KIDS FIRST! News

KIDS FIRST! has just launched the Film Critics Search for eight lucky kids who will be 2012’s KIDS FIRST! youth film critics. You’ve been reading, all this year, reviews and interviews by last year’s winners – and seeing their enthusiasm shine through on the video versions. That experience is now open to a new roster of KIDS FIRST! youth film critics.

Kids aged six to 14 who love movies and love to talk about them – universal attributes, right, parent? – have the chance of a lifetime as KIDS FIRST! opens our second annual Film Critics Search on Oct. 25.

Choose one of these titles: Happy Feet; Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer; GLEE, Season 2; Spy Kids: All the Time in the World; and Barbie: A Perfect Christmas.

Watch the movie, write a review of the movie and create a video of yourself reveiwing the movie, and submit your entry by midnight, Dec. 31. We’ll post the video on our partner site at WonderWorldTV.

The guidelines and the tips we’ve put together for you on our website are full of suggestions to help you.

Finalists will be chosen by public voting, so tell your friends to be sure to visit www.wonderworldtv.com/kidsfirst often to vote their favorite. Last year’s contest generated 11 million votes! Then, on or about Jan. 11, we’ll announce the winners.  

The eight KIDS FIRST! Film Critic Search winners will experience life as a film critic for 12 months — being among the first to view new theatrical releases and writing blogs and reviews for KIDS FIRST! and our media partners, and even attending red carpet events and interviewing the celebrities there. Wow! And not only is it a blast, it’s educationally sound – we don’t expect everyone who enters to pursue a career as a film critic, but the skills the child learns simply by entering the campaign are useful. And the winners are coached by leading professionals who help them develop skills that will last them a lifetime.

In the final selection, the eight winners will be chosen from the finalists by our panel of distinguished judges: Thelma Adams, who was the film critic at Us Weekly for 11 years following six years at the New York Post and whose debut novel, Playdate, was an O Magazine pick; Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures; Ben Lyons, E! film critic and frequent contributor to “Good Morning America”; and George Pennacchio, the entertainment reporter for “ABC7 Eyewitness News” and host of ABC7’s “Evening at the Academy Awards” pre-show and post-show, whose career has been studded with three Emmy Awards, the Publicists Guild of America’s Press Award and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, North America’s largest critics group.

Campaign support comes from national nonprofit organizations that include the National Council of Women’s Organizations, with a cumulative 17+ million members, and the National Education Association. And our thanks also to our industry supporters: Amazon.com, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Feature Films for Families, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video and WonderWorld Entertainment.

GLEE invites everyone across America to lend their voices – and their votes – for their favorite videos in the GLEE “Give a Note” campaign to help save music and arts programs in public schools.

One dollar for every GLEE Season 2 Blu-ray and DVD sold goes toward the $1 million guaranteed commitment. The GLEE “Give a Note” campaign was creatd by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment in partnership with the National Association for Music Education to help save music and arts programs in public schools. With more than 300 public schools nationwide submitting videos for grant consideration, your vote will be critical in determining the outcome.

After a month-long submission phase this past September, each video entry is up on http://www.gleegiveanote.org/ – and now you can cast your vote to decide the finalists. Visit http://www.gleegiveanote.org/ to view videos and vote once per day until voting ends on November 8, 2011, at midnight. The schools receiving the most votes will move on to a final selection made by the National Association for Music Education, which ranks among the world’s largest arts education organizations and marked its centennial in 2007 as the only association that addresses all aspects of music education, from preschool through graduate school. In December, the winning schools will be announced, with three grand prizes of $50,000 each, 10 first prizes of $25,000 each, and 60 second prizes of $10,000 each.
 
For more information, including official rules, visit http://www.gleegiveanote.com/. GLEE Season 2 Blu-ray and DVD is now available in stores everywhere.

This year’s chance to win the coveted National Parenting Publications Awards has been extended to Aug. 15 for DVDs in the Children’s Products Competition. Recognized for 20 years as a valued “seal of approval” by parents seeking quality children’s products, a NAPPA win conveys merit – and gains the product tremendous exposure in coverage that is both free and easily accessible to consumers. Gold Winners are prominently featured in the special NAPPA Winners November/December Issues of over 30 parenting publications in the top metro markets across the United States and as well as online on parenting websites and mom blogs. Gold and Honors winners are guaranteed a full year of ongoing online coverage on the NAPPA pages of Parenthood.com, the most content-rich site for parents on the Web.

KIDS FIRST!’s own Ranny Levy is a judge for the DVD category. Like Ranny, all the judges are experts in their fields, and the DVDs are also tested by parents and children. So when parents see the NAPPA-winning seal, they know they are getting a great quality product of high educational and entertainment value.

Winners come from major companies as well as small independents, and NAPPA’s website is populated with their testimonials to the power of the exposure, brand recognition and credibility, and increased opportunities in addition to bottom-line sales.

Enter your DVD by Aug. 15 in this competition that could win you print coverage that reaches more than 4 million parents and Web coverage that gets a quarter-million unique visitors each month.

Please email [email protected] or call 818.846.0400, ext. 122 for more information.

Your opinion (and your kids’) matter, so we invite you to join the KIDS FIRST! Home Screening Club. Get the DVD and host an exclusive screening for your family and your friends’ families. Then share your feedback with us – from the kids and the adults. It’s as easy as popping popcorn, and there’s no charge to be a member or participate.

We’re kicking off the KIDS FIRST! Home Screening Club with a new film entitled “Bands on the Run: The Rubber Band Movie,” which E One Entertainment released on DVD May 31. The first 100 people to sign up will get a free DVD of the film for their home screening.

When you send us your review of the DVD, you will be entered into a drawing for one of the two HD TVs that we are giving away.

Then, we’ll continue every month with a drawing to give away a prize to someone who sends in their feedback – written reviews, videotaped reviews, comments from your audience and/or photos of your event. The prize will vary from a HD camera to an HD TV.

The screenings are very limited, so your chances to win are very good!

A little about Bands on the Run: The Rubber Band Movie:
If your kids are into rubber band bracelets, it’s no stretch to imagine they’ll be into Bands on the Run: The Rubber Band Movie. Five specialty shaped rubber bands are carelessly left behind on a deserted stretch of desert highway after the box they are in is jostled off the delivery truck. Attempting to “follow that truck” and get back on track to the toy store that’s expecting them, they get run over by a speeding car which turns out to be a good thing, as they happily roll along, stuck to the spinning tire as it unknowingly carries them where they wanted to go. Runtime 50 minutes. Ages 4-8.

KIDS FIRST! Home Screening Club

Elf is a feel-good Christmas movie that brilliantly balances Will Ferrell’s typical silliness with James Caan’s perfectly delivered tough-guy cynicism. Whichever humor is better suited to your personal funny bone, there’s plenty of it to raise a smile or guffaw through to the film’s epilogue.

With a touch of “The Ugly Duckling,” Ferrell’s title character grows up with the elves in Santa’s workshop at the North Pole after having crawled, unseen, from his crib in an orphanage into Santa’s bag of toys one Christmas Eve. The pathos of an orphanage existence is furthered by the scene in a sterile nursery being shot in darkness and shadows, in sharp contrast to the festive ambience of Santa’s North Pole. But rather than open on that dreary note, director Jon Favreau (Iron Man and Iron Man 2) introduces us to the story through a visit with the adoptive elf-father (a pointy-eared Bob Newhart, in his trademark deadpan delivery that imbues the far-fetched tale with an earnest honesty).

“Buddy” (named from the label on the diapers he was wearing on his arrival) grows up with all the positive self-esteem the elves can encourage in him, although it’s obvious to everyone but him that he just doesn’t fit in — literally as well as figuratively, as he spills out of his school desk, squeezes through doorways and nearly smothers Papa Elf when he sits in his lap. But his idyllic existence is shattered when he overhears two elves refer to him as “human.”

So Buddy sets off to find his real father (James Caan as Walter Hobbs), and the snow-globe essence of the scenes changes to real-life when he hits New York City. Misadventures and clumsy emotional overtures follow. Zooey Deschanel provides Ferrell with a sweet love-interest, and Daniel Tay becomes his compatriot as Caan’s other, emotionally starved, son.

There is some mild profanity and discreet sexual innuendo in this 2003, PG-rated, award-winning family film from New Line Cinema, but possibly more disturbing is the reference to unbelievers who think “parents leave the presents under the tree” and eat the cookies put out for Santa — although the film’s resolution affirms that Santa is as real as Christmas spirit.

A REMINDER ABOUT KIDS FIRST! FILM  CRITICS’ SEARCH:
Tomorrow, Oct. 20, is the last day to get those reviews entered in our first annual KIDS FIRST! Film Critics’ Search.

The videotaped reviews will be posted on KIDS FIRST!’s partner site, WonderWorldTV.com. Check it out — entries are posted there now. And be sure to vote for your choice to win. There are two more weeks, but remember that voting closes Oct. 31. Your vote is important — the popular vote will determine the 20 finalists.