Bridge to Terabithia: (2007. dir: Gabor Csupo) Let's take a new look at the Disney Dad. Not the absent father who overcompensates with material generosity during his brief stints with the kids, and not the Dean Jones/Fred MacMurray characters, who are honestly more overgrown kids than adults.
This is the dad who is honest and hard-working, fairly successful in his field, well-meaning and genial, whose paternal flaws are generally momentary and rise from existing under the pressure of providing for a family, a responsibility the Disney Dad takes very seriously in his amiable way. His mistake will come in siding with a malicious teacher or authority figure against his son out of temporary blindness, or in discouraging the kid from following his dreams out of the old fear the kid will lose his grip on reality and never be able to hold a decent job. His flaw is superficial, or passing, and, by the end, we see that he really is a stand-up guy, proved by his willingness and ability to learn from his own children.
Disney Dads exist solely to buffer and guide the stories of the kids. That is, they exist exclusively in relation to their own children, and there is a chilling argument to be made that the modern American exaltation of youth may have risen partly from the Disney Dad and his perfect, housekeeping mate existing so centrally in the subconscious of these several generations.
All that is preface to say that Robert Patrick is now my favorite Disney Dad. This movie is flawed; the fantasy part of the story, I think, is not carried off, but it finds success in examining unusual areas of growing up, and so is worthwhile. The paternal scene near the end in which Patrick's dad arrives in the nick of time, not to save his son, but to provide the needed comfort and wisdom, is a lovely one.
I love Patrick in this. His subtlety of expression and what I'm calling his "communicative stoicism" have reached an acme of perfection here.
Black Waters of Echo's Pond: (2009. dir: Gabriel Bologna) In the olden days, actors used to learn their chops on soap operas. Nowadays, and probably following a tradition inspired by the unique and beguiling Roger Corman (who, by the way, gave Robert Patrick his start in the business), the kids learn to act by taking part in this kind of horror film: the kind where there's an intent to party in a secluded place, the outward supernatural plays on the inward human weakness, and various stripes of mayhem ensue.
This is a bad movie, but certainly not the worst of its kind, because about half of the kids are decent actors, and some care went into things like the dark, velvety color scheme. The violence gets pretty gross, and the plot is ridiculous. We start with the opening of a Turkish tomb in the 1920s, -- I guess it's supposed to be reminiscent of Howard Carter and the folks who originally looked in on King Tut. This bunch, though, are hoity-toity English idiots who find an ancient "map" with instructions to build a board-game (you heard me) through which Pandaemonium, the Realm of Pan, will manifest. These are fully grown adults, you understand; probably archeologists, considering the context. Let's build the game! they cry. We must build it! and, by the time the Lord Carnarvon figure, who financed the whole shebang, enters onto the scene (somehow it's all transported to a private island off Maine now), everyone is murdered, but the "game" has been hidden, so that NO ONE WILL EVER FIND IT!
You know what that means. Anyway, the kids play the game, la la la, it summons the devil not through possession but by poking into annoyed wakefulness the personal devils carried within each of them. Bloodshed, mayhem, carnal lusts. When they're really lost, the eyes turn big and black. When did that become the accepted norm in horror films? I think it was in From Hell that I first saw it, but maybe it started earlier than that.
In any case, as usual, Robert Patrick is the great thing about this movie. He is the curmudgeonly caretaker who totes a shotgun and spends his time killing deer and dragging lobsters up out of the sea. He swills his vodka straight from the bottle and has a twinkle in his eye while he tells sanguinary histories of the island to creep the kids out.
And, like so many Robert Patrick movies, the only compelling reason to watch this is if you're looking to experience his entire oeuvre.
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