Screen Time: Eight Movies to See with Your Kids in November

By Jesse Hassenger

Screen Time is a monthly listing of repertory film screenings in and around Brooklyn with movies your kids will love (or learn to). 

Ah, November, when a young person’s fancy turns to thoughts of Godzilla. Well, a certain type of young person, anyway. But while not every kid is a “Godzilla Kid,” the increasing availability of the Japanese-made monster movies, as well as the ongoing popularity of the American “MonsterVerse” cinematic world, has certainly raised the big guy’s profile in this country. (Back in my day, we had to make due getting hyped up for a terrible Roland Emmerich version! With Matthew Broderick! Uphill in the snow!) That’s true of a lot of cultural exports from Japan; surely you’ve noticed the proliferation of Japanese markets selling blind boxes, and the fact that you can see most Studio Ghibli movies at a local-ish multiplex over a long enough timeline?

In any event, a new Godzilla movie opens this month in theaters across the U.S. in November, and in a break from longstanding series tradition, Godzilla Minus Zero might not be appropriate for your younger kids; it’s over two hours, solidly rated R for its violence, and features a perpetually (and justifiably) upset little kid. (That said, I’ve seen it and will be taking my 11-year-old to the IMAX). However, there are several other Japanese imports showing in this city this month, along with other legends of cinema that we can all be thankful for.

Courtesy of Toho–Eizo

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

Suggested ages: 7+
November 2 and November 4, 6 p.m. at Alamo Drafthouse Manhattan 

For much of the year, the Alamo Drafthouse’s TohoScope program has been showcasing Godzilla movies, which leads up to and concludes in November with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, the latter’s 1974 introduction into the Godzilla mythos. Oddly, Drafthouse already showed this movie’s sequel, The Terror of Mechagodzilla, some months ago. For that, and the unusual beginning-of-month timing, this feels like a last-minute addition to the schedule. Not that anyone dares complain about Mechagodzilla; he’s one of the most merchandised of Godzilla’s kaiju crew for good reason. Unfortunately, these TohoVision shows tend to sell out, which is why we’re showcasing a weeknight showing in Manhattan, rather than a weekend showing in Brooklyn (even this one only has a few seats left, so act now—or if your older kids can be steeled against some gnarly teeth-gnashing, just take them to Godzilla Minus Zero when it opens a few days later.) 

Courtesy of Joseph M. Schenck Productions

The General

Suggested ages: 6+
November 8, noon at Metrograph 

Yes, it’s every deluded cinephile parent’s dream to steer their kids into an abiding love of silent comedy—of sitting backwards on a chair and saying, “Hey, you know who did the original YouTube shorts?” Yet there is something elementally appealing (and young-skewing!) about comedy that communicates so purely on visual terms, and with spectacular stunts no less. The Civil War-set The General won’t be to every kid’s tastes, but apart from the inherently amusing deadpan face of Buster Keaton, it does involve a hell of a lot of train stunts, and a lot of kids love the hell out of trains. And honestly, if you can hook ’em a little young, at vehicle-obsession age, before certain expectations about entertainment set in, you might get a few years (or months, or hours) of being that smug parent whose kid loves Buster Keaton. Just have an excuse or diversion ready if they happen to ask what side Keaton was fighting for. 

Courtesy of Studio Ghibli

Castle in The Sky

Suggested ages: 7+
November 14 and November 15, noon at Nitehawk Prospect Park

Thanks to the annual Studio Ghibli Fest, a decent portion of the legendary studio’s back catalog is perpetually cycling in and out of multiple multiplexes. But while Castle in the Sky isn’t exactly a rare cut, it’s also not shown as incessantly as My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, or Ponyo. The first Ghibli film (and only the third feature written and directed by master Hayao Miyazaki) is more of a literally high-flying adventure than some of his more reflective films that followed, following plucky orphans who flee air pirates while searching for a mythical floating castle. At the time, it was a pivot toward kid-friendlier territory for Miyazaki, following his pre-Ghibli hit Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Though Totoro and Ponyo are even gentler, Sky is less frightening than Spirited Away, less intense than Princess Mononoke, and might be one of the most purely fun Ghibli entries (especially among those that aren’t necessarily enshrined as unimpeachable classics). 

Courtesy of P.A. Works

Dive in Wonderland

Suggested ages: 8+
November 16, 7:15 p.m., at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn and Manhattan 

Full disclosure: I haven’t seen this movie and have no idea if it’s any good. Reviews from its Japanese release appear to be mixed. But the first anime version of Alice in Wonderland seems like it should, at very least, be visually engaging, and I plan to take my 11-year-old to see it, so consider this a bonus, not-quite-recommendation, and a heads-up that it exists and will play for one weeknight in Brooklyn. Tip for the shamelessly corporatized, savings-incentivized moviegoers (it’s me; I’m the AMC Stubs A-List evangelist, even as I stress the importance of rep-house programming): Dive in Wonderland is also screening at a few Manhattan AMCs this same evening, if you’d like to venture outside of the best borough. 

Courtesy of Henson Associates

The Muppets Take Manhattan

Suggested ages: 4+
November 21 and November 22, 12:30 p.m. at Museum of The Moving Image 

If you’re the parent to a preschooler, you may have noticed that G-rated movies are more or less extinct in terms of new releases. Even the movies made from PAW Patrol, a show about talking puppies aimed entirely at preschoolers, somehow wrangle enough “peril” for a PG. Most of this is just using the MPA as a form of marketing—no, PAW Patrol isn’t actually more intense than preschooler-targeted media of 10 or 20 years ago—but it does highlight a certain level of drift in mass-appeal family movies. If you’re in elementary school or older, this is often good; I don’t know if you’ve watched The Rescuers lately (the Metrograph has it on the last two Sundays of the month, if you’re partial to pitchfork-wielding animals yelling “charge!”), but yes, Frozen and Zootopia are more sophisticated. Animation is no longer regarded as something for five-year-olds; as such, big animated features often hope to speak to kids throughout their childhood, not just before they’re old enough to prematurely watch A Nightmare on Elm Street. 

That said, there’s a brief window where kids might be old enough to sit and watch a movie, while the movies themselves could potentially frighten or confuse them. Plenty of small children have enough Moana reviews under their belts to say otherwise, but a child cannot subsist on Moana alone, no matter how hard they try. Luckily, there are some G-rated movies that are genuinely delightful to little kids and adults alike, and The Muppets Take Manhattan is one of those movies. Less imaginative than The Muppet Movie and less hilarious than The Great Muppet Caper, it’s a sweet-natured (but still knowing) riff on let’s-put-on-a-show musicals, with the gang cast as recent college graduates hoping to mount their senior revue on Broadway. The location shooting of this pursuit gives the movie a wonderful New York flavor, though the highlight for some kids may be the vignettes where various Muppets (Gonzo, Rowlf, and Scooter) venture into further-flung locations to earn money taking odd jobs. Adults, meanwhile, may delight at seeing the late Joan Rivers team up with Miss Piggy to get fired from a makeup counter in a mad delirium. And everyone can agree on the inherent comedy of a rollerskating Miss Piggy chasing after a purse-snatcher in Central Park (and going, as my then-seven-year-old described it, “full nuts”). 

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Suggested ages: 8+
November 27, multiple screenings at various Regal locations 

Today’s children take it as a matter of course that nearly any movie they watch might have a sequel in the works or already made. Older folks will remember a time when the inevitability of sequels was, to the extent that it existed, considered something to actively dread. This is all to say that younger audiences may not appreciate the near-miraculous quality of both Gremlins 2: The New Batch and the title immediately following it on this list, in terms of fine-tuning their dark-comic but still-cartoonish approaches while equaling or surpassing their predecessors. For its part, Gremlins 2 goes so far as to be more kid-appropriate than its predecessor (which has more violence and explicit deaths, as well as a scene that specifically informs children that there’s no Santa Claus. A pre-PG-13 world, folks!). 

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Addams Family Values

Suggested ages: 8+
November 28 and 29, multiple screenings at various Regal locations 

Of the two sequels here, Addams Family Values is probably more kid-appealing for the very reason it’s being shown at Regals nationwide on Thanksgiving weekend: a subplot that sends Wednesday and Pugsley to summer camp, where they’re instant outcasts who take it upon themselves to destroy a Thanksgiving-themed pageant from the inside. That’s sort of the theme of these part twos: comic anarchy applied to American institutions that have it coming. Plus, even if you’re leaving the city for the holiday weekend, it’s possible that these movies will be playing nearby depending on your proximity to the Regal chain, which has been doing a daily rep series in some locations for over a year at this point. Luckily, both of them actually stand alone pretty well.

Courtesy of Cinema Center Films

A Boy Named Charlie Brown

Suggested ages: 6+
November 29, noon at Museum of The Moving Image

You may have noticed that Charlie Brown, the rest of the Peanuts gang, and most especially Snoopy, have been ubiquitously merchandised over the last few years, in a way not seen since they were all shilling for MetLife insurance when Charles Schulz was still alive. Cynically speaking, it’s because the Schulz heirs clearly want to get that bag. And while the new Peanuts specials being produced for Apple generally reproduce the visual style and humor of the characters, they’re also clearly sweetened and recalibrated toward younger kids, with a more affirming and less melancholy tone than Schulz’s original strip. In short, they sometimes match the merch more than the art. 

Adapting Schulz’s perfect comic strip to other media has always posed something of a challenge. The early TV specials are wonderful in their own right, but not quite as brilliant as the strip, and feature film versions arguably step even further afield from those strengths. That said, there are several good Peanuts features, and they don’t turn up all that often on the rep circuit. The first, and perhaps most strip-accurate of the bunch, is A Boy Named Charlie Brown, which follows our guy on a surprising winning streak at a series of spelling bees. It also features an impressionistic Snoopy ice-skating scene. The pacing of these films is often leisurely, but they’re also quite funny, adapting bits from the comics and, in this case, bringing it all home with a more realistic and probably more necessary message than the standard believe-in-yourself-and-you-can-accomplish-anything vagaries.