Charlotte's Web

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Last week we looked at Tropic Cinema’s summer program, Attack of the B’s – a “Mystery Science Theater 3000” style extravaganza of bad movies presented every Saturday morning.

As one fan described it to me: “Chris Malcosky and his fiancée Lora Grotte are the hosts each week. Chris is a lifelong movie fan, and researches all the movies so he can give the background of each movie to the audience before each movie. He and Lora also dress in costume of the cast of the movie being shown. Fortunately for the men in the audience Lora has the kind of body that can pull off any costume, especially the ones most of the women in B movies seem to wear. Then the audience proceeds to talk back to the screen while watching that week’s selection.”

So this week we offer counterpoint by looking at the weekly Kids Saturday Movie Club.

Yes, you can drop your kids off for this 10:30 Movie Club showing, then walk straight into the Attack of the B’s for your own wacky amusement. It’s a good plan.

That said, this week’s kids movie is well worth watching by grownups too.

“Charlotte’s Web” is the wonderful 2006 live action feature film based on E.B. White’s classic children’s book.

This is the story of a barnyard spider (Charlotte A. Cavatica, voiced by Julia Roberts) who promotes Wilbur the Spring Pig (Dominic Scott Kay) with messages woven into her web — “Some Pig,” “Terrific,” “Radiant,” and “Humble” — a campaign to save Wilbur from the farmer’s dinner table.

Wilbur is indeed a special pig … and “Charlotte’s Web” is indeed a special movie.

This story deals with death, both real and threatened, but in a way that helps children come to terms with the concept (as much as anyone can).

“Charlotte’s Web” is like a modern-day fairy tale, designed to “help children solve certain existential problems such separation anxiety, oedipal conflict, and sibling rivalries” – as my old friend Dr. Bruno Bettelheim posited in his classic study, “The Uses of Enchantment.”

But this movie offers a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down in the form of such popular faces as Dakota Fanning, Kevin Anderson, and Beau Bridges, along with the familiar voices of Oprah Winfrey, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Robert Redford, Cedric the Entertainer, Reba McEntire, Kathy Bates, and Thomas Haden Church. Sam Shepard serves as the Narrator.

Rotten Tomatoes rates “Charlotte’s Web” as 79% Fresh, saying, “Kids will be entertained by the straightforward plot and cute animals, and adults will be charmed by how quiet and humble the production is, a fine translation of E.B. White’s genteel prose.”

All true. But I think it’s more.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com