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 Though
Easter is, I'm sure, a time of deep religious contemplation for a
great many people, for me it means just two things: sugar and
laziness. Chocolate eggs, the bigger the better, preferably in a mug
with candy inside. And hour after hour of shallow, meaningless fun
spent in front of the telly. That's what Easter means to me, and I
wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, except for maybe
Christmas, when there's more to eat and the presents are better.
Only one thing
troubles me. When I'm stuffed so full of chocolate that it's coming
out my pores, and even the thought of a nice walk leaves me out of
breath, all I want to do is crash in my favourite armchair and be
entertained. Which isn't going to happen this year if, like every
other Easter on TV, we're palmed off with the same old seasonal
shows: boring religious epics
that last whole afternoons, ancient Bond
films we know by heart and, of course, The
Great Escape, a wonderful movie the first five times you see it,
but a gruelling ordeal from six or seven onwards. No matter how many
times you see it, Steve McQueen will never make it over that
fence. |
 The
time has come to get drastic. To no longer rely on the gods of
terrestrial or even digital TV to get us through the weekend. The
good news is there is an alternative, and it's as lazy as I like my
alternatives to be. With Blockbuster's Unlimited Rental
Service, all you have to do is work up a list of the movies you
want to see; then sit back, eat chocolate and wait for them to
arrive in the post. When there's nothing on the telly and the kids,
hopped up on sugar, are driving you crazy - you can pull out your
dinky blue Blockbuster envelopes and offer them something big,
bright and beautiful to watch that they haven't seen a hundred times
before. And the quality will be so much better - digitally perfect
picture, widescreen and stereo with all those extra features many of
us love so much. I swear, sometimes I rent a movie just to watch the
extras. Like Hollow
Man. Didn't like the movie much, but the story of how they
achieved all those amazing invisibility effects justified the rental
by itself.
But I'm
not here to talk about horror
movies this week. I'm here to bang on about family
entertainment, films aimed not just as kids, but also at their
parents, grandparents and maybe even their great-grandparents. It
wasn't always easy in the old days to find something for everyone.
Sure, there were the classics. The
Wizard of Oz, the early Disney's, Mary
Poppins, Willy
Wonka and maybe Freaky
Friday. But when I was growing up, back in the Seventies, films
didn't seem to have such wide crossover appeal as they do now. Twice
a month my mum would take me to the cinema, but only two or three
times a year would she actually enjoy the film she took me too. How
times have changed.
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 Today,
barely a week goes by when something doesn't grab the grown ups just
as much as it excites their kids. We're living in a golden age of
family entertainment, and that's why you shouldn't have to settle
for second best this Easter. How about some recommendations then?
Roald Dahl is a great place to start: Danny
DeVito's Matilda
is just about the most enchanting movie I've ever seen, while James
and the Giant Peach, the tale of a boy, some bugs and a large,
floating fruit, never fails to amaze me. If your kids aren't easily
scared, treat them to The
Nightmare Before Christmas, the weirdest musical ever animated
(with a seasonal cameo from the Easter Bunny!). Pixar continue to
dominate computer animation, and anything they've made is fine by
me, Toy
Story, Finding
Nemo and The
Incredibles among them. Then there are the Shreks,
the Spy
Kids, the
Babes, the
Muppet movies, Mouse Hunt, Stuart
Little and The
Iron Giant, which has just come out in spiffing special edition
form. I'm going to grab my kids now and spend the next week watching
movies with them. I can only hope you'll do the same - With a little
help from Blockbuster Online, of course.
From myself and the entire Blockbuster Online
Team, we wish you all a Happy Easter!
Until next week!
Marshall
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"I don't have to take this abuse from you, I've got hundreds of people dying to abuse me."
Guess
The Film
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