The Straight Story

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Do not let the G-rating and the Disney label mislead you – this is an adult movie in the old-fashioned sense of the word, meaning that its story and themes will most appeal to adults and some teens. It gets a G rating because it does not have any of the usual triggers for a PG or PG- 13 rating. There are no four-letter words or nudity, and there is nothing in the movie that is likely to cause offense or trauma. Still, it is not for most younger kids, who will be bored and restless. Thoughtful middle- and high schoolers and adults, however, will find a lot to appreciate and talk about in this seemingly simple story of 73 year old Alvin Straight, who sets off to visit his estranged brother, after hearing that he has had a stroke.

Alvin uses two canes and cannot see well enough to drive. So he hitches a trailer to his riding mower and sets off on a 300-mile journey from Iowa to Wisconsin, encountering along the six-week drive a range of people, landscapes, and adventures.

Children who watch a lot of television and movies often develop what psychologists call the “mean world” syndrome. Based on what they learn about the adult world from the media, their estimates of the incidence of murder and corruption are distorted way out of proportion to reality. And our cautions about not talking to strangers contribute further to their sense that the world is a dangerous place. This movie is a nice antidote to that. Alvin meets an engaging assortment of people, including a teen- age runaway, a team of bicyclists, twin repairmen, and a man who spent his career working for John Deere, and is unfailingly treated with kindness and dignity. It is good to let kids know that they can meet strangers like that, and even better to let them know that they can be strangers like that.

The essential decency of all of the movie’s characters is a good subject for family discussion. So are his comments on family. Hoping to get to his brother in time, he speaks feelingly to people he meets about the importance of the bond between siblings. This is a point that is always worth raising to kids who think that there may never be a day when they will have more to talk to their brothers and sisters about than whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.

Enemy of the State

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

This movie is what I call a “soft R,” the rating based on limited bad language and violence, but not really unsuitable for younger kids. Will Smith stars as Bobby Dean, a successful Washington lawyer, who in true thriller fashion is inadvertantly drawn into a paranoid nightmare. An old acquaintence on the run from the CIA drops a computer disk into Dean’s Christmas packages just before he is killed. Dean does not know that he has the disk, much less that the disk proves that CIA operatives killed a senator (an unbilled Jason Robards) because he opposed their plans to expand surveillance. The head of a rogue operation within the CIA (current default bad guy Jon Voight) goes after Dean, who quickly loses his job and his wife, who leaves him after she learns that he has been seeing an old girlfriend. Every aspect of Dean’s life is scrutinized by the CIA and the chase scenes are very exciting, showing their ability to track every move he makes with the use of technology from satillites to to phone logs to tiny tracers in his clothes. Parents should know that there are four-letter words, references to infidelity, and bloody scenes, but fewer than in most R movies. Families may want to talk about the issues raised by balancing the right to privacy with the need for protection.

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Thriller

Galaxy Quest

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

This is one of the funniest movies of the year, hilariously but affectionately skewering television sci-fi, its stars, and its fans. Not since William Shatner told Trekkers Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz to “get a life” back on Saturday Night Live has there been such a sublime look at this world, reminding us, in these days of Adam Sandler and the Farrelly brothers, that intelligence and humor are not mutually exclusive. The fast, funny, and fresh script takes a terrific premise and unreels it in a tightly constructed farce that is filled with surprises. Perhaps the biggest one is that we really come to care about the characters.

Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, and Sigourney Weaver play former stars of a cheesy “Star Trek”-style show that ended nearly 20 years ago. Their only paying jobs are appearances at conventions of fans and store openings with their co-stars. A group of aliens who received the television transmissions of the program’s reruns and thought they were documentaries comes to Earth to ask for their help.

The TV stars find themselves on a real-life replica of their television series spaceship, lovingly constructed by the aliens to replicate every detail from the show. And they find themselves in a real-life confrontation with a lizard-looking tyrant named Sarris, trying hard to remember lines and plots from old episodes to help them defeat him.

The people behind this movie have watched a lot of Star Trek. Rickman, who played a character somewhere between Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock, stares glumly at his alien gill make-up in the mirror and murmurs about the time he got five curtain calls as Richard III. Sam Rockwell (very far from his role earlier this month as the evil prisoner in “The Green Mile”) plays an extra who was killed on one episode, worries that he’ll be killed for real on this mission, because “my character is not important enough for a last name.” Tony Shaloub, as the Scottie equivalent tries to reassure him: “Maybe you’re the plucky comic relief!” The responsibility assigned to Sigourney Weaver, the Lt. Uhura equivalent, is repeating everything the computer says (and wearing a low-cut uniform).

After a string of slob comedies, it is a special joy to see one that is so sharply written and performed. Acting! Satire! Dialogue! Plot! I remember those! I’m just glad someone else does, too. If movies got curtain calls, I’d give this one five. (Be sure to check out the brilliantly designed “unofficial” website at http://www.galaxyquest.com/galaxyquest)

Parents should know that there is some cartoonish sci-fi violence, some of it rather gross, and one sad death, a character gets so drunk he passes out, and is then very hung over, and there are mild references to Allen’s character sleeping “with every Terakian slave girl and moon princess” on the show.

Related Tags:

Comedy Satire Science-Fiction

The Waterboy

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

If you’ve seen the coming attraction and you still want to see this movie, then you are probably between the ages of 12 and 16 and will probably recognize all of the “played by themselves” sports stars who make cameos. Adam Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, a 31 year old man who lives with his mother and cares only about providing the freshest, most delicious water for the football team. Fired by the coach (Jerry Reed), he volunteers to be the unpaid waterboy for a team that hasn’t won a game in four years. Although his mother has raised him to avoid all relationships and he hates confrontation, it turns out that when he gets angry he can tackle a Mack truck. So, he becomes a football star, gets the girl (Fairuza Balk as a tatooed felon, but a loveable one), and teaches his mother and himself that he can be more independent. Sandler uses an especially annoying voice throughout and there isn’t much energy in the script or performances. I cannot recommend it, but recognize that many adolescents will enjoy it, if only to be able to trade the punchlines with their friends. Parents should know that the movie has locker-room style bad language and mild sexual references.

Related Tags:

Comedy Sports

Contact

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

This film, based on the late Carl Sagan’s novel about a young scientist’s efforts to make contact with intelligent life beyond our world provides a sharp contrast in tone to slam-bang shoot-’em-ups like “Independence Day” and “Men in Black.” Sagan, a scientist who consulted on the space program and hosted public television programs about the universe, raises important questions about the connection (and sometimes obstacles) between science, business, politics, and notions of God. If he does a better job of asking them than answering them, that is at least consistent with the scientists creed that the only sin is to be afraid to ask the right questions — and to be open-minded about the answers.

The movies’ heroine is Ellie, played by Jodie Foster. Devastated by the loss of her parents by the time she was eight, she yearns for contact with extraterrestrials, but shies away from contact with anyone on earth. Having been hurt by feeling, she relies entirely on science, on what can be proven. After a one-night-stand with Palmer Joss, a charismatic divinity school drop-out (Matthew McConaghey), she leaves, to continue to listen for whispers from the universe, despite short-sighted bureaucrats who cut her funding. When she finally hears something, the government steps in (including President Clinton, appearing courtesy of the same kinds of computer tricks director Zemeckis used in “Forrest Gump”). The message is to build a machine, apparently to be used to go to the source of the message.

Joss turns up as an advisor to the President who is assigned to the panel that will select the person who will make the trip. He does not believe that Earth should be represented by an atheist. And he does not want to lose Ellie again. Ultimately, she does make the trip, and finds that she is profoundly changed by it. She finds herself asking others to believe what she says without evidence, on the basis of faith. This is a thoughtful movie, and it provides a good opportunity to discuss how we know what we know, whether on the basis of faith or on what we can prove. Kids may want to talk about whether the reactions of the people in the movie to evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence are what they would expect. Why do some people object so strongly to communicating with creatures outside our world? What do scientists think about God and what do theologians think of science? What is the role of government? What do they think of the way the extra-terrestrials shaped their communications to reassure Ellie?

NOTE: Parents should be aware that there is one episode of sabotage that results in violence, in addition to the one-night-stand (Ellie and Palmer shown in bed together), and some strong language.