shit Europe is teaching its children. No wonder they're so much better than ours. God, I wish I could get my hands on a European child. Wait. Not in a child-enthusiast way, though. Please don't call the government. WAIT!