Reel Reviews: July 2025

Enjoy Donovan Darling's insight into a few films you need to revisit (or watch for the first time if your movie education is lacking).

An American Tail (1986)

This movie is iconic — one of those movies everyone my age watched growing up and still remembers fondly. With its hand-drawn illustrations, wide-open landscapes, deep sense of adventure and drama, thrilling voice actors, and sweeping musical score, the movie continues to make an impression on young viewers today.

Directed by Don Bluth (“The Land Before Time” and Disney’s “Who Framed Roger

Rabbit”), “An American Tail” follows Fievel Mousekewitz and his mouse family, who emigrate from the Russian empire to the United States in search of freedom from tyranny.

This is one of very few cartoons which poignantly explores themes of immigration. In the late 19th century, the Russian-Jewish Mousekewitz family are searching for a better life when they’re separated from one another, echoing the struggle experienced by real-life immigrant families. During a storm on the sea voyage to America, a massive wave washes Fievel overboard. His family believes he has drowned, and they arrive in New York heartbroken but determined to start over.

The American Dream — what it is and isn’t — is explored here, like the hopeful myth “there are no cats in America” that only a mouse could believe. And like the American Dream, they find a reality different from what they were promised. The movie offers, however, an inspiring message of love and resilience, as Fievel is determined to reunite with his family, make a new life, and seek a better future in a strange new land.

Rated G, with mild peril, dark imagery, and emotional themes.

Jaws (1975)

Everyone knows the two unforgettable piano notes. And I won’t forget watching this movie as a kid too young to watch it. Directed by Steven Spielberg and scored by John Williams, “Jaws” is the story of a small New England beach town, Amity Island, which is plagued with shark attacks over the July 4th weekend.

This is indeed a monster movie of suspense — but the movie suggests another monster entirely, as the local mayor forgoes public safety for profits. The mayor is concerned with closing the beaches and scaring off tourists as summer has just started — when the town makes most of its yearly profits. Police Chief Brody, new to the area, fights two battles — the shark as well as the mayor — in order to keep locals safe.

Fascinatingly, Spielberg uses the July 4th holiday as a way to examine the contrast between patriotic celebration and a lurking dread. The movie makes the claim of a distinct fear beneath the surface of our daily American lives — the illusion of safety, the loss of control, and the danger of choosing commerce over conscience.

That is, the American Dream has a cost — capitalism, the opportunity for our greatest success, can also lead to our greatest downfall. At the heart of the movie, however, is a heart-pumping adventure and Moby Dick-like quest to destroy a blood-thirsty beast.

Rated PG (PG-13 by today’s standards) for intense violence, fear, and mature themes.