How do they feel about live-action musicals?
NB: only one of those kids actually sings, the rest are dubbed by adults. The kids were not happy about that.
Looking at the trivia there reminded me of The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (PG, 1976), the story of a Negro League barnstorming team with characters inspired by Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson. Can be rented via Amazon.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (newer one) has broad appeal. I find Ben Stiller kind of annoying in a lot of movies, but I could watch him in this any day.
It’s amazing that movies I think of as recent are now more than 10 years old….I’ll at least try to keep it to this century and not do too many repeats….
I’ll start with the most recent movies, all of which are Netflix originals that dropped in the past year.
Finding Ohana: Just released. Very much like The Goonies, minus the problematic parts but set in Hawaii.
Enola Holmes: Sherlock’s teenaged kid sister.
We Can Be Heroes: Robert Rodriguez’ kind-of sort-of sequel to The Adventures of Sharkboy and LavaGirl.
Live Action:
Chef
Bend It Like Beckham
Kung Fu Hustle
Shaolin Soccer
Bridge To Terabithia
Okja
Hugo
Night At The Museum
Matilda (surprised no mentions for this)
The Karate Kid (the original)
Miracle (the one about the US Olympic hockey team)
That Thing You Do
Animated:
How to Train Your Dragon (surprised this hasn’t been listed yet either)
Song of the Sea
The Secret of Kells
The Breadwinner
Coco
Rango
Inside Out
I’ll get to Ghibli later……
I just watched Yes Day, a new Netflix movie with Jennifer Garner. It’s really charming and would appeal to a range of age groups.
I am NOT a sports person, and I love this movie. I was surprised by how much I liked it considering how tedious I generally find watching any kind of sports match.
Another sports movie with a lot of appeal even to non-sports people is Cool Runnings. It’s probably older than your kids want, but it’s not a vintage movie by any means. My son saw it around age 10 or 11, and really enjoyed it.
The remake of The Bad News Bears is another possibility. It’s closer to your time cut-off (2005), and while it’s not as good as the original, it’s not bad, and it doesn’t have many of the things you probably wouldn’t want you 8-yr-old to see, like kids smoking.
I find I have a hard time coming up with films from the last 10 years, and I realize it’s because my son was born in 2006, and since then, I have seen very few movies that I did not see with him, and I’m presuming you’ve already seen all of those: the “How to Train Your Dragon” film, the “Cars” films, the “Despicable Me” films, all the recent superhero films, so I have not bothered with those.
I’m trying to come up with films that are more obscure, but that my son liked, and they are generally from before he was born, but he does not have a rule that he won’t watch a film from before he was born.
He really liked the original Yours, Mine, and Ours, from the 1960s, Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, which he saw around age 10. It’s a movie that is engaging for adults as well.
I hope you can get your kids to try a few older films, and see that they aren’t so bad. You don’t have to get them watching Golden Age movies-- if you can just get them watching movies from 1970-2000, there’s a treasure trove of great films.
Cool Runnings, about the Jamaican bobsled team at the Calgary Olympics.
Another vote for Hugo. It’s one of those movies that I wish I would have seen in a theater in 3D.
Things went a bit wonky this weekend again. We almost got to watch Jumanji, but didn’t quite get the votes.
We temporarily have Verizon’s on-demand while waiting for our replacement Tivo, so we looked through the free stuff there and for Friday ended up going with Teen Titans Go to the Movies, which was cute, but not quite as fun as the best episodes of the show.
Not sure how we ended up browsing D+ again on Saturday instead of watching one of the stack from the library, but somehow we ended up with Into to the Woods, which is great and all, but I still can’t forgive them for cutting the two best songs from the stage version (“Ever After” and “No More”).
I was finally able to get the 1st MIB from the library, as well as the first How to Train Your Dragon. (why do the streaming services only seem to have the sequels?). We’ll see if either of those flies this weekend…
BTW, for the record, we’ve seen both Wreck-it Ralph’s, Coco and Inside Out already, and the live action Dora we watched a few weeks ago (surprisingly charming!).
I tried Hugo with my kids. I loved it. They found it dull.
I watched this with my kid. Despite what it looks like, it is NOT a kid’s movie! I had to explain why the super pig was being violently raped.
In case you’re not aware: there is a stage version on DVD.
I wonder how the kids would do with a 7 hour miniseries.
There are a couple good superhero parodies I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet.
Mystery Men A team of misfit superheroes attempts to save Champion City from the evil plans of Casanova Frankenstein. One character has his head imploded by a psycho frakulator, and you might have to explain the PMS Avenger, but family-friendly apart from that (to the best of my memory, at least). Kids might appreciate The Spleen more than you do.
The Tick A nigh-invulnerable superhero protects the Earth, because that’s where he keeps all his stuff. It’s been done a few times, but the original animated series is the best. Start from the beginning.
The Teen Titans “into the teentitanverse” movie was better.
What, no Wolf Walker?
Dick Tracy (PG, 1990) – available for rent via Amazon.
Keeping with that setting: City Heat (PG, 1984) – also available for rent via Amazon. Be advised that the costume-clad bordello customers toward the end might raise some questions.
Late again, but I just wanted to mention My Spy. Totally predictable family comedy about a spy connecting with a single mom and her kid. Lots of cartoony violence but a really sweet movie. It may hit the 14 year olds icky spot, because Romance. The only reason my wife and I even watched this was because I recognized the guy from Guardians of the Galaxy, so I jokingly said we had to watch. Both loved it.
Looking at Studio Ghibli movies, I’m scratching my head at how Spirited Away could be considered too scary for children. There’s kind of a fairy-tale strangeness to it, but it’s not really played for scares or threat or menace. I found the Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline (which is genuinely creepy) much more disturbing than Spirited Away, You can get a sense of the audience-age Ghibli is going for by the age of the protagonist, and Chihiro is 10 in Spirited Away.
The Studio Ghibli movies that skew towards younger audiences (besides Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service) I would say to be: Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Ponyo, The Secret World of Arrietty, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, Whisper of the Heart, and When Marnie Was There. Grave of the Fireflies has young protagonists, but is the saddest movie ever made.
Kids of a certain age sometimes have a lot of trouble with seeing things happen to parents in movies. I’m pretty sure seeing Chihiro’s parents turned into pigs (and grotesquely animated ones at that) would leave my 8 year old waking up calling for us every night for a while. Not every kid, but mine for sure. And no-face is pretty creepy at first as well, if I recall. (Not to mention the old lady with the giant head, whose name I forget.)
We finally got MIB watched this past weekend. There was much screaming in terror. I’d forgotten how scary some moments were, even when played for laughs with what I remembered as more cartoonish violence. But in the end 2 out of 3 liked it and want to watch the sequels, so maybe a win?
The Monuments Men (PG-13, 2014) – dramedy inspired by the true story of unlikely soldiers searching for artwork and other treasures stolen by the Nazis. Can be rented via Amazon.