Kids Flix Mix 2 - Anya's Review

Reviewer Anya is 9 years old and a student at Edison Language Academy.

Kids Flix Mix 2 is a collection of shorts, of which Anya has reviewed several:

Snack Attack
Really funny short film. Great characters. Big surprise at the end.

At the Opera
Great singers, though what they were seriously surprised me. I almost expected them to drown in tears.

Subway Train
Really creative drawings. Loved the song and animals.

Paper Touch
I loved how much imagination and creativity they put into it. I never knew you could create stuff like that using paper.

I’m Going to Mum’s
I found it really sad. I have to say, though, that there were a lot of clothes.

Lola
What a big adventure for such a little doll!  I thought it was really good and that the places the doll goes to are great.

Fresh Guacamole
Just looking at the movie made me hungry.  Great use of "ingredients."

Ernesto
I loved the teeth. I can't believe he went as far as drawing on them. Good film.

Kids Flix Mix 2 plays on May 4, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre. Buy tickets in advance through this link to make a donation to the school of your choice.

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The Painting - Ivy Starr's Review

Reviewer Ivy Starr is 6 years old and a student at Franklin Elementary School.

I thought The Painting was a journey to a magical, unreal world. It had lots of cool characters, dark colors, and bright colors. I also liked the mix between the real world and the painting world.

The Painting plays May 5, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre. Buy tickets in advance through this link to make a donation to the school of your choice.

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Kids Flix Mix 2 & The Painting - Astra English's Review

Reviewer Astra English is 8 years old and a student at Friends Western School in Pasadena.

Kids Flix Mix 2 is a collection of shorts, of which Astra has reviewed several:

At the Opera
This film was funny because of the onions.

Paper Touch
This was a beautiful film. There were so many colors. It was amazing how they got all that paper to move. This film is perfect for kids. The colors and the music matched together. Very cool film.

Fresh Guacamole
It was funny to see all these things being chopped up. I liked the part with the grenade.

I'm Going to Mum's
This film was sad but had a happy ending.

The Storyteller
This was live action and cartoons. The part with the head off was a bit creepy, but I liked the film.

The Painting
I liked this film. It was a beautiful film to watch. I liked how it was narrated by the girl, and I liked how the paintings come to life in the real world.

Kids Flix Mix 2 plays on May 4, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre.
The Painting plays May 5, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre. Buy tickets in advance through this link to make a donation to the school of your choice.

Was this review helpful? Please scroll down to leave a comment below! And check out our other Kid Critic reviews.

The Painting - Ella Rose C's Review

Reviewer Ella Rose is 11 years old.

The Painting is a spectacular movie. It is one of a kind, an automatic classic. The animation is breathtaking. It really made me feel like I was in a painting.

The story has so much meaning, and it really made me think from the beginning to the end. This animated feature does include a tad bit of female nudity in a painting, and a few scary images, but I would recommend this for ages 8 through 1,000. This movie has a shake of adventure, a dash of charm, a spoonful of fantasy, a dollop of romance, and a splash of courage. A perfect dish!

The love sequence in this movie reminds me of Romeo and Juliet, as the lovers in The Painting have to meet in secret. The only complaint I have about this movie is they could have made it a bit shorter.

If you think out of the box, and are artistic and creative, then believe me, you should watch this movie!

The Painting plays May 5, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre. Buy tickets in advance through this link to make a donation to the school of your choice.

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The Painting - Stewart Smith's Review

Reviewer Stewart Smith is 14 years old and a student at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies.

The Painting is an animated independent film made in France in 2011. Telling a story of life in an unfinished painting, it tells a Shakespeare-esque story of a world plagued by racism in which a band of sketches and paintings search for their painter to ask him to return and fix their world.

Rich with color and liveliness, it covers a lot of recurring themes in modern life, such as tension between completed and unfinished characters. The biggest theme, however, seems to be the use of religious metaphor. The characters feel abandoned by the painter, search for the painter, have faith in the painter, and pray for the painter. While the story itself is a nice change from the modern clichés you find in blockbusters, one can’t help but notice a few discrepancies, including a couple of plot lines which are more or less abandoned as the film goes on. Some of the dialog and flow of the movie also felt a little clunky, and some of the characters seemed a bit empty.

The key aspect of the film’s allure is, quite obviously, its artistic style. Presented in a beautifully painted format with impressive color choice and form, it is a remarkable example of human expressionism.

The movie has a little bit of nudity, which may cause some giggles upon less mature audiences, but rest assured that it is all in the interest of recreating the feel of a painting, and that it’s generally no worse than that of Titanic.

All in all, the movie presents a moderately structured story with creative religious undertones in a style which breaks the modern cultural trend of paintings and turns the movie into less of a blockbuster and more of, well, a work of art.

The Painting plays May 5, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre. Buy tickets in advance through this link to make a donation to the school of your choice.

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The Painting - Ava Mae Leslie's Review

Reviewer Ava Mae Leslie is 8 years old and a student at Marquez Charter School.

I think that you should see this movie when you are the age of 7 and up. In the movie, paintings come to life, and in one of the paintings, a lady is naked and you can see her big boobs. Some kids were laughing, and some adults were embarrassed. The painting was kind of inappropriate for 6-year-olds and down.

The other characters in the movie had different color skins (for example, one boy had blue skin). There were “Sketchies,” “Halfies,” and “All Dones.” The All Dones were being mean to the Sketchies and the Halfies. They were not letting them be in the castle with them and would step on the Sketchies and break them in half. There is a little romance in this movie so don’t be creeped out… kissy, kissy! They kissed away on the lips. Claire and the boy with blue skin were in romance together. My favorite character was Claire because she has a beautiful dress. My least favorite character is the Skull guy with the bloody ax. I did not like him because he gave me the creeps.

My favorite part of the movie was when they found the real painter. I liked it because Lola asked the painter who he got painted from, but he was a human. Laugh, laugh, laugh. The story was about a bunch of different paintings that the painter made, and three people are trying to get the painter back to finish the rest of the characters. If I could change one thing about the movie, I would change the Skull guy into a nice cheetah, and the cheetah would give them a ride to find the painter. I thought some parts were very, very, very hilarious!

I hope you all have a good time watching the movie.

The Painting plays May 5, 2013, at 11am at The Aero Theatre. Buy tickets in advance through this link to make a donation to the school of your choice.

Was this review helpful? Please scroll down to leave a comment below! And check out our other Kid Critic reviews.

Arbor Day Events and Activities on Long Island 2013

While not quite as glamorous as Earth Day, (see our Earth Day guide as well), the much older holiday Arbor Day, officially arrives this year on April 26th, with tree-friendly events spanning the last two weekends in April. While Earth Day focuses on the health of our entire planet, Arbor Day highlights trees themselves. It is a day to honor, care for, and appreciate the trees in our lives. This year there are plenty of opportunities to get involved and learn about trees while having a whole lot of fun. You can participate in a tree scavenger hunt at Sands Point, protect trees by pulling the invasive garlic mustard plant from Garvies Point, and celebrate trees during the Tree Celebration at Old Westbury Gardens and the Arbor Day Festival at Planting Fields. We've also provided a number of great arboretums where you can see and learn about some of Long Island's oldest, largest and most beautiful trees all year long. 

This Week: Spring NYC Day Trips, Best New Museum Exhibits for Kids, NYC Family-Friendly Restaurant Guide

Are we the only ones who felt like this was a long, slow week? Maybe it has something to do with this being the first full week back after spring break. The awesome spring weather doesn't help either: How can we focus on work when there are parks and playgrounds calling out to us? Not to mention the hypnotic tinkling of the invading ice cream trucks.

Still, we found time to do some work. We launched our NYC Kid-Friendly Restaurant Guide and even added a pair of tasty new posts: Restaurants where kids can make their own food and an international food crawl on Ninth Avenue to go with our Midtown West coverage.

If you're looking to take a seasonal day trip, our Long Island site profiled New York State Parks in Nassau and Suffolk Counties that are filled with all kinds of outdoor fun like boating, fishing, biking, horseback riding and golfing, not to mention the opportunity to commune with nature. Meanwhile, our New Jersey site has a roundup of animal-filled farms where kids can get up close and personal with alpacas, llamas, sheep, goats, ponies, chickens, miniature horses and more.

And those are just a few ways to take advantage of spring now that it's sprung. Here's what else we covered on our NYC site this week:

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