'Bridge to Terabithia' Buckles While Eighties' TV Shows Return to DVD
Burbank, California—As an enchanting children's fairy tale, Walden Media's Bridge to Terabithia is a bridge to nowhere, with notions of work, God and friendship floating around a mixed message about the child's role in the family. A sudden, jarring turn of events in the coming of age fantasy—which barely depicts imaginary Terabithia, a place created in the minds of young teenagers Jess (Josh Hutcherson) and Leslie (AnnaSophia Robb)—makes this one Disney picture parents ought to investigate before watching with children.
Artistic Jess and creative Leslie become friends and embark on various adventures with a younger sister, a bully named Janice and a can of gold paint. Most of what happens involves Jess, whose parents are poor—his unemployed mother apparently does not use birth control while his father, played by the always watchable Robert Patrick, is understandably exhausted—and whose new neighbor is the bright, athletic Leslie. Together, they cross a creek and escape adolescent troubles by entering the kingdom of Terabithia.
Like the stale How to Eat Fried Worms, Bridge to Terabithia, which shares key attributes with the malevolent Pan's Labyrinth, is another Walden picture in which every adult abandons the child. Siblings and classmates are cruel. Teachers sit around singing folk music. Parents default on their responsibility. It falls to Leslie to teach Jess a thing or two and that she does. But everything, not merely Terabithia, feels artificial and manipulative, leading toward a terrible outcome in a capricious world. Better to look before you leap.
DVD Notes
Besides Bridge to Terabithia, new this week is the first season of CBS' one-hour romantic science fiction drama Beauty and the Beast featuring Linda Hamilton (the Terminator pictures) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and the seventh and final season of ABC's situation comedy The Golden Girls. Both are nicely packaged but only The Golden Girls arrives with extras.
In 1987, Beauty and the Beast was a bold stroke of programming, with a hairy beast (Perlman) leading a vague underground resistance to the injustice of the city above and serving as heroic guardian to lonely young, urban lawyer Catherine (Hamilton) with whom he shared a psychic bond. The show earned a following. Six double-stacked discs (22 episodes) in a plastic case include episode notes (visible only upon disc removal).
Another Eighties program, the silly but witty The Golden Girls, starring sitcom queens Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty as old Miami friends and roommates, premieres on a three-disc boxed set with 26 episodes from the final 1991-1992 season with an exclusive look back at the series. The season includes Dorothy's attempt to compete on Jeopardy!, Blanche's family estate saga, Rose's entry into journalism and Sophia's run-in with the Pope. It ends when Dorothy marries Blanche's uncle (Leslie Nielsen).
Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox first gained fame as young Republican Alex P. Keaton on NBC's Eighties sitcom, Family Ties, which premiered in 1982. The show—available Feb. 20 on a four-disc, 22-episode DVD set—shared a similar premise with Norman Lear's unsuccessful Seventies sitcom All's Fair, pitting conservative Richard Crenna opposite liberal Bernadette Peters. But Family Ties, relatively tame and unspectacular in its first season, had a distinct advantage in the appealing Mr. Fox, whose disgust with his ex-hippie parents' (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter) left-wing views resonated with Generation X.
Family Ties tackled serious subjects in its first season, such as sexual abuse by a family friend and Justine Bateman's character, Mallory, was considerably smarter in these early episodes. Future season releases will hopefully include a cast reunion.
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RELATED LINKS
• DVD: Beauty and the Beast - Season 1
• DVD: The Golden Girls - Season 7
• DVD: Family Ties - Season 1
• Scott Holleran Column Index
Artistic Jess and creative Leslie become friends and embark on various adventures with a younger sister, a bully named Janice and a can of gold paint. Most of what happens involves Jess, whose parents are poor—his unemployed mother apparently does not use birth control while his father, played by the always watchable Robert Patrick, is understandably exhausted—and whose new neighbor is the bright, athletic Leslie. Together, they cross a creek and escape adolescent troubles by entering the kingdom of Terabithia.
Like the stale How to Eat Fried Worms, Bridge to Terabithia, which shares key attributes with the malevolent Pan's Labyrinth, is another Walden picture in which every adult abandons the child. Siblings and classmates are cruel. Teachers sit around singing folk music. Parents default on their responsibility. It falls to Leslie to teach Jess a thing or two and that she does. But everything, not merely Terabithia, feels artificial and manipulative, leading toward a terrible outcome in a capricious world. Better to look before you leap.
DVD Notes
Besides Bridge to Terabithia, new this week is the first season of CBS' one-hour romantic science fiction drama Beauty and the Beast featuring Linda Hamilton (the Terminator pictures) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and the seventh and final season of ABC's situation comedy The Golden Girls. Both are nicely packaged but only The Golden Girls arrives with extras.
In 1987, Beauty and the Beast was a bold stroke of programming, with a hairy beast (Perlman) leading a vague underground resistance to the injustice of the city above and serving as heroic guardian to lonely young, urban lawyer Catherine (Hamilton) with whom he shared a psychic bond. The show earned a following. Six double-stacked discs (22 episodes) in a plastic case include episode notes (visible only upon disc removal).
Another Eighties program, the silly but witty The Golden Girls, starring sitcom queens Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty as old Miami friends and roommates, premieres on a three-disc boxed set with 26 episodes from the final 1991-1992 season with an exclusive look back at the series. The season includes Dorothy's attempt to compete on Jeopardy!, Blanche's family estate saga, Rose's entry into journalism and Sophia's run-in with the Pope. It ends when Dorothy marries Blanche's uncle (Leslie Nielsen).
Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox first gained fame as young Republican Alex P. Keaton on NBC's Eighties sitcom, Family Ties, which premiered in 1982. The show—available Feb. 20 on a four-disc, 22-episode DVD set—shared a similar premise with Norman Lear's unsuccessful Seventies sitcom All's Fair, pitting conservative Richard Crenna opposite liberal Bernadette Peters. But Family Ties, relatively tame and unspectacular in its first season, had a distinct advantage in the appealing Mr. Fox, whose disgust with his ex-hippie parents' (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter) left-wing views resonated with Generation X.
Family Ties tackled serious subjects in its first season, such as sexual abuse by a family friend and Justine Bateman's character, Mallory, was considerably smarter in these early episodes. Future season releases will hopefully include a cast reunion.
$
RELATED LINKS
• DVD: Beauty and the Beast - Season 1
• DVD: The Golden Girls - Season 7
• DVD: Family Ties - Season 1
• Scott Holleran Column Index
