Miss March

Posted on March 12, 2009 at 9:31 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong crude and sexual content, nudity, pervasive language and some drug use
Profanity:	Extremely strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking including drinking to deal with stress, smoking, drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic violence, some graphic images
Diversity Issues:	Offensive to every possible group
Date Released to Theaters:	March 13, 2009

A smarmy premise becomes an unspeakably offensive movie in a mess that is not just disgusting but dull. I don’t feel I need a bath after seeing it; I feel I need an exorcism.
Remember the song “Centerfold?” That’s pretty much the idea, but much coarser. On prom night, abstinence lecturers Eugene (Zach Cregger) and his girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) are about to have sex when he opens the wrong door and falls down the basement stairs. Four years later, he awakes from a coma when his lifetime best friend, the smarmy, juvenile Tucker (Trevor Moore) smacks him on the head with a baseball bat. He tells Eugene that not only did he miss having sex with Cindi and four years of his life but Cindi is now a centerfold in Playboy, Miss March. They decide to to to a party at the Playboy Mansion so Eugene can be reunited with Cindi despite Eugene’s muscular atrophy and a complete lack of money, much less an invitation, plus being on the other side of the country. This plan has the added advantage of getting Tucker out of town and away from his revenge-seeking epileptic girlfriend, whose fire fighter brother has alerted firehouses across the country that Tucker must be killed. She is angry because he repeatedly stabbed her face with a fork when she had a seizure during a sex act. No kidding.
This film has been inflicted on audiences by director/writer/stars the guys behind the television show The Whitest Kids U’Know. The term “triple threat” has never been so meaningful. They are also all about 10-15 years too old for their characters. Unfunny, offensive jokes are repeated as though that might make them hilarious. Over and over we get to experience Eugene’s post-coma lack of bowel control and a rapper whose name describes an animal’s body part. That sets the tone for the rest of the film. Offensive portrayals of women, Hispanics, African-Americans, lesbians, fire fighters(!), the disabled, and pretty much the entire human race are brain-numbingly off-key, never audacious or clever, just thuggish and sluggish. The only impressive aspect of the movie is how many ways it manages to be insulting and how few ways it manages to be entertaining.

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Comedy Movies -- format

Pinocchio

Posted on March 9, 2009 at 2:00 pm

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Children smoke cigars
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense and scary scenes including characters being swallowed by a whale and apparent death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1940
Date Released to DVD:	January 30, 2017
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01M105H8W

This week Disney is releasing a glorious new edition of its most most gorgeous, splendid, and fully realized of all of its hand-drawn animation classics before the use of photocopiers and computers. Every detail is brilliantly executed, from the intricate clocks in Geppetto’s workshop to the foam on the waves as the enormous whale Monstro thrashes the water. It also has one of Disney’s finest scores, featuring “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which has become the Disney theme song. “I’ve Got No Strings,” “Give a Little Whistle,” and “An Actor’s Life for Me” are also memorable. It is the classic story about the wooden puppet whose nose grows when he tells a lie and has to almost turn into a donkey before he can become a real boy, told with endless imagination and beauty, a must-see for all families.

This new edition has some great behind-the-scenes extras.

“Pinocchio” is a natural for the first discussions with kids about telling the truth (especially admitting a mistake) and not talking to strangers. Talk to them, too, about how to find their own conscience and listen to it as if it were Jiminy Cricket. The trip to Pleasure Island may also lead to a discussion of why things that feel like fun may be harmful, and the difference between fun and happiness.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Posted on March 3, 2009 at 7:08 am

A pampered pooch goes on an unexpected adventure but just about everything else in this movie is only too predictable. Drew Barrymore provides the voice for Chloe, a cashmere couture and diamond collar-clad chihuahua. She enjoys the high life with her wealthy owner, Viv (Jamie Lee Curtis), with a full schedule of shopping and parties. But then Viv’s niece Rachel (Piper Perabo) loses Chloe in Mexico and it will require the help of humans and dogs and even a rat and an iguana to get her safely home.

The protected princess must find her way in a world that is dirty and scary but also exciting. She is chased by bad guys with a scary Doberman named Diablo (voice of Edward James Olmos) and tricked by thieves (a rat voiced by Cheech Marin and an iguana voiced by Paul Rodriguez). But she is befriended by a brave German Shepard (voice of Andy Garcia). And her friends come to the rescue: Rachel and Sam, Viv’s handsome landscaper (Colombian actor Manolo Cardona), and Sam’s lion-hearted chihuahua Papi (voice of George Lopez), with the help of Officer Ramirez (Mexican actor Jesus Ochoa).

The trailer makes it look like a light-hearted doggie fish out of water story with a Busby Berkeley-esque musical number that does not appear in the film. Instead it is a lazy strung-together series of sketchy episodes — oh! the sheltered darling got all muddy and lost a bootie! Dear me, the alabaster goddess is surrounded by brown dogs with accents! Will Delgado desert her? Will Diablo catch her? Will Rachel and Sam start to like each other?

A wide range of outstanding Latino performers does not keep this film from an overlay of condescension and caricature. The jokes about couture and beauty treatments and Rachel’s mistaking the landscaper for a non-English-speaking gardener will not mean anything to the film’s target audience of young children. They will enjoy the cute pooches and “tinkle” humor but may be frightened by the mean Doberman and dog-napping bad guys.

It’s a messy, lackluster movie that feels like it was put together by a committee, product, not story, with a soundtrack of over-played, over-familiar, all-but-inevitable radio favorites. Could Cheech Marin ever have predicted that he would once again appear in a movie that features his signature song, “Low Rider,” and that it would be such a dog?

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Action/Adventure Comedy Talking animals

Snow Day

Posted on March 2, 2009 at 7:16 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
Profanity:	Mild playground language and potty humor
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Mild comic peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse cast
Date Released to Theaters:	2000

This engaging kid-eye view of “the real winter miracle” is good family fun. It has something for both littler and bigger kids and is very endurable for parents.

The theme of the movie is that “anything can happen on a snowday,” and it does a good job of evoking the magic of waking up to find the world soft, white, and new, and all normal rules and obligations suspended.

One snowday in particular changes the lives of all five members of the Brandston family. The father (Chevy Chase) is a TV weatherman who is humiliated because he has to dress in silly outfits to try to get better ratings than his handsome but unethical rival. The mother (Jean Smart) loves her family, but is preoccupied with an important project at work. Teenage son Hal is in love with the most beautiful girl in school. His sister Nat has a dream — defeating the enemy of the snow day, Snowplow Man (Chris Elliot), so the kids can stay home an extra day. And their little brother Randy just wants to have some fun with his mom.

One nice thing about the movie is that it shows us a believably harried but genuinely kind and loving family. Nat and Hal have a real sense of commitment and teamwork and the mother may be caught up in her big project, but it is clear that she loves her family very much. And it is very nice to see Chevy Chase in a more low-key and genuine role.

Another nice thing is that it shows us that sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we want after all, and that something better might be right in front of us.

Parents should know that there is some potty humor and some mild schoolyard language. Kids do some unwise and even dangerous things, like confronting an adult, pelting the principal with snowballs, rigging a show shelter with electricity, and driving a snowplow. But it is clear that the movie is a fantasy, and it can give families a good opportunity to talk about taking risks and setting priorities — and about what kind of music is best for ice skating and what kinds of snowballs are the best for a snowball fight!

Fanboys

Posted on February 19, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for pervasive crude and sexual material, language and drug content
Profanity:	Strong and very crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, peyote trip
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	February 20, 2009

“Fanboys” has less of a sense of humor about its subjects than they do about themselves. It is so afraid of offending the demographic that it cannot decide if it is making fun of passionate fans of popular culture or making fan of everyone who is hasn’t spent hours debating the abilities of Boba Fett. Four high school buddies, now estranged, get together for one crazy mission — they want to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch to get a look at the new “Star Wars” movie, “The Phantom Menace,” before anyone else. And the result is just another teen road trip movie, crammed with cameos and many many jokes about body parts and their functions, about mastery of minutiae and saying things like “It’s been parsecs since I’ve seen you” and name-checking things that are oh, so 1998 (Great big Palm Pilots! Chumbawamba!). And isn’t it hilarious that these guys don’t have girlfriends? Yeah, I didn’t think so, either.

The trailer gives away most of the movie’s best surprises including cameos from stars identified with a series of fanboy call signs. Billy Dee Williams is identified as Lando Calrissian, and Carrie Fisher is of course identified as Princess Leia. The real fanboys in the audience will also recognize Ray Park (Darth Maul) and will also appreciate the appearance of the now-indispensable slob comedy utility players Seth Rogan (in three parts), Danny McBride, and Jay and Silent Bob. There are some amusing confrontations between the “Star Wars” geeks and the Trekkers and Kristen Bell (whose brunette bob makes her look like Parker Posey) gives some snap to her lines and wears a Leia harem girl outfit. Someone needs to give the talented Pell James a better job. In her brief and thankless role as a Las Vegas “escort” she lights up the screen with obvious warmth and intelligence.

That is not enough to make up for way we keep getting pulled back to the four bland characters and even blander storylines (you think that conflicts will be addressed? is someone going to find true geek love? will we learn what life is all about?) at what passes for the heart of the movie. It could have been a lot of fun if they hadn’t cheesed it up with a character suffering from Movie Disease — you know, the one where you only have a short time to live but appear and act perfectly healthy — and another character who is struggling with whether he should “grow up” and behave responsibly. It is a shame that a movie about the people who are most passionate about edgy, imaginative stories is itself slipshod and formulaic.

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Comedy Movies -- format