Author Archives: Jeff Giles

About Jeff Giles

Jeff Giles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Popdose and Dadnabbit, as well as an entertainment writer whose work can be seen at Rotten Tomatoes, Paste Magazine, and a number of other sites.

CD Review: Peter Himmelman, “My Trampoline”

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Before They Might Be Giants turned crossing over to kid’s music into a viable business model, Peter Himmelman was doing it — and unlike the whimsical TMBG, Himmelman never seemed like a natural fit for a younger demographic. This isn’t to say Himmelman’s “adult” CDs are inappropriate for younger ears, but they aren’t exactly whimsical, either; in fact, they’re often harrowing self-examinations prompted by grown-up stuff like death, heartbreak, or — in the case of 1992’s absolutely devastating “Untitled” — a long ride with an anti-Semitic cab driver.

So yes, Peter Himmelman may not have been the artist most likely to start a second career as a performer of children’s songs, but here’s the thing: as anyone who’s followed his artistic path is aware, he’s comfortable writing in pretty much any genre (including scoring for TV, which he’s done quite a bit in the last 10 years), and no matter what he does, he always writes honestly, which is the key ingredient in this stuff. That honesty, coupled with Himmelman’s keen eye for beauty and deep insight, is what makes his kids’ CDs so special — a collection now expanded to include his latest effort, My Trampoline. Here, for example, is how he describes his inspiration for the My Trampoline track “Ten Billion Blades of Grass”: Continue reading →

DVD Review: “Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie”

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It’s a stitched-together reissue, and Pooh purists who reject any non-Milne-created character will scoff at it, but Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie should give the junior Hundred Acre Wood lovers in your household plenty of October fun — and since it comes bundled with new extra content and a stuffed animal, you get a little extra bang for your buck, too.

Heffalump was originally released in 2005, but it’s a little more complicated than that: basically, the movie’s story forms a loose bookend around Boo to You Too! Winnie the Pooh, a 1996 television special that’s stuffed in the middle (and actually makes up more than half of the whole program). How does that work? Well, Heffalump revolves around a Halloween celebration that’s ruined when Pooh eats all the candy, and in order to save the holiday, everyone has to run around in the woods to find a wish-granting Gobloon. Lumpy, the Heffalump that will give Milne loyalists conniptions, is afraid to go Gobloon-hunting, so his best friend Roo relays the story of a fateful Halloween for Piglet — a flashback that plunks Boo to You right down in the middle of the movie. Make sense?

If you’ve never seen Boo to You, it won’t matter much; aside from some slightly flaky animation and some transfer artifacts, there isn’t much of a difference between that and the newer content that frames Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie, and in any case, the whole thing delivers all the sweet, modestly paced adventure we look for in our Pooh movies. My daughter (who’s almost four) and son (who’s almost two) enjoyed it, even if they weren’t held rapt by it, and I’m sure we’ll revisit Heffalump again before Halloween.

The extra content includes a variety of games, including DVD and DVD-ROM material, and a “party planner” that gives you printable bingo cards, invitations, recipes, and more for your holiday shindig.

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The set also includes a Winnie the Pooh stuffed doll (fittingly for the Halloween theme, he’s wearing a Tigger costume).

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Blu-ray Review: “Earth”

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Remember when DVD players were mostly a luxury for the home theater crowd, and pretty much anyone who bought one also picked up a copy of Twister to test his system’s limits? Well, it certainly isn’t an audio/CGI workout on that level, but Disney’s Earth is so stunningly gorgeous that it might be the first true “gotta have it” purchase for Blu-ray owners. Yes, it’s just another nature documentary — and in an age when you can switch on Discovery Channel HD at almost any hour and see something that takes your breath away — but…wow. Just wow.

Disney took some heat for the way Earth was assembled, and perhaps rightly so; it’s basically a boiled-down version of the BBC’s mammoth Planet Earth series, and though it uses some footage that wasn’t aired on the show, it’s still mostly reheated goods. But nobody wants to watch seven and a half hours of anything in a theater, and this is Disney — they’re aiming Earth at kids, whose attention spans are built for the film’s 90-minute length. This is actually one of the first projects from the studio’s new Disneynature banner, intended to expose the Disney demographic to the sights and sounds of the world around us, which is awfully hard to complain about. Even if you were enthralled by Planet Earth during its TV run, in other words, don’t be so quick to write off Earth as its shrimpier cousin; in any house with kids, it’s got a charm all its own. Continue reading →