The finally decided to put it as a double feature for kids.
Many a child had nightmares after that movie.
I have never seen so many very young children crying at a movie. Rather disturbing. The paradox is that this -is- a very very good movie.
My 14 year old could handle it, but I wouldn't take younger kids to see this.
Rod Serling at least let them jump back into the pool to escape.
The finally decided to put it as a double feature for kids.
Many a child had nightmares after that movie.
ing
Ummm, how about Bambi ???
The film is not marketed properly.
The author is a Christian couneslor whose son was upset by the sudden and senseless death of a friend (she was struck by lightning). The book was written as a way of teaching children to deal with death.
It has been a contentious book every since it was published and won the Newberry Award. It's not only the matter of death, whcih many parents want to shield their cildren from, but also gender issues that keep it a debatable book. The children have gender neutral names--Jess and Leslie. The boy Jess wants to be an artist but his father doesn't consider that manly enough. The girl Leslie, besides having short hair when all the other girls have long hair, is a tomboy and outruns all the boys in their recess race.
This plot sounds like it is more appropriate to one of those novels that high school students are forced to read than it is to a story for smallish children.
Of course being the only female I cried like a baby and my hubby and both boys were neither crying or traumatized by the movie even though all expressed that it was a good movie with a lot of good life lessons.
When I asked my sons why they weren't emotional about the movie both told me "Mom, it's fiction, duh, it's not like it's real life or anything."
Of course being the overly emotional female that I am I bawled like a baby putting myself in the position of losing one of my children in a tragic accident. Somehow my boys were able to separate reality from fantasy, guess their dad has done a good job of balancing me out.
Good post! You echo my sentiments precisely. The fetching Mrs Atos and myself did a date-night preview before taking the boys. I had not read the book and had heard little about it, so I was slammed as was my wife. In the end, we were quite satisfied with the movie, but I dont think the same can be said for many of the children in the audience. Much sniffling. As it stands, I would encourage my boys to read the book, but the subject matter expressed in a movie is an entirely different kind of experence, imo. There was a time, do lets recall, before Hobbits and Harry's, when a boy's favorite hero was a frontiersman named Hawkeye who wielded an unforgiving Long Carabine in a far more brutal world than Terabithia.
Wish I saw this BEFORE SUNDAY.
I took my daughters (5, 9 and 11) and two friends (5 and 10) to this 'fun and adventurous' looking movie. Thought it was something similiar to Chronicles of Narnia. I'm having to explain ALOT 3/4 of the way through this movie to two five year olds who are blubbering and my older kids are just plain sad. This movie sucked to walk out of. Noone was smiling, noone looked happy. Sadly, this was the ONLY
'kids' movie playing this weekend. But looked online and said the PG rating was for "mild bullying". BULL!
Anyway, hate I missed this post.
I read this book when I was five or six. Good book.
Death is a part of life, folks.
Only book I never finished because I was crying too hard.
I wondered if the movie would pretty up the ending. Guess not.
I have thought the fantasy aspect of this movie to be a huge mistake since I first saw the ads. I taught this book to sixth graders. It is NOT a fanciful book.
I fail to see how anyone could think it would be okay to take a 4-year-old to any movie rated PG whether “marketed to children” or not. And I also fail to comprehend how anyone would accuse Disney of marketing this to kids. And even if that were true, the job of a parent is to educate one-self on anything capturing the interest of their child. So instead of pointing the finger at Disney, point it back at yourselves.