The Simpsons Movie

Posted on July 31, 2007 at 12:05 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout.
Profanity:	Some vulgar language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drug humor
Violence/ Scariness:	Cartoon peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

“I can’t believe we’re paying to see something we get to see on TV for free. Everyone in this theater is a giant sucker, especialy YOU.” And thus, Homer Simpson lets us know that he’s onto us, as he has been for 18 years. “The Simpsons,” television’s longest-running primetime animated series in history, and the longest running sitcom currently on primetime, has now become a movie and people are paying to see something they get to see on TV for free. And it’s worth it.

I am sure there are Simpsonologists out there who are already parsing and disescting every element of this film and scholars working on an annotated version in preparation for Cultural Studies dissertations.

Parents should know that this film includes some vulgar humor, including brief cartoon nudity, drug humor, cartoon violence, scenes in bar, a child drinking liquor, characters in peril, and some crude language.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Bart thought he might like to have Ned Flanders as his father. Why did Marge decide to leave Homer? Why did they change their minds? What can kids in your community do to help protect the environment?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the television series and Groening’s other series,
Futurama.

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I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

Posted on July 18, 2007 at 12:27 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for crude sexual content throughout, nudity, language and drug references. (re-rated; originally rated R)
Profanity:	Strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril, characters injured, references to sad deaths, comic violence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, but some stereotyping
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

There are none so straight as those who pretend to be gay. That seems to be the premise of Adam Sandler’s latest slacker comedy. But its mild pleasures are spoiled by its belief that homophobic humor can be somehow sanitized by a cheesy Shylock-ripoff speech about how it’s who we are as people that really matters. As if.

Sandler and Kevin James play firefighters womanizer Chuck and widower Larry, who enter into a domestic partnership so that Larry can protect his pension. When the city investigates them on suspicion that they are lying about their relationship to defraud the city in order to get benefits, they have to find a way to persuade everyone around them that their relationship is authentic. That includes getting married in Canada wearing matching yarmulkes, moving in together, sleeping in the same bed, making comments like “we’ve been having lots of sex,” and answering questions about “who’s the girl.”

They also need to hire a lawyer, and of course it turns out to be a sympathetic bombshell played by Jessica Biel. The usual humiliations and misunderstandings ensue, as does the usual happily ever after (and resoundingly heterosexual) ending.

While the characters plead for acceptance, the movie’s humor is mostly based on the premise that gay men are shrill, high-strung basket cases, that any man would be disturbed to find out that his son might be gay, and that being gay is not just “other” but downright ooky. Just to make sure that we get the point, there is also some attempted humor based on Sandler’s character being hugely attractive to women, who universally and happily agree to every possible sexual variation he can fantasize, including, of course, a complete absence of commitment or tenderness. This is not an idea the movie makes fun of – it is a fundamental assumption necessary to buy into many of the comic situations. It is supposed to be funny that his character even has sex with an unattractive, unpleasant woman (who somehow becomes kittenish and submissive as a result of the encounter). In addition, Rob Schneider plays an Asian so caricatured it makes the WWII-era portrayals of Tojo seem subtle. Presumably, this is all right because Schneider himself is half Filipino. This is exactly the same misbegotten presumption that brings a sense of smarmy hypocrisy to the film, undermining not just humor but good humor.

In the beginning of the film, Chuck asks two women to kiss each other in a provocative manner, doubly transgressive because they are not just same-sex but twin sisters. This is portrayed as thrilling for all the he-men in the fire department. But at the end of the film, the prospect of a same-sex kiss for Chuck and Larry is just so disgusting to the two men who can run into a burning building without a second thought, such a deeply threatening assault on their manhood that it outweighs everything else. They can lie to people they care about, they can betray the trust of colleagues, friends, and children, they can defraud the system, but after all of their big talk about how they are both “big-time fruits” who enjoyed wrestling other boys a little too much in high school, the idea of big, strong, men getting weak in the knees over a kiss is not just a distraction but a decision that brings the movie’s story and comic sensibility down like a house of cards.

Parents should know that the MPAA is right about this one when it says there is “crude sexual content throughout.” There are a great deal of very vulgar terms and references to both gay and straight sex, including multiple partners (separately and all at once), pornography (porn shown to a child to “help” him not be gay), a fun doll, lubricant, sexual arousal, a joke about prison rape, and some potty humor. There are some skimpy clothes and we see brief nudity in the shower. Characters smoke and drink and there is a reference to marijuana. They use some four-letter words. There is some peril (characters injured), comic violence, and references to sad deaths. While the movie purports to be on the side of tolerance and equality, it engages in a lot of stereotyping and homophobic humor.

Families who see this movie should talk about what it is that people fear most about those who are different. Why was Alex someone who made Chuck “not want to be a jerk?” Does this movie have mixed messages?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Victor/Victoria, Connie And Carla (an underappreciated comedy from the author/star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Happy, Texas.

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Hairspray

Posted on July 18, 2007 at 12:20 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking.
Profanity:	Brief crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcoholic, drinking and smoking (including teen smoking)
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

I am not sure which is the more amusingly surprising — the idea that one of the most painful struggles in American history could become the subject of a light musical comedy, or the idea that it comes from one of the most profoundly transgressive writer/directors in film history. Nineteen years after John Waters’ most accessible film, Hairspray gave us an irresistible heroine whose mastery of the Madison and audacious hair-teasing helped to bring about integration of a teen dance television show. Later, it became a wildly successful Broadway musical. And now it returns to the screen with an all-star cast of Hollywood heavyweights (so to speak), starring an adorable newcomer, Nikki Blonsky. Like all good Cinderella stories, this one has some grounding in reality, as this is Blonsky’s first professional role and she was working at her job at an ice cream store when she got the word she had the part.

Blonsky plays the irrepressible Tracy Turnblad, the daughter of the ever-ironing Edna (John Travolta) and Wilbur (Christopher Walken), the owner of the “Ha Ha Hut,” a whoopee cushion and handshake buzzer emporium.

In her opening number Tracy greets her home city of 1962 Baltimore, with unabashed affection for everyone from the neighborhood flasher (played by Waters) to the bum on the barstool. Like every self-respecting musical comedy heroine, Tracy has a dream. She wants to appear on the popular teen dance program, “The Corny Collins Show.” Lo and behold, an opening occurs and she auditions. Station manager Velma Von Tussle (Michele Pfeiffer), a former “Miss Baltimore Crabs,” whose standards of beauty are limited to the blonde and willowy, whose standards of inclusion are limited to the Aryan and WASP-y, and whose standards of appropriate behavior are unlimited when it comes to whatever will make her daughter Amber (Brittany Snow) Miss Hairspray for the third time. Velma sees short and chubby Tracy as a threat to everything she believes and wants, especially when she flunks the interview question about integrated swimming pools.

Segregation was not limited to the South in the pre-Civil Rights Act era, and the “Corny Collins Show” is all-white, all the time, except for the once a month “Negro Day” hosted by Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah). At a dance, the white and black kids are separated by a rope. Tracy does a dance she learned from Seaweed J. Stubbs (an electrifying Elijah Kelley) (with his permission) and lands a spot on the show.

Things heat up when Negro Day gets cancelled and Tracy and her friends organize a protest march. Velma goes to extremes to stop Tracy from being named Miss Hairspray. And everyone sings and dances through it all, and it is sweet and funny and as much fun as a sock hop where everyone gets asked to dance.

Parents should know that even though the movie is rated PG it has some mild content issues including humorous references to teen pregnancy, a flasher (played by writer/director Waters), alcoholism, teenagers stuffing bras and pants, and some potty humor. Characters smoke and drink, including smoking by teens and by pregnant women. There is some mild language in lyrics and dialogue (“I screwed the judges,” “French kissing,” “kiss my ass”). Amber tries to destroy Tracy’s reputation by spreading rumors that she did a crude drawing of the teacher and had sex with the football team. Characters are upset by suggestive dance moves. As in all previous versions of this story, a female character is portrayed by a male actor, though there is no suggestion that she is a male in drag or anything but completely female. The movie deals with themes of racial discrimination and some characters make racist and other bigoted comments. A strength of the movie is its frank (if idealized) portrayal of some issues of the civil rights era, though, like most mainstream films, it focuses on the white characters and their roles.

Families who see this movie should ask why Tracy was so free from the assumptions and fears of her household and her community. It is almost impossible for today’s children and teenagers to imagine that within the lifetimes of their parents and grandparents such blatant racism was an accepted way of thinking. Families should see films like Boycott and Eyes on the Prize for a better sense of the courage and determination of the real-life heroes of the civil rights movement.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original and another musical set in the same era, That Thing You Do!.

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License to Wed

Posted on July 1, 2007 at 2:36 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual humor and language.
Profanity:	Crude references
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic violence, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	None

The best thing about “License to Wed” is that John Krasinski and Mandy Moore have enough of that ever-elusive quality — chemistry — that an impending marriage seems possible if not likely. They easily get us on their side. The chemistry even spills over a little into their paper-thin characters, Ben Murphy and
Sadie Jones. But a little chemistry, a few genuine laughs, and a premise that is adequate if not inventive only barely make up for flip-flopping, underdeveloped characters and a storyline that refuses to surprise, even given multiple opportunities.

The path to wedded bliss begins when Ben proposes to Sadie in front of friends and family, who then support her request to marry at a church that has family significance. The minister of the church, Reverend Frank (Robin Williams) has one stipulation for all couples he marries: They must take — and pass — a premarital course designed specifically to subversively test the limits of their relationship and also to develop and strengthen the bond they share. Potential for
ulterior motives, cheesy but thoughtful lines, unexpected actions, and accomplishment abound, but sadly the film takes the low road through all the above territory, rendering the motives unexciting, the lines simply cheesy, the actions numbingly predictable, the slapstick uninspired, and the accomplishments nothing more than satisfactory. The trials Ben and Sadie go through are nothing compared to the obstacle course inflicted on the audience, who has to work very hard to find anything entertaining or enjoyable.

Ben loves Sadie for the standard Hollywood reasons: she’s Smart, Funny, Attractive, etc, but really, when was the last time a movie
character wasn’t? Now, apparently. Sadie works through the course with trust, sincerity and such lack of personality that it’s hardly believable (at least not believing it is preferably to thinking she
really could be that devoid of character). Her puppy-dog loyalty and blind devotion to the program and its teacher are made all the more incongruous given Ben’s description of her as independent, “smart, so smart” and a “take charge” personality. Ben on the other
hand, is blessed with the good-natured expressions Krasinski employs as Jim in NBC’s The Office, and comes across as lovable, trusting, happy and kind without being a pushover. He makes a great romantic lead, but in a film that remains so run-of-the-mill, the thrill is quickly gone. It’s not a union that anyone would be unhappy to see, but in a world where romantic comedies can be so much more than simply romance and comedy, it’s hard not to crave a film that is, dare I say,
Smart, Funny, and Attractive.

Parents should know that the film is aimed at adults, and while not often raunchy, does include discussions of sexual fantasies and
depictions of women in labor. Reverend Frank is offbeat and at times more than a little off-color, and makes jokes about adultery, sexually transmitted disease, and murder. His tactics include having couples simulate fights, which result in name-calling and verbal abuse.

One of the most purportedly humorous tasks involves a pair of purposely ugly
mechanical twins Frank gives to Ben and Sadie, and most scenes with the twins involve their ugliness as a running gag. At one point, however, Ben shakes the robo-baby violently and repeatedly, making for
an uncomfortable allusion to shaken baby syndrome.

Families who see this film will want to discuss the commitment of marriage, and what couples should be sure of before entering into marriage. The concept of needing someone and respecting his or her opinion is pivotal in the film; how can people toe the line between independence and sharing a life with someone else? Child rearing is also explored — what types of responsibilities, large and small, might come along with having children? How might a couple or an individual best prepare for the demands, sacrifices, and joys of having a child? What type of support system might one reach out for?

Families who enjoy this film might also enjoy 2002’s A Walk to
Remember, also starring Mandy Moore, and The Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

Thanks to guest critic AB.

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Evan Almighty

Posted on June 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild rude humor and some peril.
Profanity:	Brief crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters but some stereotyping
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000UNYK4E

There isn’t one single surprise in this movie, at least not for anyone who has seen the trailer, except perhaps for its sweetness. Yes, this is another movie about a family that is brought together by an unusual adventure and a dream. What separates it from the interchangeable RV and Deck the Halls multiplex fodder is that somewhere amid all the poop jokes and Davey and Goliath-level piety there is a little glimmer of sincerity.

It us less of a sequel than a spin-off from Bruce Almighty. In that film, God (Morgan Freeman) loaned his powers to a television news correspondent (Jim Carrey), who celebrated by using them to find a great parking space, see a woman’s panties, part the red…soup, and give his girlfriend a bigger chest. He also inflicted a fury of tics and grimaces on his biggest competitor, Evan, a breakout performance by then-newcomer Steve Carell.

Now Evan takes center stage. He has just been elected to Congress, so he packs up his family in his shiny SUV and drives to Washington, all ready to deliver on his campaign promise to “change the world.”

But as they say, when people make plans, God laughs. This time, God (Freeman again) shows up and tells Evan it is time to build an ark. He presents him with a copy of Ark Building for Dummies and a pile of planks from Go-4-wood (gopher wood, get it?). And everywhere he goes he sees Gen 6:14, the Biblical reference to God’s direction to Noah to build an ark.

This is not what Evan had in mind. He is a very meticulous guy who does not like anything messy, uncontrolled, or out of place. He merrily opts for the old growth Brazilian cherry wood for his kitchen and won’t even think of allowing anything so unsanitary as a dog into the house. Evan cares very much what others think of him And he commits Hollywood’s favorite shorthand sin requiring redemption — he lets down his kids by canceling a planned outing.

He uses that time to read through some legislation he has been asked to co-sponsor by big-time power broker and neighbor in the McMansion community, Congressman Long. We know Long is a bad guy because he has the same last name as Huey Long, because he moves Evan into a fancy new office he does not deserve, and because he is played by John Goodman, whose very eye twinkles glitter with corruption.

Evan tries to get along, but it is increasingly more difficult as two of every species begin following him around and his beard becomes first unshaveable and then snowy white. Is he crazy or is that that ark going to come in mighty handy?

The warm likeability and atomic-clock comic timing of Carell, Lauren Graham (television’s Gilmore Girls) as his wife, and Wanda Sykes as his Congressional aide keep it mildly entertaining and its brief running time ensures that it ends before wearing out its welcome. But it is theologically shaky and logically even shakier. Is Evan building the ark out of respect for God’s direction or because God forecloses every other option? Who is feeding and who is cleaning up after all those animals? The ending tries to have it not just both ways, but about four or five different ways. And, speaking of miracles, how did that house go from being under construction to being complete and fully furnished in a matter of hours without a single moving van?

Parents should know that this movie has some crude potty humor, implied comic nudity, and an in-joke reference to Carell’s recent film The 40 Year Old Virgin. There is brief mild language. There is also some peril and mild fanciful violence — no one hurt. Some of the themes (political corruption, family stress, portrayal of God) may be disturbing to some audience members.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Evan meant when he said he wanted to change the world and what God meant when he said “Whatever I do, I do because I love you.” They should read one or more of the Biblical versions of the Noah story. And of course they should all try a little dance.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy Bill Cosby’s classic routine about Noah and the George Burns film Oh, God!.

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