The Kids Are All Right
Kim OJ 7 comments
The kids may all be right, but the title is horrible, it did nothing to entice me to watching this best picture Oscar nominee. When I heard the title, the kids are all right, I imagined a children’s comedy where unruly ten to twelve-year-old kids go on adventures and get themselves into trouble, all the while outwitting adults, and in the end their childish fantasy and games make them heroes. That is not this movie; this is a family drama with conflict between the two teenage kids and their lesbian parents as the kids seek out their sperm donor dad.
The movie opens well with establishing the family characters and the inciting incident, but from there it looses focus and as the run time hastened toward the climax, the story arc runs out of breath and limps toward the end. Without the properly defined conflicts and consequences, it is simply hard to get excited for the storyline or its characters.
The cast is strong, but several of the conflicts are poorly illuminated and there is a distinct lack of any resolution. It is in essence a 2 hour window into a family and its conflicts, but when the window shuts, we are left wondering why we were peeping. The director should have either taken the story more seriously and put one of the conflicts in focus, or lightened up the mood. The family drama has several humorous moments, but not enough to warrant comedy status. The lacking focus and resolution would have been more excusable, if the movie had leaned more toward a comedy, and perhaps been entitled “Daddy Issues”.
By the way...Did you see Eat, Pray, Puke?
f~
Muddie
Friday 19th August 2011 | 12:25 AMyou guys have it on me, I just dont understand movies nowadays..
I must be getting older than old... I remember Thommy and Rollerball really well and then it truly has been a search to find anything in a movie except for comedy
I will state here... movie whoredom is whoredom.
I dont understand it, if it isnt clever 100% then its just a tale. The harry potters and the pirate movies I will attend and then slink away..
My good friend Jack and I discussed it the other day.. If I see something dumb, I switch off and think about better things like the popcorn or the ice cream..
Kim OJ
Friday 19th August 2011 | 12:54 AM...in response to this comment by Friendo. Thanks for the suggestions Friendo.
It is true that most of what hits the big screen here in the US is crap, which is why I hardly ever watch movies in the theater. Like any other industry, you cater to the people that are buying, and most movie tickets are sold to teenagers and young adult, who we can then conclude must have a bland to bad taste.
Muddie
Friday 19th August 2011 | 01:19 PMtoo true..I have seen an adan sandler movie and I have seen what jim carey movies do to peoples heads.
Gina
Wednesday 24th August 2011 | 10:18 AM...in response to this comment by Friendo. I'm looking forward seeing the movie after it came highly recommended by someone I admire. Who also happens to be a female; a human female. :-D
Love ya, f~!
Gina
Wednesday 24th August 2011 | 10:18 AM*forward TO seeing...
Friendo
Thursday 18th August 2011 | 06:31 PMWell Kim...This time we are in full agreement.
Netflix describes it as an Independent Drama, Gay & Lesbian Comedy, as well as: Emotional, Feel-good, and Witty. There may be some gay and lesbian comedy, but you've got to remember it comes out of the same Hollywood assembly line, and packaged in just another colorful box.
I imagine the process of Hollywood film conception something like this:
1) Try to give it mass appeal, but just make it sound different from the outside.
2) Use the tried and true cliches, extracted from films of similar genre.
3) Some guy slipping into your dreams is the same as finding your lovers sperm donor by a fluke.
4) Kim, I'm not sure where you're living these days, but in America, the MPAA pays the theaters the big bucks to keep movies with intelligence and depth off our local screens.
Art and human expression don't sell here in America. Movies aren't allowed to say anything,
they have to entertain...er sell tickets and $5.00 soft drinks. I mean think about it, how many people do you know who want to see something with meaning and depth that some director invested years of his life into. Geeze...Something like that could get people upset.
As the chairman of the seventh annual Big Dam Film Festival here in West Central Illinois, let me make a couple suggestions for you. Always remember though, to find the good ones, you have to sit through a bunch of bad ones.
1) Incendies (Huge World Wide, Zip in the Sates.) http://youtu.be/TqueRPdENFM
2) One Week (best fuckin' thing I've seen in a while) http://youtu.be/c7wN4ogONxE
2.5) Watch this after the One Week Trailer http://youtu.be/UKPn4rs0FZw
3) Intelligence (24 episodes Canadian T.V.) Fantastic http://youtu.be/X1cFxeqg5V4
4) Agora http://youtu.be/X1cFxeqg5V4
5) Biutiful http://youtu.be/kUuoYhgaQG4
6)The tree of life (Hollywood, but they musta' screwed up.) http://youtu.be/ozmxSuJ3wtY
f~