I really enjoyed Mr Peabody & Sherman. It's a 2014 film adapted from the 1960's cartoons that were part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Rob Minkoff is the director and he's directed an odd assortment of films: The Lion King (1994), Stuart Little (1999), Stuart Little 2 (2002), The Haunted Mansion (2003), The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), Flypaper (2011). I've seen them all, and enjoyed them, but for the last one.
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he movie opens up with a bit of Mr Peabody's backstory, he wasn't wanted as a puppy because he was so brainy. He became a famous scientist and businessman. He finds Sherman in a box in an alley and adopts him. We jump ahead a bit and it's Sherman's first day at school. He gets in trouble when he bites the arm of a girl named Penny who's bullying him. She's calling him a dog, making him fetch. He got mad and bit her. The principal calls Mr Peabody to his office. When he arrives Mr Peabody is ambushed by the annoying and bigoted Ms Grunion from the child protection services. She's adamant that dogs shouldn't have boys. She's coming to call to see what Sherman's home life is like. Mr Peabody invites Penny's parents over for dinner, he's hoping to smooth things out a bit before Ms Grunion comes to visit.
Things don't work out quite the way Mr Peabody has planned. Penny and Sherman take the WABAC time machine without permission and things get weird but funny for the next hour. We meet a bunch of whacky characters from history and have some adventures. The picture above is everyone on the run from an encounter with King Tut. Penny nearly married him. She didn't know that they bury the wives of the King's with their dead husbands. There are plenty of gags and silly things happening. Except for Leonardo's mechanical boy, so creepy. There's a nice bit of sentiment and eventually Sherman's place by Mr Peabody's side is assured. A dog should have a boy.
The Ghost Of The Kasane Swamp is a 1957 Japanese horror film that's directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. He directed the movie, The Lady Vampire, that we watched last week. Someone was nice enough to find a couple more of Nobuo's films on the Internet and we watched this one tonight. A blind money lender and masseur goes to visit a Smaurai on a snowy night. He asks for something on the loan and the samurai kills him instead. The body gets tossed into the Kasane Swamp. The ghost of the dead masseur comes calling and the samurai is tricked into killing his wife. In his sorrow he drowns himself in the swamp. The servant puts the couple's tiny baby in the hands of another family in Edo. Twenty years later the son falls in love with the daughter of the blind masseur. The ghost brings a curse on her and it leads to a lot of death. It's a bit slow moving but it's only 66 minutes long so you hardly notice. It's mostly a drama but there is enough of the supernatural to keep it fairly interesting. It's a nicely shot film with good sets and props. The acting seems fine and the story is interesting but a bit sad. Hardly anyone comes out of this one too well off. It was well worth seeing and I'd watch it again.
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