seen-it: Miracle Maker

Easter family film night - the obvious choice really.

Still remains the best adaptation of the Gospels if you ask me. Highly accurate, and the characterisations & the narrative blank filling are all plausibly done. Even the reference to Sepphoris at the beginning is an interesting inclusion ... I never realised it's existence til one of my college lecturers asked the question "Could Jesus have been alluding to Sepphoris when he talked about a city on a hill?"

JE, AJ & EJ all had lots of relevant questions which showed they were comprehending what was going on and attempting to make it relate to what they already know. And the crucial Passion week events are all done superbly for a child audience.

Still kind of amazing that film 4 were involved with this production - can't imagine them doing such a straight Biblical interprtation now. Proved it's weight in gold for use in children's work of course!

seen-it: Outnumbered (Series 1)

What a great find this program was (though a referral more than a find to be honest). And it's a great present to have received on my birthday! We were very disciplined at only watching one episode a week rather than having a gluttonous "Outnumbered" fest!

Having seen series 2 first didn't spoil anything. And one of the great things about the program is how well each episode stands alone.

Plenty of laugh out louds - the particular outstanding favourite has got to be the family day out to the farm! The correspondence between the mini-me's and the characters is almost uncanny - but shows what a good job the writes have done with getting the empathy level spot on.

Don't feel it was quite as good as series 2, but it's marginal. And it's a bit of a shame it tried to be quite so poignant at the end ... bit like when boy bands go for their ballad stage!

Not sure it's destined to be get as many repeat showings as "Alan Partridge" & "Fawlty Towers" but it's definitely not a single watch series either.

seen-it: Monsters Inc

This is one from our Pixar boxset which gets a regular viewing - the latest just the other week for film night.

That says it all really - brood and MA & me still not tired of it yet. And still keep noticing lots of subtle background details. EJ also puts it on fairly regular during the daytime so there's a draw for even the littlest.

And the 'laughter greater than fear' message is pitched well enough not to have become wearisome - and is actually worth reminding myself of to!

seen-it: WALL-E

Got mixed reviews from people I know so didn't really have much in the way of expectations. I was left disappointed by "Cars" so was keen to see what they did with this.

Anyhow, turns out to be a real crowd pleaser in our household - JE & AJ are re-watching it pretty regularly. And even I wouldn't mind watching it again. Which is always a sign of success for a family film.

The graphics are as astounding as ever but don't get the feeling they've put in lots of superfluous scenes simply to showcase the graphics (ala "Cars"). The environmental message is overt but not overly patronising or nauseating. Lots of great little subtleties for us grown-ups.

It was interesting too how they built up the story. When you've got almost no dialogue, to keep the attention for 100mins is quite a tall order, but they got it just right - introducing a new layers & scenarios at regular intervals. The 100 mins whizzed by, whereas Cars 118 mins felt much longer. Another Pixar household hit!