Brad Meltzer is a solid writer and a really fascinating guy, and his nonfiction bestseller Heroes for My Son (followed more recently by Heroes for My Daughter) is a truly beautiful, heartfelt expression of a father’s deep love and boundless hope for his child. So it makes perfect Hollywood sense that there’s a movie adaptation in the works — and that Adam Sandler is producing it.

I don’t have any particular axe to grind with Sandler, although I suspect that’s because, in spite of my line of work, I’ve been able to avoid most of his worst films — I don’t think I’ve seen one since Spanglish, which I kind of liked, unlike most of the critics who wrote it up. But a movie hardly needs to be made from this book, and Sandler hardly seems like the guy to make it.

It isn’t that Heroes for My Son is a towering work of literary genius, and I’m not arguing that it’s without a certain measure of dewy-eyed New Age dippiness. But Meltzer wrote it from a place of tenderness, good humor, and unconditional love, and if there is a guy in Hollywood who can translate that to the screen without tipping into mawkishness, I don’t think it’s Sandler.

Why does it matter? Because there aren’t enough movies about good relationships between fathers and sons — about the pride we feel for our children, the dreams we have for them, the endless, complicated struggle to show them how to be kind and strong and honest and true. I’m not sure what fart jokes, Rob Schneider cameos, and syrupy third acts have to do with any of that.

Of course, all that stuff sells tickets, which is why Sandler has enough money to go around optioning movie rights to bestselling books, and I don’t begrudge him any of that. This is just another example of Hollywood doing what it does — I only wish they’d done it a little differently in this case.

Oh, I know Dan Walsh and Dave Loftin are going to be thrilled about this news: Ska punk legend and budding kindie phenom Mike Park had so much fun making his first family music album, Smile, that he’s decided to go and start an entire frigging kids’ label.

Christened Fun Fun Fun Records, Park’s new imprint is dedicated to, in his words, keeping “DIY PUNK ethics intact while providing quality and educational music for our kids.” And he’s off to a quick start, with an early slate of releases that includes records from:

Play Date (featuring Greg Attonito from the Bouncing Souls along with wife Shanti Wintergate)
Kepi Ghoulie (from the Groovie Ghoulies)
Happy Wags (featuring Jesse Wagner from the Aggrolites)
Dan Potthast (from MU330)
…and, of course, Mike Park

And the best part is that you can sample Fun Fun Fun’s wares — right now and for free. Just head over to the label’s site to download a five-song digital sampler. Our advice: Play it loud.

If you were a studio publicity flack and you were consciously setting out to create a movie poster that would send a shiver of terror down the spine of every single parent I know, you could hardly come up with a better tagline than “Brought to you by the marketing visionary who brought you Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Eloise.” Not that those shows are terrible, necessarily; in fact, they’re often very good at what they do. But I don’t know anyone who’s asking for more of them — or who’s actively soliciting the input of marketing visionaries when looking for family entertainment.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to discuss The Oogieloves, which sounds like something an old lady gives her cat when she’s feeling lonely but is actually an upcoming film from — you guessed it — producer Kenn Viselman, the guy who ported Teletubbies and Thomas over to American TV. At first glance, the Oogieloves appear to be your standard candy-colored nightmare — on the poster, it looks like the yellow one is being carried away by balloons after shaking off the purple and green ones, who are plummeting to their death and taking out a goldfish in the bargain — but Viselman has a special flavor of hell planned for you.

In the Hollywood Reporter’s remarkably restrained profile on the project, Viselman says he was inspired by a trip to the theater for a Tyler Perry movie, during which he noticed that black people like to yell at the screen. (Hey, don’t look at me like that — I’m just telling you what he said.) After hearing about the midnight screening experience at Rocky Horror Picture Show from a friend, Viselman had a eureka moment that “solved” a “problem” he’d been having with Teletubbies creator Anne Wood, who wouldn’t let him turn the show into a movie:

For years, I thought about how can I win an argument with her to say, see this is why we should make a movie. And that turned into me kind of deconstructing the entire movie-going experience. Why would a child not be happy in a movie theater? Eventually, what it really breaks down to in really simple terms is that young kids are asked to be adults when they go into the movie theater. They’re asked to go there and be quiet, don’t talk, eat your popcorn and drink your soda and just be quiet. That’s not the way children interact.

Do you see where Viselman is going with this? I think you probably do. And truthfully, while the idea of being in a movie theater with dozens of screaming kids makes me want to vomit, it isn’t really the “interactive” idea behind The Oogieloves that I find so repulsive — it’s Viselman’s utter lack of compunction when it comes to admitting that the whole dumb thing was reverse-engineered from the idea that kids need to make noise while they watch movies. Instead of happening upon a story that might have been improved with audience interaction, he worked backwards from the question “What can I do to exploit the under-5 demographic?” — and then had himself billed as a marketing visionary on the poster, thus hammering home the sad reality that this is the way a lot of people approach children’s entertainment, and it’s so commonplace that you’re not supposed to think twice about it.

I just got that what we need to do is allow children to be children, allow them to behave the way they would behave. And so if we created a film that allowed for that, that actually embraced it and encouraged it, we would have an incredibly different experience — not only would it be a different experience on the screen, but it would be a much more successful experience on the shelf. Because you can bond with these characters in a way that you can’t bond in another film, because now they’re your friends, now they’re asking for your help. We break the fourth wall down — we use auditory and visual cues to tell kids when to stand up and sit down. Literally, they are the catalyst for the adventure. And it changes the whole experience.

Viselman isn’t necessarily wrong about creating a different experience, but any parent knows it can be tough to teach kids about context-specific behavior, and I cringe at the notion that what we really need to do is encourage them to act out in an environment where people are usually supposed to be quiet and respectful of their fellow filmgoers. If what Viselman really wanted to do was change his audience’s “experience,” he could easily have left The Oogieloves on the home video market, but that isn’t what this is about — it’s about presenting your local cinema as a more affordable alternative to, I don’t know, Blue’s Clues Live. (Or Miley Cyrus concerts, which Viselman bizarrely references for some reason.) Or, if you want to be more cynical, it’s about selling more of that popcorn and soda to a younger crowd.

The whole thing gives me the heebie-jeebies, to say nothing of the characters’ stupid names (to quote THR, “Christopher Lloyd voices Lero Sombrero, Cary Elwes voices Bobby Wobbly, Cloris Leachman is behind Dotty Rounder, Chazz Palminteri is Marvin Milkshake and Toni Braxton is Rosalie Rosebud”) and Viselman’s plans to roll out a line of “plush, bendable action figures.” It’s all very crass and cynical, and to my eyes, it represents everything that created a need for kindie culture in the first place. Have a look at the trailer and see how long it takes your skin to start crawling:

It’s available now on iTunes, DVD, Netflix, and premiered on PBS’s Independent Lens this week. Check your public listings for showtimes and set your DVR — or just splurge on the on-demand option of your choosing. Trust us, it’s worth the three or four bucks.

Still, Rise of the Guardians looks like a fun time, even if it suggests that the movie will play up the action-adventure elements of the books at the expense of the saga’s thoughtful (and really quite beautiful) childlike spirit. I’m not sure I would have expected anything less, and really, when you hand an animation studio a version of Santa who grew up with Russian bandits, you’re going to get an action hero in return. Synopsis below:

Rise of the Guardians is being written by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole) and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro and Michael Siegel.  It stars Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher and Jude Law. More than a collection of the well-known childhood legends, Rise of the Guardians is an epic adventure that tells the story of a group of heroes – each with extraordinary abilities.  When an evil spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the immortal Guardians must join forces for the first time to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children all over the world.

Take a look here — but if what you see excites you, please do yourself a favor and check out the books. You and your children will love them.

I’m saying this now because while watching Gustafer Yellowgold’s latest magnum opus, Year in the Day, I realized that the wide-eyed little alien from the sun has been peddling the kindie equivalent of prog, what with the concept albums and the fanciful creatures and all the mellow singing about living in harmony, man. And also that my love of all things Yellowgold makes me a dirty old hypocrite.

I admit this. I’m not proud. But in my defense, there aren’t any 10-minute keyboard solos on Gustafer Yellowgold’s records, offering a subtle sonic lesson that all prog bands could stand to learn. (I’m looking at you, Keith Emerson.) Anyway. We’re here to discuss A Year in the Day, which is here, and it is good.

If you’ve ever spent time with the Gustafer oeuvre, you know what to expect: Funny, sweetly melodic songs, driven by acoustic instruments and deceptively simple arrangements, all centering around the adventures of a yellow alien and his assortment of unusual friends. Like the rest, Year in the Day is a “musical moving book,” meaning that in addition to a CD of the songs, you also get a DVD that adds illustrations to the songs. They’re barely animated — “musical moving book” is a perfect description — but trust me, your kids aren’t going to complain. (And neither will you.)

This time around, as the box art tells us, “we find former Sun resident Gustafer Yellowgold enjoying his Minnesota woodland home and experiencing his own unique take on a year’s worth of Earth holidays, both classic and unusual.” (I’d make a Kwanzaa joke here, but I have class.) Like most things Yellowgold, the concept is fairly loose; you’ll be able to pinpoint certain seasonal themes in the track listing (“New Is the New Old,” “Fireworks!” “Pumpkin Pied”), but songs like “Pancake Smackdown” and “Eggs” could fit in on pretty much any Gustafer record.

Which is fine, really. Throughout his career as Gustafer Yellowgold, singer/songwriter Morgan Taylor (who I interviewed for Dadnabbit not long ago) has excelled at the artful blend of silly and sweet that so frequently evades kindie artists, and he pulls it off again here, using non-sequiturial turns of phrase to build a cuddly, homespun vibe that’s pretty much impossible to resist. There are reasons Gustafer is one of the genre’s biggest stars; they are very good reasons, and they are all on display in Year in the Day. Order it with confidence, and prepare to sing along.

Via press release: The Walt Disney Studios unveils an all-new, original full-length CG-animated feature film, “Secret of the Wings,” starring Tinker Bell, one of Disney’s most beloved and iconic characters, along with her fairy friends (Fawn, Iridessa, Rosetta, Silvermist and Vidia) and introducing a sparkling new winter fairy, Periwinkle. Debuting on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD and Digital on October 23, 2012, the film marks the first time ever Tinker Bell will fly on Disney Blu-ray 3D.

For Tinker Bell and the other warm season fairies, the Winter Woods remains a mysterious and forbidden place. “Secret of the Wings” takes audiences on an amazing journey of discovery with Tink, into this forbidden world where she discovers a magical secret that changes her life forever.

It makes sense, is what I’m saying, but it’s still a patently awful idea, especially when the Stooges’ classic films are readily available at very reasonable prices. Seriously, if you think your kids will enjoy the Stooges, just pony up a few extra dollars for one of the many DVD box sets for sale at that Amazon link back there. You’ll get a lot more film for your buck, and none of it will make you nauseous with dread, which is how I felt sitting through the Farrellys’ latest (and, God willing, last) trailer for their exceedingly ill-advised Stooges reboot.

Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you, but watch if you must. And while you’re watching, ask yourself whether it wouldn’t have been a cheaper, easier, and all-around better idea to simply remaster some of the original classics and reissue them. Now that would be a film that dads could happily take their kids to see. This? This is just garbage.

I struggle with this and I hate myself for it, partly because — like a lot of parents — we’ve leaned heavily on older titles with our kids, and I figure if parents didn’t worry that The Wizard of Oz was too dark for their little ones in 1900, or that Hansel and Gretel were going to give the kids screaming nightmares in the 1800s, then why am I flinching inwardly and editing out the nasty bits in 2012?

These are the things I thought about while watching the new trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman. Not necessarily because I think this is a movie full of thought-provoking subtext, but because I’d like to believe Huntsman was sparked by a desire to take fairy tales back to their bloody, violent roots — and even if it ends up being just another crappy action/adventure flick (which, let’s face it, it probably will be), that desire is sort of noble, and something that might even signal a shift away from today’s bubble-wrapped parenting philosophy.

Uh, not that I’m advocating taking your kids to see Snow White and the Huntsman, you understand. But let’s talk about our role as cultural gatekeepers for our kids. How much do you edit stuff when you’re reading books or watching films that contain troublesome themes? How much do you trust your children to handle? And do you feel like we’ve gone too far when it comes to sheltering our kids from the big bad world?