Movie Review: Marley & Me

Ostensibly, Marley & Me is about the world's worst dog. In reality, it's about family and love.

John (Owen Wilson) and Jen (Jennifer Aniston) Grogan are newlyweds. Jen has their life together all planned: moved somewhere warm, get jobs, buy a house. When a houseplant dies, Jen complains, "How am I supposed to take care of a kid when I can't take care of a stupid plant?", John realizes what Jen's next "step" is. He discusses this with his bachelor friend and colleague, Sebastian, who recommends getting a puppy. So John takes Jen off to a breeder where they get a "Clearance Sale" puppy--Marley.

Marley turns out to have a few quirks. He eats anything and everything. He's afraid of thunderstorms. He has nearly unlimited energy and an unconquerable will. He is untrainable. And he loves John and Jen unconditionally.

And they love Marley, despite all the chaos he brings to their lives.

John is offered a chance to write a twice weekly column. Initially, he's reluctant to accept it because he sees himself as a reporter. But the offer includes a raise, so he takes the assignment. His first column is about Marley. His editor (Alan Arkin) reads it and, perfectly deadpan, says, "This is hilarious. I'm laughing my ass off here."

Eventually, John and Jen decide to have a baby. Jen announces she's pregnant at the same time John's colleague, Sebastian, is offered a chance to go to the Middle East--and he wants to bring John along. John has to make a real choice here: career versus family.

And then Jen has a miscarriage.

John doesn't know what to do. But Marley does.

The Grogans do have children eventually and Jen has choices to make as well. Although Marley doesn't treat the children as chew toys, he's still pretty incorrigible and Jen becomes overwhelmed with it all. John is feeling the stress as well: he's the sole breadwinner and his column is now running five days a week. A decision--a serious one--has to be made about Marley and his place in the family. John and Jen also have to make a decision about their future as well.

Because the movie is based on the real-life experiences of the actual John Grogan, many of the scenes hit home for Hubs and me. The conversations John and Jen had were conversations that we've had, albeit with wittier lines. Their relationship with their kids, as well as the relationship of the kids with Marley, rang true. Despite the comedy, this movie does not sugar-coat the sacrifices each partner makes so that marriage and family life works.

The ending is predictable but not overly sentimental. The parents acted like adults, not hiding the facts of life from their children but helping them cope with the inevitable.

Bring tissues.

This movie is rated PG but I wouldn't bring young children (although there were some in the audience), mostly because the emotional undertones might be overwhelming. There is some swearing, a couple of implied sex scenes between John and Jen (hey--they're married, right?), one implied nude scene (again, it's John and Jen in the privacy of their own backyard). DD#2 (who is 15) enjoyed the movie, although she didn't always laugh at the same parts Hubs and I did. On the way home we talked about the dogs in our family, especially our current dog who broke through a closed window as a puppy--twice--and was notorious for chewing stuffed toys and underwear. (Fortunately, old age has mellowed her. She is currently sleeping on the couch next to me.)

The casting, by the way, is superb. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston play off each other well. They look like real people who have lived real lives. They're sweet and goofy and serious when they should be. Alan Arkin plays John's unsentimental editor who pushes him to grow into adulthood. Kathleen Turner has a great cameo as the obedience school trainer. Eric Dane is Sebastian, the eternal bachelor and the life John Grogan could have had. Sebastian could be a sleaze, but he's not. The actors who play the Grogan kids are not precocious or overly adorable.

Kudos also to the animal trainers and handlers as well as the dogs who played Marley at different ages. Having a dog misbehave on cue is no small feat!

On the March Hare scale: 5 out of 5 Golden Tickets. An especially good "date night" movie for us old married couples who have raised a dog and a kid or two.

crossposted at The Mad Tea Party

Movie Review: Iron Man

This is the latest installment of Marvel comics to come to the big screen and, I believe, it's the first to carry their production label. Iron Man is also the first of the summer popcorn movies to hit theaters.

And hit it does. The film opens with a tribute to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), the genius son of the founder of Stark Industries. The senior Mr. Stark made his fortune during World War II, working on the Manhattan Project. Tony, who showed his engineering genius at a young age, has inherited the company after the death of his father, but has also inherited his father's corporate ethics: Stark Industries supplies weapons only to the U.S.

However, in his personal life, Tony's ethics are more lackadasical. He doesn't appear at the tribute to pick up his award. He seduces a female reporter who wants to interview him. He delays leaving for Afghanistan where he's due to demonstrate the latest Stark Industries weapon to work on his latest classic car. His old friend, Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Terrence Howard) and his assistant, Ms. "Pepper" Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), do their best to keep him focused, with moderate success.

After a successful demonstration of the "Jericho Bomb", the convoy heading back to the airfield is attacked. Tony wakes up with a car battery attached to his chest. He has been captured by terrorists and a fellow captive, Yinsen (Shaun Toub), has rigged a device to keep Tony's heart beating. The terrorists, who come from several countries, including Hungary and Yugoslavia, want Tony to build a version of the Jericho Bomb for them. Tony looks around and realizes that someone within Stark Industries has been selling munitions to these insurgents and Tony isn't happy about it. He's also not happy about being held captive. With Yinsen's assistance, Tony builds a small power source for his heart and then the ultimate in body armor. While building the armor, Tony learns about Yinsen's life--his family, his village--and comes to see how narrow his vision has been.

With the aid of his suit, Tony escapes and returns to New York. He is a changed man and announces that Stark Industries will no longer make weapons. He has a new vision, a vision that not everyone in his company shares. And he has to find out who is selling Stark munitions to the terrorists.

Tony confides his new plans to his assistant, Ms. Potts, and to Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) who was his father's closest confident and right hand man. He also shows Obadiah the power source that is keeping him alive. And then Tony goes into seclusion to work on and refine the design of the armored suit.

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, the Head Bad Guy find the pieces of the body armor and vows his revenge.

The special effects in this movie are awesome. There's a great scene where Tony Stark is trying out his new suit and is picked up by Strategic Air Command, who are getting ready to blow him out of the sky. He avoids that not through techno-wizardry, but through his friendship with Rhodey. And, for me, it was the characters that made the movie great, not just the special effects.

Tony and Pepper have a chemistry, but when their relationship threatens to turn personal, she refers to him as "Mr. Stark" and he refers to her as "Ms. Potts." Tony sees Obadiah as a mentor. Tony and Rhodey have been friends since they were kids. Yinsen touched Tony's heart, literally and figuratively. Tony is flawed, but capable of change--although his flaws, and his genius, are what get him into trouble.

The casting is excellent. I didn't recognize Jeff Bridges at first and Robert Downey Jr. shows the talent for characterization evident in Chaplin. Gywneth Paltrow is strong, resourceful, and sexy. The dialogue is witty and snappy without resorting to profanity. There is some innuendo, especially between Tony and Ms. Potts, but it's well done. There is the one sex scene early in the movie and several violent fight scenes. The destruction of the convoy is particularly shocking--I jumped even though I knew it was coming. Iron Man provides lots of topics for later discussion, particularly with high schoolers, including

Oh--stay through the end of the credits.

On the March Hare scale: 5 out of 5 Golden Tickets

crossposted at The Mad Tea Party

The History of Eugenics is in "Expelled"

The dark history of the shameful movement underpinning the biggest human atrocities of the 20th century was powerfully outlined by Ben Stein in his important documentary which is a must-see for anyone serious about science, about faith, and about freedom. Did I leave anybody out?
Stein followed the scientific community's lockstep loyalty to Darwinism backwards in time, and ended up at the Nazi gas chambers, which first killed disabled people. They were just practicing Darwinism, by speeding up the process of natural selection, formerly called survival of the fittest, by eliminating "useless eaters". Society bought into this toxic mentality because it came from doctors and scientists.
Stein followed the eugenicist trail to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who worked overtime to rid the world of people like my immigrant grandparents. While she was ostensibly offering women choice, secretly she was seeking to rid American society of the 'unfit'. More Darwinism in action. We are still in the midst of the nightmare of Sanger's legacy; 46 million Americans have died of abortion, far surpassing the darkest dreams of Hitler and Stalin together.

Ben Stein did us the invaluable favor of holding a spotlight of truth on some of society's darkest secrets, and those valiant scientists who have dared to reveal them to academia. They were expelled from their positions and blacklisted from obtaining further employment. Oxbridge and Ivy League graduates who have produced world renowned work. They mentioned Intelligent Design once and they were gone. Nothing but strict Darwinism will be tolerated by academics. What happened to scientific inquiry and academic freedom?

Stein then exposed the utterly laughable theories of scientists who would rather make up grotesque fairy tales about Extra Terrestrials coming to earth and planting "human seeds" from which we emerged, to life's beginnings as molecules bumping together as they "rode the backs of crystals".

With his trademark aplomb and vintage film clips adding humor and highlighting the outrageous statements captured by his camera, Ben Stein has created a classic which will one day be appreciated, as the film that drew society bent on self-destruction, back from the precipice.
If it's not too late.
If we continue to allow ourselves to be dominated by dogmatically atheistic scientists whose agenda blinds them to the fact that evolution is a 150 year old theory which has NOT withstood scientific advances, we will find ourselves in a totalitarian state. The scientists themselves admitted on camera that they wish to destroy the power religion holds on culture, and relegate it to an innocuous hobby, like knitting.
Global warming and political correctness will have replaced the Judeo-Christian belief in the dignity of man, the pinnacle and master of God's creation. We will find ourselves enslaved to a materialistic ideology. Our very right to exist will be determined by what the powerful consider a worthwhile contribution to society, against our carbon footprint.
Many of us may not make the cut.
Terri Schiavo didn't.
46 million unborn Americans didn't.
See the trailer here.

The Bucket List: Movie Review

Hubs was up for a movie and I was ready to see something other than the four walls of the family room, so off we went to the local cineplex. Just our luck: The Bucket List was playing. Starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, how could this be a bad choice?

And it wasn't. Mr. Nicholson plays Edward Cole, a self-made multi-millionaire who, by his own admission, is better at work than at marriage. One of his specialties is taking over bankrupt community hospitals and turning them around--including eliminating private rooms. So when he needs to be admitted, he ends up sharing a room with one Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman). Carter is a mechanic who is a history buff. In fact, he wanted to become a history professor, except that his wife became pregnant and being young and black, he took the first good-paying job he could find and abandoned his dream. He's been married to the same woman for 45 years, has two sons and a daughter in college. And he's been through chemotherapy before. He's now on experimental treatment.

Edward wants a private room, but his assistant, Thomas (played very well by Sean Hayes), reminds him of his public pronouncements about the same. So Edward and Carter develop a friendship, born of proximity and their common struggle against cancer. Carter notices that Edward's only visitor is Thomas. Edward notices that Carter can't seem to ever find his doctor, and so tells his doctor (played by Rob Morrow) to take over Carter's care as well. The news for Carter is not good.

Carter has begun to write a list, called "The Bucket List," based on an exercise originally from his freshman philosophy professor. Once he receives his prognosis, he throws the list away. Edward retrieves it and convinces Carter that this is a great idea; they should do this together. Edward has money enough and isn't particularly anxious to have people hover around watching him die. Carter reluctantly agrees, although his wife is not at all supportive. (I wouldn't be either, if my husband went traveling around the globe and didn't take me!)

During their journey, secrets are shared. Carter confesses that once the children had left the house and it was just himself and his wife, he wondered if he still loved her. Edward confesses that he has a daughter, from whom he is estranged and eventually tells Carter how the estrangement came about. They discuss faith: Carter has it; Edward doesn't. On top of one of the pyramids in Egypt, Carter talks about the two questions the ancient Egyptians believed they would be asked after death: Did you have joy in your life? Did you bring joy to another?

In Hong Kong, Carter is faced with a choice and realizes what is important to him. And, eventually, so does Edward.

The ending is perfect.

Nicholson, of course, excels at playing the cantankerous old man. Sean Hayes, as Edward's assistant, is no mere milquetoast, however, and gives as good as he gets. Edward seems to appreciate that.

There is some mild language, an implied sexual encounter, and some frank talk about sex and bodily functions, so the PG-13 label is deserved. Both DD#2 and DS#2 saw it (DD#2 with us; DS#2 with friends) and while they probably didn't appreciate some of the "black" humor like Hubs and I did, they enjoyed the movie. Facing death is approached positively, and the message that we can control our attitude if not our circumstances is a positive one. As is the fact that Carter and his wife have been married for 45 years and she is the only woman he has ever "had."

On a personal note, Carter's youngest daughter was a "surprise," a reference which made me nudge DD#2 (our own personal "surprise") and made her smile. Also, one of the items on the list is "Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" and I cried when Edward crossed that off the list.

Other funny moments: skydiving and driving the Mustang Shelby.

I only hope I meet someone with deep pockets when I'm ready to make up my own "Bucket List." :)

Seriously, this movie provides a way for families to discuss death and what they would like to accomplish in their lives. Especially for those of us with older parents, the movie makes a case for mending fences and for Not Waiting Until the Right Time. There is no Right Time. If you can, do it now. And this movie makes the point rather quietly and with humor, rather than pounding A Message over your head.

On the March Hare Scale: 4.5 out of 5 Golden Bookmarks. I'm classifying this as a "Pro-Life" film because it is--pro-life to the very end, rather than "I'm dying, so put me out of my misery." I think positive "End of Life" messages are as important these days as positive "Beginning of Life."

Selecting Favorites for 2008: Here's mine; what are yours?

Catholic Exchange posts today on Fifteen Films to Look for in 2008. I always enjoy these lists, as they give me new enthusiasm for the films of the upcoming year. One January, I made a list of must-see films and then returned at the end of the year to determine how many of those films I actually did see and how many met my expectations. As it turned out, I saw most of the films on the list and about 80% of them turned out to be just as good or better than I had anticipated.

Here is a list of the films Marc T. Newman, Ph.D. includes as films to look for in 2008, based upon articles , trailers, and plot synapses he has viewed. He warns us that he has yet to view these films and that many of these films are yet to be rated. Keep in mind also that release dates are always subject to change.

1. Veggie Tales Presents the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - January 11, which has already been reviewed by Leticia.

2. Penelope -- February 29

3. Horton Hears a Who! -- March 14

4. Inkheart -- March 21

5. Iron Man -- May 2

6. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- May 16

7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- May 23

8. The Incredible Hulk -- June 13

9. WALL-E -- June 27

10. Hancock --- July 27

11. The Dark Knight -- July 18

12. X- Files Sequel -- July 25

13. Valkyrie -- October 3

14. Harry Potter and the Half- Blood Prince -- November 21

15. Star Trek XI -- December 25

I'm going to select the five I am most looking forward to seeing based upon the descriptions presented here and then return at the end of the year to see how well I did --- not in terms of how popular they were, but in terms of how well I liked them -- how good they actually turned out to be.

I am eliminating Veggie Tales Presents the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything , as that's already been reviewed.

Here my five (in no special order):

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- This is C.S. Lewis and I loved the Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, so it's got to be a winner.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg -- the perfect combination! The only concern I have here is that they don't focus too much on death and dying unless they incorporate the after-life and we get a foretaste of the supernatural energy Jones has in heaven. Jones is like the energizer bunny -- nothing stops him.

3. The Dark Knight -- I'm a batman fan -- have been ever since reading my brother's comic books as a kid (although I preferred Katie Keen or Archie at that time). The dual nature of man is always intriguing and it sounds a little like Spiderman III.

4. Valkyrie -- World War II films are appealing to me -- my dad fought in World War II and there were lots of photos and memorabilia from that time in our house. Hitler has always been an intriguing character to analyze. I'm always eager to learn more about that time period, which shortly preceded my birth.

5. Star Trek XI -- Although William Shatner won't be in this one as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy will be there as Spock and that's enough to satisfy me. I have yet to see a Star Trek film I didn't like.

So which five are you most looking forward to watching?