Newsies (1992)

  I don't own Newsies and I'm not really sure why.  Maybe I'm just not as obsessive about Disney's live-action films as I am about their animated ones.  For whatever reason, it's like I sometimes forget this movie even exists, then I'll remember and have to watch it again.

In 1899 New York, times are hard.  Groups of children -some orphans, some trying to help out their families- sell newspapers on the street.  These newsies have a hard enough time getting enough money to feed themselves, so when publishing magnate Joseph Pulitzer (Robert Duvall) raises their buying price in an ongoing war against his rival William Randolph Hearst, the newsies are incensed.  Young firebrand Jack Kelly (Christian Bale) becomes their voice, urging them to form a union and go on strike.

This is actually based on a true story.  I'm guessing the real child laborers of 1899 probably did not spend as much time learning complicated group choreography and rousing anthems as the movie children did.  This was the directorial debut of Kenny Ortega, a choreographer of some renown, and the attention paid to the dance numbers is painstaking.  The whole thing is acted so earnestly that it strays into melodrama but that would only be apparent to adults.  As a kid, I remember thinking that it seemed perfectly natural or at least it never stuck out to me as being unnatural, which is essentially the same thing when you're ten.