Welcome back to Double Feature, the IDS film podcast where the powers that be let us in a podcast booth to give you hot takes and maybe some lukewarm ones, too.
A lot of children’s movies have a habit of talking down to or tailoring themselves to their audience, favoring cutesy kitsch over impactful storytelling. On this new episode of Double Feature, hosts Annie Aguiar and Chris Forrester discuss two children’s movies that are wonderful specifically because they don’t do that: "Paddington 2," and "The Last Unicorn."
"Paddington 2," the story of our hero Paddington Bear trying to find a birthday present for his Aunt Lucy, is currently the highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes. What appears to be a straight-forward movie for children ends up touching on topics like the hostility of modern society towards immigrants as well as the injustices inherent within the criminal justice system. It's still about a CGI bear who loves marmalade sandwiches, though.
"The Last Unicorn" is a 1982 animated fever dream of a movie about a unicorn who, fearing she is the last of her kind, goes on a journey to find the rest of the unicorns. In her travels, she finds a butterfly who only communicates in song, a very nervous wizard who hasn't quite figured out how to use magic, a talking pirate cat with a peg leg and a eye-patch who only speaks in riddles and so much more. It's a film that is actively terrifying, but for children.
