My Week In Movies - Super This...Wonder That

I was planning on going to see Earth this weekend, but the weather was so incredibly nice that I felt bad spending time inside a dark theatre. I had a great time experiencing the real Earth instead. Good Times! Here's what I did catch though...

Superdad (1973) It's amazing how the folks at Disney can be responsible for some of the most timeless movies ever made and also some of the most dated movies ever committed to film. Superdad falls into the dated category. Every scene in this film is dripping with early 1970's: from the wardrobe, to the sets, the music, and the outdated ridiculous way everyone behaves in this movie. Don't get me wrong! It's a a fun film with Kurt Russel in his eighth film for the Disney studios and Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane, taking a break from his hobby of shooting homemade pornography, in his only leading role on the big screen. Crane plays a father who tries to breakup his daughter and her boyfriend by setting her up with a fake scholarship to a far away school. The hilarity climaxes when Dad must face off against a crazy hippie to save his daughter. The ending of the film kind of has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, but a movie needs an ending....right!? This is good stuff here, folks. You've also got on board Disney favorites Joe Flynn and Mr. Dick Van Patten, plus it's got Ed Begley Jr. and Bruno Kirby in very early roles. I've had this movie on tape for many years, but was thrilled to recently upgrade it to DVD thanks to the exclusive offerings at the Disney Movie Club.

Marley & Me (2008) My kids really wanted to see this when it came out, and my wife and I really wanted to see it too, but we decided to wait for the DVD - more because of the two hour running time than the tear jerking ending. (My three year old seems to have about 70 mins. worth of movie viewing time in him before he starts to get restless, my five year old son could sit and watch Revenge of the Sith two or three times in a row without moving!) Now, I don't want to sound like everyone else in the world who's read a book before it was turned into a movie...but since this is only the third time I've actually read the book before the movie (The Cat in the Hat counts, right!?) I've earned the right to express my literary comparison. The movie is good and stays pretty faithful to the book. It slightly rearranges some events but for the most part one could call this a faithful adaptation. In the book, however, there is more of a relationship between the dog and his male master, played in the movie by Owen Wilson. In the film, the relationship between Marley and the family seems pretty balanced, but in the book there is more of a friendship between the dog and the man. So when you get to the end of the book, you really feel the connection between the two - in the movie, it's more how the family as a whole deals with Marley. In the end, a well done movie. It's not a kids movie, even though it's rated PG and has cute puppies. It's a family movie, probably best suited for kids a little older than 3 & 5. But just for the record: the 3 year old fell asleep about 10 minutes in and the 5 year old cried his little eyes out at the end.

Wonder Woman (2009) I got this from Netflix to watch with the kids since we're on such a super hero kick around here but I ended up watching it by myself and I glad I did. This new animated movie carries a PG-13 rating and had it been a live action film it would have certainly gotten an R rating. (Actually, this cartoon was first rated R and they went back and made some cuts to get the PG-13.) The violence in this movie is brutal. Several people get their heads cut off, we see a sword go straight through some girls chest and there's lots of other chopping and hacking along the way as well. The language never goes beyond a "damn" or a "crap" but there are some sexual jokes and a scene where Wonder Woman and some dude do 12 shots of tequila. It's kind of offsetting watching a cartoon that looks like a Saturday morning show but has buckets of blood and hooker jokes. However, this new Wonder Woman is fun and loaded with plenty of action all while keeping a good sense of humor about itself...but I'm glad the kids didn't see it!

Trouble The Water (2008) This is, like, the 70th documentary I've watched about Hurricane Katrina. This one sets itself apart from the other by featuring home video shot by a woman who lived three blocks from the failed levees and captured the whole thing on tape while her house flooded all the way up to the attic. There's some shocking and brand new footage here of what it was like to be inside the storm. The film starts off pretty strong but by the time it follows people moving to different states to start their life over, the flow and urgency of the film is lost. At one hour and forty-five minutes, they probably could have shaved another 10-15 minutes off the movie, but it's still a pretty powerful look back and a reminder of a horrible chapter in this country's history. (You can catch this movie on HBO this month.)