Children's Films; Coraline(2009), Penelope(2006), Prince Charming(2001)

Well, you can gladly forget anything nice I said about Martin Short a couple of weeks ago, Prince Charming was diabolically bad. A horribly weak version of Les Visiteurs with terrible cgi and a waste of Bernadette Peters and Billy Connolly.

So I joined the library and rented three films last week- children's films of course.

We in the house of Children's Illustration had been told by our friends that Coraline was worth a watch, Linn insisted it was traditional animation (it was actually a combination of cgi and stop-motion) and Lauren insisted you had to see it drunk and in 3D... It was a really trippy film that started off too quickly and then went on and on and on. We were all sober and had no idea what was happening. But it looked pretty and the casting of Teri Hatcher's voice as a disgusting bony old witch was spot on.

Penelope could have been much better than it was but it also suffered from a rushed, confused beginning and far too many sexual innuendos (in your end-o) for a children's flick- though not as many as Prince Charming which was frankly GROSS. The cast was good and everyone did well with their American accents (to accommodate three actual Americans in an all British ensemble). Lots of underused actors (including the romantic lead James MacAvoy!) Russell Brand appeared for no reason and didn't even get any jokes so you can't blame him for the innuendos. It was funny however to see Nigel Havers a self proclaimed Letter Box Actor turn up as someone's dad; brilliant over-acting, just what you need in a kids' film- So in this sense of course Richard E. Grant as Penelope's dad was also brill.