Children’s Summer Film Series
Through Aug 26 at the Little Theatre.
Second only to a ringing cell phone and just north of a repeatedly kicked seat, the presence of kids is the most feared and hateful phenomenon of summer moviegoing. But now that everyone you know is having kids, it’s no longer acceptable to think of the wee ones, crammed into multiplexes like clones waiting for commercial soma, as someone else’s problem.
After all, it’s no big reach to think that the unrelenting aesthetic vulgarity of mainstream “family entertainment”–with its burger tie-ins, poo jokes, and treacly morality–is more to blame for circus-like behavior than hapless parents. If you were a kid watching this rot, you’d run around screaming, too. The little fuckers deserve better; leave it to the Northwest Film Forum to offer it in kid-friendly environs during parent-friendly daytime hours at fair prices (adults $5/kids $2.50/$2 for groups of 10 kids or more).
The Children’s Summer Film Series (all shows suitable for ages two and up) is an annual program of movies designed to entertain young viewers, but also to offer them a first glimpse of cinema’s capacity to enlarge the perception by challenging it, instead of overstimulating it. There was a time when films and books were made for young audiences, rather than aimed at them. NWFF’s series, which began last week with Seattle filmmaker Rick Stevenson’s The Dinosaur Hunter, moves nicely along those lines.
Next up is “Movie Magic,” a program spotlighting the evolution of that summeriest of movie elements, special effects. “Magic” starts with early French silents whose creators were basically inventing the tricks as they went; moments like the famous Méliès’ rocket in the moon’s eye were born of eager experimentalism in a brand-new form, in which there were no rules to break. We then jump forward to the ’50s and ’60s, and experimental animation whose handmade character presaged the crude, retro styles of South Park and, to a lesser degree, The Simpsons. (Thurs July 26 at 11 am; Sun July 29 at 4 pm.)
The following week brings an exhibition of animated stories of Dr. Seuss–the best example, alongside Sesame Street, of an era of truly glorious, timeless kid art–many of which are nearly impossible to find on video. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943), Horton Hatches the Egg (1942), The Cat in the Hat (1971), and Dr. Seuss on the Loose (1973), featuring “Sneetches,” “The Zax,” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” remain in the cartoon firmament because they give life (and, I think, serviceably jazzy songs) to the static pages and thrumming verse of one of the 20th century’s great artists. (Tues July 31 and Thurs Aug 2 at 11 am; Sun Aug 5 at 3 pm.)
For my money, the best feature of the whole series is “Appreciating the Universe–A Hubley Studios Jamboree.” Abstract and joyous, the animation of Faith and John Hubley (who walked away from Disney lucre to go the independent route long before such a path was fashionable, much less thinkable, in ’50s America) bops and dances to a jazz beat, spilling over with buoyant, celebratory humanism, awash with color and narrative smarts. The Hubleys (who begat Georgia Hubley, the drummer of Yo La Tengo, itself a font of abstract-y joie de vivre) painted a freeform world, one where texture and kinetic form, holding hands with lively music and narration, stood in for representationalism, thereby digging straight into the mainline of viewers’ imaginative powers. Given the ugly death of popular animation as an expressive form, these films–Upside Down, Who Am I, Moonbird, Tall Time Tales, Windy Day, and Cloudland–are a must for all ages. (Tues Aug 7 and Thurs Aug 9 at 11 am; Sun Aug 12 at 4 pm.)
A bit of archaic frivolity follows, with a bunch of ’70s cartoons from the groovy heyday of Filmation and Hanna-Barbera (were all animators stoned even then?), including Groovie Ghoulies and Josie and the Pussycats. (Tues Aug 14 and Thurs Aug 16 at 11 am.)
And finally, a little anime. This year’s offering in the incredibly cute sweepstakes: Panda! Go Panda!, worthy by its title alone (have you ever seen a panda “go”?), in which two pandas and a little girl befriend a tiger. You couldn’t ask for a better way to end your summer. (Tues Aug 21 and Thurs Aug 23 at 11 am; Sun Aug 26 at 3 pm.)
