Best of the Best: Especially for Kids

Many of us fondly remember our first exposure to the fractured, occasionally twisted worldview of the National Film Board of Canada's animated award-winning shorts, whether it was Norman McLaren's 1952 stop-motion Oscar-winning masterpiece Neighbours or Caroline Leaf's exquisitely drawn 1976 Oscar nominee The Street or Cordell Barker's 1988 Oscar nominee kitty-from-hell classic The Cat Came Back. Formerly priced in the $100-plus range each, these titles are now available on DVD in three new collections from the Best of the Best series. Especially for Kids, which--it should be noted--is not especially for kids, is actually the weakest of the bunch, with strong opening titles such as Eugene Fedorenko's Oscar-winning 1979 Every Child (about a poor baby that's passed along more than the proverbial buck), Christopher Hinton's wonderful 1991 Oscar nominee Blackfly, Janet Perlman's 1981 Oscar-nominated The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin and the aforementioned The Cat Came Back, giving way to a second half line-up that includes interesting-for-their-time chestnuts such as The Sand Castle (1977 Oscar winner), Evolution (1971) and Christmas Cracker (1964), as well as the rather dark folk tale The Owl Who Married a Goose. Still, this is such a great bargain that we wholeheartedly (or, at least three-quarter heartedly) recommend it, as well as the two other collections not aimed at kids: Romantic Tales and Other Whimsical Relationships (featuring George and Rosemary, The Street, Pas de Deux and The Family That Dwelt Apart) and Strange Tales of the Imagination (with The Big Snit, Special Delivery, Neighbours, and La Salla). Aud: P. (R. Pitman)