I'm Having a Thought Here

One thing that really bothered me when I would watch movies was when at the end of a "Coming of Age" film, the scene would go something like this:

Parent: "I'm sorry for being a parent and not letting you do whatever you want."
Child: "That's okay, I forgive you because we just spent approximately the last 90 minutes seeing that you are completely unreasonable in your expectations and now you know exactly why you were wrong."
PARENT and CHILD hug and possibly walk down the beach arm in arm as the sun sets.

It always bugged me to death. That's a very blanket statement. It ALWAYS bugged me to death.

Until the other night, that is. I was watching a movie. It was a "Coming of Age" movie and had the typical ending. Except, to my amazement, the child was right!

I said to myself, "Wait! That can't be. I had this blanket statement and everything!"

So I examined my verdict very carefully. And I came to he same conclusion.

The father in the movie was excessively pushing his daughter to be the youngest female national soccer team member. He coached her from EARLY morning until LATE evening. He had her join the college team he coached to get more experience. Now she didn't fight him. She just tried to do other things. She loved photography and dancing and just having friends. Again, her attitude was never horrible or rebellious, she just started realizing she wanted to do other things besides soccer. Her father was pushing her so hard to fulfill HIS dream, he literally made her sick. At the end of the movie, the girl told her father that she wanted to take a break from soccer and focus on some other things in school. He saw what she was saying and agreed and apologized for pushing her to make his dream come true.

And as I thought about it again, I realized he was right to apologize. God has given each person their own gifts. I believe that as a parent, I will be responsible for helping my child find the gifts that God has given them. To force our child to have the talents God has given us can cause resentment and "provoke children to wrath".

So, this whole shocking event made me think about some other "Coming of Age" movies where I had dismissed the children as just being brats. And I found another shocking conclusion. Most of the movies had this same theme of parents pushing their children into what they, the parents, think they should be, not what God has given them. Now, hardly any of the movies had children that handled it the right way. Their responses to their parents were, for the most part, rude and condescending and not God (or parent) honoring.

So either, this is truly a problem that young people are dealing with or it's a convenient conflict to write about.

Either way, I really believe that in order to write a screenplay or watch a movie that avoids this attitude you have to examine the motives behind each person in the script, that they have a godly attitude.

I'm writing a screenplay right now that could be classified as a "Coming of Age". This whole thing made me re-examined my characters and make sure they were not crossing the new line I had found.

So, while this isn't a movie review per-say, it was a good reminder to me to watch movies and look beyond just the first, second, and even third layers to see the true heart of the characters.

What do yo think?

Tiffany

The Blind Side

From the IMDB website: Based on the true story of Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy who take in a homeless teenage African American, Michael "Big Mike" Oher. Michael has no idea who his father is and his mother is a crack head. Michael has had little formal education and few skills to help him learn. Leigh Anne soon takes charge, however, as is her nature, ensuring that the young man has every opportunity to succeed. When he expresses an interest in football, she goes all out to help him, including giving the coach a few ideas on how best to use Michael's skills. They not only provide him with a loving home, but hire a tutor to help him improve his grades to the point where he would qualify for NCAA Division I athletic scholarship. Michael Oher was the first round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 NFL draft.

PRO

~ The most obvious pro to this movie is the way the Tuohy family so openly welcomes Michael into the family.

~ Mr. Tuohy gets his name on the emergency contact list at school making him responsible for Michael.

CONS

~ Leigh Anne does not portray a submissive wife. She is very much the one in charge in the home. SHE's the one who brings Michael in...Without asking her husband. SHE's the one who gets him a driver's license. SHE's the one who helps him in football. SHE's the one who gets him in the family picture. SHE's the one who gets a tutor to get his grades up.

LANGUAGE

~Now for the confession part: I didn't watch this movie to review, so I didn't actually count the language. But I will say that there was much more than I was comfortable with.

IMMORALITY

~ Leigh Anne is a former cheerleader and wears very low necked shirts.

~ Nothing is shown on camera, but there is an intimate moment between Leigh Anne and Sean.

~ When they visit Michael's home neighborhood, MANY of the conversations have sexual overtones.

RATING

PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual reference.

I was so excited about watching this movie. We don't usually watch the Academy Awards, but we happened to turn it one just before Sandra Bullock won the Best Actress Award for this movie. It was so moving, I couldn't wait to see the movie. But I have to admit I was disappointed. The amount of language and adult situations and the attitude of Leigh Anne to her husband in this movie really made it distasteful to me.

What about you? What did you think?

Tiffany

How To Train Your Dragon

Watching this movie was really just a "chance" encounter. My parents were attending a conference and Mom suggested I see if any movies were playing at the theatre near the conference center. I called the theatre and the only PG and under movies that were playing were "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and "How To Train Your Dragon". I KNEW I didn't want to see "Wimpy Kid", so I decided to go to "How To Train Your Dragon".

At first, I thought I was in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." The movie is set in a viking town. Everyone (and I do mean everyone) is expected to kill the dragons that regularly attack the village. The village's chief, Stoick, is the leader of the viking and a well-accomplished dragon killer himself. His son, Hiccup, on the other hand is skinny and little. Hiccup would love to kill dragons, but because of his size, no one allows him to train. He uses his spare time to build inventions, especially dragon killing ones.

One attack on the village leaves Hiccup unguarded and he pulls out his newest invention and shoots at a deadly Night Fury, a dragon so dangerous, no one has been able to engage it in battle and lived to tell about them. To his own amazement, Hiccup manages to trap the Night Fury. When he tries to tell his dad and mentor about it, they just laugh at him.

Upset, he leaves (without his father's permission) to go find the Night Fury. When he finds it, he pulls his knife to kill it. But is unable to kill the dragon. Instead he frees it.

The rest of the film focuses on Hiccup learning the true reason for the dragons' attacks and joining the warring vikings and misunderstood dragons.

PROS
~In the end, Stoick and Hiccup become a good father/son team. The Hiccup learns to respect his father. And Stoick realizes that sometimes, Hiccup has good ideas. Usually movies accomplish this through backtalk and the father realizing he's been wrong his whole life and of course his son has been absolutely right and he should have listened to him in the first place. Thankfully, this movie does not approach it that way. Stoick is a Viking and vikings fight and there is no apology for that. However, Stoick does realize that his son has learned the dragons' true reason for attacking and listens to him.
~During their journey to understanding, it is always known that Stoick love his son and truly cares for him.
~The village learns to work together for something, rather than fight for themselves
~Toothless, the dragon Hiccup captures and lets go, is as loyal a friend as you can ask for. He is kind and sharing (even if it is half a fish he's swallowed and brought back up again). He is also willing to sacrifice his life for Hiccup. And he is quite endearing on top of that!

CONS
~There are no ladies in this film. Just male vikings and female vikings. The women fight alongside the men and are not treated as ladies to be protected.
~Hiccup lies to his father and his mentor and other viking apprentices in order to keep Toothless a secret. However, he later admits that he was wrong.
~After a big fight with his father, Hiccups thinks about running away.
~As Hiccup learns more about dragons and what they're afraid of and what pleases them, he uses that knowledge to trick those in Dragon Training school into thinking he can kill dragons. It all backfires when he's chosen to kill a dragon in front of the village.
~

LANGUAGE
~There are five uses of words I would consider bad language.
~There are no uses of the Lord's name in vain. However, being vikings, they call on the names of Norse gods quite a bit.
~Stoick gives Hiccup a viking helmut which he describes as half of Hiccup's mother's breastplate.

IMMORALITY
~Hiccup has a crush on one of the viking girls in his class causing some comments from others in the class and well as a couple of kissses between the two.

RATING
PG for sequences of intense action and some scary images and brief mild language.



And there you have it. The Top 3rd movie playing in the box office now.

Have you seen it?

Tiffany

A hidden review

I have reviewed the movie "The Prestige" here. I archived it because of the VERY disturbing nature of this film. If you're interested, please read. But please do realize that this is a very dark, disturbing, thought provoking movie.

Tiffany

Up!

Last weekend, my mom, sister, her fiance, and I attended the opening weekend of Pixar's new movie "Up". I know I said I wasn't going to give an opinion, but I think I might be justified in saying, "What a great movie!"

Without giving the story away (I think that's one of the best thing's Pixar does: keep the story closely under wraps until it's opened) it's about an older man and a young man (boy) who are raised (literally!) together.

But it's about so much more than that. It's about learning to let go of those you love. It's about learning to deal with the hurt that's around you. It's about learning to let go of the idols you've raised. It's about learning to care for what's really important. It's about learning to understand dogs. It's about learning.

And it's all done with Pixar wonderful storytelling abilities. This is a true story in the sense that they makers haven't just thrown together something that will please an audience and make them go out and buy the newest merchandise. But this is a true story in that you learn to care about the characters (cartoons though they may be).

We watched the film in 3D which was supremely fun. It's the first 3D film I've seen and I really enjoyed it. We're trying to go back and see it with my dad (he was sick the day we went).

Again, I know I said I wasn't going to recommend any movies, but this one might just be a "must see".

Pros
~learning to work with those you might not be drawn to at first
~learning to decide what's important and act on it
~learning to care for those around you more than yourself
~learning so much more than can even be written down here

Cons
~the villian, but then again, he's not supposed to be good and he is dealt with in an appropriate manner
~the little boy's parents are divorced, but this is handled in a gentle way while still showing the harmful effects of divorce on children.
~the story somewhat is focused on saving a bird that has been thought to be extinct and therefore has a slight "save the animals" flavor

Language
None

Immorality
None

Rating
PG for some peril and action

I hope this gives you a little insight into this movie! Let me know what you think!

Tiffany

City of Ember

For centuries, the residents of the underground City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights and quiet contentment. But when the City's massive power generator begins to fail, the street lamps start to fade-- along with the hope and dreams of the townspeople. now it's up to two courageous teenagers to follow a trail of clues left by the ancient Builders and find a way out of Ember before their world is plunged into darkness forever.~~From the DVD back

The world was being destroyed. A group of people got together and decided to build an entire self-sustaining city underground. This city would last for 200 years. By then the world above would be ready to accept people back to it. With that idea they send a box down with the first mayor set to open in 200 years. The box is passed from mayor to mayor, until one mayor dies without passing on the box. It becomes lost and forgotten in a closet in the Mayfleet house.

Over 200 years later, the box has quietly opened unnoticed and now the City of Ember is dying. The generator, the only source of power and electricity, is shutting down. Food is getting scarce. In fact the citizens of Ember are looking at a black future with no food.

In the City of Ember, once you reach a certain age you attend Assignment Day. There you will draw out of a bag what you will spend the rest of your life working on. Doon is desperate to work in the generator because he thinks he can fix it. Lina just wants to stay "above ground". When Lina picks "pipeworks" and Doon picks "messenger" both are extremely disappointed. So they switch. Lina gets to run through the city meeting many different people. Doon gets to be close to the generator even if he isn't in it.

One day Lina discovers a box in her grandmother's appartment with what looks like a message inside, but it isn't until she deciphers the word "pipeworks" that she brings it to Doon to look at. Doon discovers the word "exit" on the paper. They both begin to think that there might be a way out of Ember.

As they are trying to piece together what the message is, they stumble across the Mayor's secret chamber where he has hidden food and drink enough to feed several families for weeks. Lina goes to the person she believes she can trust, only to discover that they are in on the secret.

Now with a price on their heads, Lina and Doon are frantic to find a way out: before the lights go out, before the food runs out, before they are caught.

Now the analysis:

Rating:
PG for "mild peril and some thematic elements"

Language:
None that I can remember

Immorality:
None

Pros:
Throughout the movie, Doon's father consistanly imparts his wisdom to his son. In a world where the people have obviously stopped passing knowledge on (no one knows how to fix the generator) this is a good and comforting thing. (I'll mention Doon's reaction later)

Lina, the main female character, lost her parents a number of years before. She now lives with her granny and little sister, Poppy. She is very kind and patient and gentle with them both. She doesn't get upset with her granny even when she's obviously not thinking right and tearing up the couch. When her granny dies, Lina and Poppy go to live with their neighbor. Lina continues to take care of Poppy. She watches out for her and makes sure she is safe. When Lina and Doon decide to try to escape, Lina risks being caught and goes back to get Poppy to bring her with them.

Early in the movie Doon shows his care for animals when he finds a moth with a torn wing and uses his shoelace to patch it up and watch it fly away. (Incidently this occurance also causes him to begin to question where it came from.)

At the end of the movie as Doon and Lina are trying to escape, they discover that the water wheels have been stiff for so long that they no longer work properly. Sul, the man Doon works for in the pipeworks, risks (and looses) his life to let them try to escape.

Lina and Doon really learn to work together to solve the mystery of the "message". They listen to each other and put their thought together to learn the important truth about the exit.

Faith is one of the "hidden" messages in the movie. Mrs. Murdo, the lady that Lina and Poppy go to live with after Granny dies, is constantly reminding Lina that the builders knew what they were doing, and would take care of them. At the time, Lina shrugs it off and the thought isn't really brought up again in the movie, but we find out that the Builders did indeed take care of them and it was the carelessness of others that prevented their help from arriving on time.

This might sound like a silly "pro", but in this movie, the robots are just robots. Not trusted family friends, or sassy housekeepers, or machinery that have taken on a life of their own, but just robots. I really do like this aspect as it shows what robots are....machines.

Cons:
The biggest problem with this movie is Doon's attitude. While his father gives him pieces of wisdom, Doon treats it like "just an old guy talking". He is sulky and upset. He blameshifts this attitude on the fact that the city if falling apart and he could help if someone would let him. But that all is it, blameshifting. He has an almost constant attitude of "I know better than you" to his dad and at first scorns the gift his dad gives him as useless.

During the course of the story, you find out that Doon's dad had been a part of an escape attempt. He gave it up when one of his friends died. Now he wants no part with escape talk. He doesn't take initiative to follow what his son tells him he's found out. He's scared to try again. He does redeem himself by drawing the soldiers who come to capture Doon away so Doon can escape and by telling him to follow whatever evidence he has about an escape route.

Much of the story would be classified as Fatalistic. Everything from "You don't have a choice in what you're going to do in life, you just have to follow what's given you" to "Trust the Builders, they know what they were doing, and it will all turn out right." In fact one of Lina's good adult friends tells her, "Don't dig too deep, Lina." All the Emberites just follow what those before them have done and don't try to change anything. Doon's mentor in the Pipeworks keeps answering Doon's questions about how things work with, "I don't know, it's not my job!" Doon and Lina do break this mold in their adventure, but everyone around them is stuck in the "It's fate, don't fight it" mentality.

Another big problem with the movie is the portrayal of authority. We find out pretty early on that the mayor isn't really interested in the people he governs, but is concerned with himself. That's only the beginning of the conspiracy in the government. This government is painted as not being able to competantly rule, but self-centered.

Cinematography:
First of all, let me say that I am not a cinematographer and I'm only going to give my impressions of what I like. One thing that I really appreciate in a movie is when I view it multiple times (and I view most movies multiple time) I can see something new each time. So some things that I've notice after a few viewings:
~In the beginning the hands of the mayors get older as they pass the box on
~You can see Granny knitting as a little girl
~The dark bag that they draw their jobs out of
~In the pictures on the wall in the mayor's hall, you can see some of those who were in the beginning scene.


Well, there you have it. The City of Ember is only the first in a series of books (to read my review of the book click here) and I will be very interested to find out if they plan on making more of the books into movies.

Have you seen this movie? What did you think?

Tiffany

The Prestige

All right, there is a very strong warning with this review. This is a disturbing movie. Not necessarily bad, but disturbing. Please take this caution very seriously. I DO NOT recommend this movie.

For the synopsis, I'm borrowing the synopsis on the official website:

"Award-winning actors Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Cain, and Scarlett Johansson star in The Prestige, the twisting, turning story that, like all great magic tricks, stays with you.
"Two young passionate magicians, Robert Angier (Jackman), a charismatic showman, and Alfred Borden (Bale), a gifted illusionist, are friends and partners until on fateful night when their biggest trick goes horribly wrong.
"Now the bitterest of enemies, they will stop at nothing to learn each other's secrets. As their rivalry escalades into a total obsession full of deceit and sabotage, they risk everything to become the greatest magician of all time. But nothing is as it seems, so watch closely. And be prepared to watch it again and again."

Now this movie really depends on the the "trick" being a secret when you watch, so I'm going to keep it that way.

Pros
~obsession is shown to be the horrible thing it is
~murder is shown as wrong, for whatever reason
~secrecy from your spouse has dire consequences
~every one of your actions has a consequence
~"magic" is shown as just tricks

Cons
~animals are killed just for the pleasure of the audience...and it never shown as a bad thing
~the whole film is dark. Now this could be a con or it could be a pro. Because of the subject matter, I'd almost put it as a pro (the darkness of the films lends to the feeling that the whole idea of what is going on is wrong), but I wanted to put it here to issue another warning that this is indeed a dark, disturbing film
~there are several deaths (really magic tricks gone wrong) and one suicide shown on film

Language
While I didn't count exactly how many, there were quite a few bad words.

Immorality
~One of the men is married at the beginning and they do show him with his wife discussing a trick in their bedroom. Definitely ends up as a fast forward scene.
~The other man is married, but has an affair with his assistant
~All of the female assistants in the film are wearing just a corset with a short (really short) skirt while on stage (which seeing as the film is about magicians on stage, amounts to a lot of time)

Rating
PG-13 for violence and disturbing images

I am once more going to risk beating a dead horse and make completely sure that you know this is a dark film and should only be watched with the full understanding that once you see this movie, you will not be able to forget it.

You might wonder after all these warnings why I've reviewed it. After each viewing our family spends at least an hour discussing it. Going over what was good, what was bad, where the characters made the right decisions, where they made the wrong decisions, etc.

If you have seen this movie, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Tiffany