The End Of Society As We Know It

Movie theatres are supposed to be a place where friends and families can come together and enjoy some entertainment. It's supposed to be a place where you expect the filmmakers and the studios to have done their jobs by filtering out whatever inappropriate elements there may be and target it to the correct audience.

Last Saturday, I took my two children to see Wedding Crashers, thinking that this would be suitable for youngsters. Within the first twenty minutes, I was shocked at how many curses went flying around and how much the filmmakers used sex to get cheap laughs. Granted, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are both good comedic actors, but the film in itself was so vulgar that I had to leave the theatre at once.

The same was true for Meet the Fockers. It seems to me that when Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller come together, they can't come up with funny enough material and they simply have to retort to using sex and vulgar language to lean on. Many years ago, comedies strictly based the plot on wit and the performances. Less is often more and recently all the comedies that have come out since There's Something About Mary (Dodgeball, Shallow Hal, Zoolander, etc...) have all be extremely disturbing. As a parent, you don't know what movies to take your children to anymore. In fact, you even hesitate to take them to the movies at all.

The last few movies that we went to see that were a delight for youngsters and adults alike were mostly animated films. The Incredibles had a strong theme and message that really made it stand apart from any other stand motion picture that comes out these days. Shrek 2 was entertaining but even then, it kept making sexual innuendoes when there really isn't any necessity for it. The one film that I could recommend that is not animated is a film by the name of Machiavelli Hangman (http://www.hangmanmovie.com). Although you may be thrown off by the title - I know I was - it doesn't have so much to do with hanging and dying and politics and it does with a young man who is searching to find himself. I was surprised that this Quentin Tarantino-esque film didn't have the Quentin Tarantino-esque elements I feared. The dialogue was clean and there were not any gratuitous uses of sex or violence. Everything was in its place and those are the films that we need more of.

Films are a reflection of a society and we need to once and for all get in sync with our current filmmakers and really decide who we want to represent our people and culture.

Jane Phillips is a movie reviewer. Machiavelli Hangman http://www.hangmanmovie.com