PARENTAL GUIDANCE MOVIE REVIEW

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Different generations parent differently. That's the crux of the conflict in Parental Guidance, a sweet, funny story about what happens when old-school Grandpa and Grandma show up to take care of three coddled-and-sheltered kiddos so that new-school mom and dad can head out of town.

Alice and Phil are the epitome of the contradiction that is parenting in the 21st century. On one hand, they're so engrossed in their never-ending, boundary-blurring jobs (he's a high-tech inventor, she's a website designer for ESPN) that they argue over who needs to put down the smartphone to tend to their three children's basic needs—like, say, making them breakfast.

But that list of basic needs is longer than it's ever been. It includes making sure 12-year-old Harper gets violin practice done so she can ace an audition to get into a prestigious prep school that will qualify her for Julliard which is the launching pad for a spot in the Berlin Philharmonic. It includes taking middle child Turner, an oft-bullied stutterer, to speech therapy, where he's not actually required to speak, lest the demand inflict more damage on his psyche. And it includes making conversation with Carl, an invisible kangaroo who is the companion of Barker, a wild, willful terror who never goes anywhere without Carl—and woe to anyone who acts as if the kangaroo isn't there.

And then there are the restrictions. No sugar. No MSG. No dairy. No gluten. No real eggs in the kids' "eggless" salad sandwiches. No real meat in their "soysages." No outs or keeping score at Pee Wee baseball (lest anyone feel bad). No hot dogs at the games (lest anyone get cancer). No coloring inside the lines (lest anyone's imagination be impaired). No raising of voices when angry.

For Alice and Phil, then, parenting represents an endlessly demanding task, lest their precious flowers experience any damage, any disappointment, any discouragement that might prevent them from reaching full, magnificent bloom.

That's not how Alice herself was raised, of course. No, Alice's parents—the other grandparents, the ones who are only called in when utterly, absolutely necessary, and probably not even then—raised her a bit … differently.

Artie Decker is the longtime announcer for the Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league baseball team. For 35 years, his career took him this way and that, with wife Diane and Alice always in tow, always playing second fiddle to Dad's vocational dreams. As for Diane, well, she lands somewhere between "free spirit" and "loose cannon" on the discipline spectrum.

But when Phil gets unexpectedly invited to a conference where he might receive an award for his high-tech "R Life" smart-house invention, Artie and Diane are the only ones who can take care of the kids on short notice.

What was that about parental guidance, again?

Positive Elements

Alice and Phil want the best for their children. So do their grandparents. The rub? These two pairs of adults have vastly different ideas of what that looks like.

Alice and Phil's approach majors in eliminating risk and tending to their children's every need. That, however, has resulted in three very demanding kiddos who always have to have things exactly their way.

Artie and Diane, in contrast, prize a more fluid, free-form life experience. And that results in chaos occasionally.

Lessons can be learned by watching both approaches.

At first their grandparents prove disorienting to the kids. But we see them begin to adapt, even having a few breakthrough moments, such as experiencing the joy of playing a messy, old-fashioned game of Kick the Can.

Alice is deeply fearful of her parents undermining the work she and Phil have done. And, truth be told, she has some reason to feel that way. But in the end she realizes that her parents' influence has been a positive one. Along the way, she and her father also (in a poignant way) mend years of damage that his self-absorbed ways have unintentionally inflicted. And she comes to grip with the reality that her overwrought approach to everything in her children's lives might not be the best way to do things after all.

For his part, Artie is forced to do some growing and stretching too. Diane confronts her husband about his selfishness, and Artie admits that he's made some mistakes. Those admissions pave the way for a renewal of his relationship with Alice.

Diane also encourages her daughter to spend as much time working on her marriage as she does tending to her children.

Sexual Content

We see Phil and Alice in bed. (She's wearing conservative pajamas bottoms and a spaghetti strap top.) They flirt and kiss. And it's suggested that "romance" is on the menu when these two overworked parents have a chance to get away. Diane later tells her daughter it doesn't matter that her bag was on another flight because, "I don't think [Phil] wants you in clothes."

Diane wears some cleavage-baring outfits. She brags about how she used to wear tight dresses to get jobs as a TV weather woman. When Alice wants to get Harper a conservative dress for her violin audition, Grandma picks out a sleeveless cocktail number instead. Diane pushes the tweenage Harper further into her budding relationship with a boy, helping her get dressed in a slinky getup and putting on makeup to go to a party at his house.

When Artie talks about licking his wounds after being fired, Diane suggestively says, "I'll lick your wounds." Trying to get Barker out of his car seat, Artie jokes, "This is harder than one of your grandma's bras." He says of a skateboarding move called the melon grab, "My cousin got arrested for melon grabbing on the subway." At a Fresno Grizzlies game, we see two couples kiss. Speaking about the Facebook practice of "poking," a man tells Artie, "I wouldn't want to poke you."

Diane and several of her friends do a pole dancing exercise routine.

Violent Content

Artie counsels Turner to confront a bully named Ivan. He does, and the result is black eyes for both boys. (Their fight isn't shown.) Ivan also hits Artie in the crotch with a baseball bat. The pain causes Grandpa to vomit on the boy. Artie falls about six feet to the floor from an auditorium balcony. Playing Kick the Can, Artie accidently clocks Diane in the face, giving her a bloody nose.

Barker's imaginary kangaroo Carl eventually runs away into a street and gets hit by a car. Barker narrates what he sees at the imaginary scene of the accident, saying the animal's head has been cut off.

Crude or Profane Language

One to three uses each of "freaking" and "gosh." Disparaging comments include "stupid." Grandpa tells his grandkids they can call him Artie, and Barker responds, "Can I call you Fartie?" The name sticks.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Phil and Alice are shown drinking beer and wine on vacation. After a confrontation between Alice and Harper, Mom is shown with a glass of wine. A hard morning getting kids to school prompts Artie to say, "It's 9:00 a.m. I need a martini."

Diane not-so-helpfully tells her granddaughter that one night she got "bombed" before a big TV audition. Harper responds, "So you're saying I should drink?"

Newsreel footage of an old baseball game shows a man smoking a cigar.

Other Negative Elements

Artie lies to his wife. And no matter what you might think about Alice and Phil's rules, there's no excuse for her parents to defy them so flagrantly.

In a misguided attempt to connect with Turner, Artie decides to watch the horror movie Saw with him (despite the film's content warning—which we see as well—alluding to strong graphic violence, nudity and language). They don't watch much before turning it off with shocked expressions on their faces. Grandpa repeatedly pays Barker cash to get him to do what he wants him to do (such as not wearing high heels).

One goofy gag revolves around a water pistol, Artie's pants and Diane trying to dry his crotch area. Artie refuses to take Barker to the bathroom during an X Games announcing audition. The boy then urinates (we see the stream) on the skateboarding half pipe, causing skating legend Tony Hawk to wipe out. Another bathroom snicker has Artie singing to Barker in a public restroom. Apparently it's the only way the boy can overcome his constipation. And so the song begins, "Come out, come out, Mr. Doodoo," and goes on from there. The joke amps up a notch when other men in the restroom can't see Artie's feet and wonder what's happening. There's talk about toilet paper preferences and a scene in which Artie runs out of the paper.

At a Grizzlies game, Artie comments meanly about a man's choice of bride as images of the pair getting engaged flash across the big screen. He treats Turner's speech therapist rudely. Diane does the same to Harper's demanding violin teacher.

While being patted down at an airport, Artie tells a TSA agent, "What are you looking for, sailor? I'll help you out." Then he turns his head and coughs.

Conclusion

Plugged In knows a thing or two about parental guidance. Our publication actually started out with that phrase as its moniker. So it was with some anticipation that I settled in to watch what Hollywood might do with the concept. Turns out, Walden Media's Parental Guidance delivers a story that pulls off sweet and sentimental without being cloying or annoying. Billy Crystal and Bette Midler are believable and (mostly) likeable as grandparents who split the difference between reckless zaniness and old-fashioned horse sense when it comes to raising kids.

But given that title, it seems especially appropriate for me to point out content that parents might want to be aware of, such as a fairly long list of mild toilet humor gags, endless repetitions of Fartie, and some sly sexual innuendo. Not so sly are the pole dancing exercises and Grandpa showing Saw to a kid.

Thankfully, it's a negative-elements list that's certainly much shorter than what I'd have to compile while watching virtually any sitcom on primetime TV these days. Not deafening applause, I know. But it is still praise. And I'll end with another morsel of it: Parental Guidance clearly illustrates the value of family and the importance of intergenerational wisdom when it comes to bringing up kids in 21st century.

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OBLIVION MOVIE REVIEW


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The year is 2077, and Earth has seen better days.
A few decades back, an alien force attacked the planet. And while the good guys (that'd be us) apparently won, the aftermath is pretty grisly. The moon's been crushed, and terra firma has been torn apart by both natural catastrophe and nuclear fallout. It seems as though civilization has decided to pack it all in, board up the place and move out.

Jack and Victoria are, essentially, part of the planet's cleanup crew. As massive machines syphon up precious water (which is converted into fuel, we're told, for a trip to Saturn's moon Titan), the two work to protect the machines from the remnants of the opposition—known colloquially as "scavs." Fearsome, orb-like drones do most of the actual defending, mind you. But they can be a bit cantankerous, and it's Jack's job to keep the things up and running. Victoria, meanwhile, serves as a communications conduit between Jack and their bosses who are already holed up on a massive spaceship.

It's not particularly glamorous work. In fact, it can be downright depressing, given the dilapidated state of the surroundings. Victoria's ready to join the rest on the spaceship and be on her way to Titan. But Jack, he still has some affection left for 'ol Mother Earth. In fact, he's found some pockets of the place that seem downright homey—beautiful, even.

Plus, he's having some weird dreams.

Jack dreams of a world before the war. Of a city untouched by holocaust. Of a building—the Empire State Building—towering over a teeming antwork of bustle. Of a woman he's never known but still seems so familiar. So vibrant. So loving. So alive.

He's not supposed to be having dreams like this. His employers even erased his memory before he took the job to make sure of it. He's a cog—a drone himself, of sorts. He's got a job to do, and Jack, despite his odd emotions, is determined to do it.

Then one day a vessel crashes to the ground—an old, prewar vehicle of some sort. Jack sees it fall and, over Victoria's protestations, goes to investigate. There, in the wreckage, he sees capsules holding humans—men and women in deep sleep. And through one of the windows, he sees the woman, literally, of his dreams.

The discovery jolts Jack with a host of questions: Who is she? Do I know her? Does she know me?

And why do the drones seem so eager to blow her to bits?

Positive Elements

Oblivion's major characters all have good intentions. Everyone wants to do the right thing, as they see it. (What's right sometimes turns out to be horribly wrong, but that's largely beyond these folks' control or even knowledge.) Victoria wants to do a good job and in so doing get herself and Jack to Titan in one piece. The scavs, we learn, just want to survive (and we can't really quibble with them for that). The strange woman—Julia's her name—wants to uncover the truth of this unfamiliar world in which she's found herself.

Jack is as well-intentioned as anyone. He wants, simply, to help humanity survive. And because he keeps that strategic goal always in mind, it allows him to switch his tactical objectives when necessary and become the hero humanity needs him to be.

In the end, Jack and others show a willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for a greater good. And we see that with courage and perseverance, life can go on in even the most trying of circumstances. We also get a good look at the power of love between a man and his wife ... a power and a pull that extend beyond even unfathomable obstacles.

Spiritual Content

Jack is a book lover, and every now and then he'll pick up an old tome in his travels. The line from one such work, Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Macaulay, features a stanza that holds particular spiritual resonance for Jack (and serves to emphasize his sacrificial heroism):

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods?

Later, Jack quotes the lines to a fearsome alien entity. It retorts, "I created you, Jack. I am your god." (Jack does not take kindly to that bit of presumption.)

[Spoiler Warning] Jack is a clone who retains memories of his original template. Now, the very presence of a clone can be deemed spiritually torturous, and how it's dealt with here could spark a good deal of thought and discussion. And the filmmakers seem to anticipate such discussion—probing the concepts of what it means to be human, to be a person. Is it a matter of simple biology? Or is there more involved? The movie ultimately suggests there's more, though it does not necessarily follow a Christian worldview. "If we have souls," we hear Jack say, "they're made out of the love we share, undimmed by time, unbound by death."

Sexual Content

Jack is romantically involved with Victoria. They share a bed and shower (we see her from the back and side, revealing part of her breast). It's implied that they have sex in a private pool after Victoria disrobes and dives in. (She's in shadow as she sheds her dress, but she's seen fully from behind; her nude body is more illuminated under the water.) She then pulls a clothed Jack into the water; he takes off his shirt while swimming, and the two kiss and twine underneath the surface.

In the complexities of Oblivion, Jack is, in a way, married to Julia. We see them kiss and hug, and by way of a child born later, it's suggested that the two also have sex. (She leads him out of the frame, and the next morning they wake up in the same bed.)

We see naked adults floating in artificial "wombs."

Violent Content

Most of the violence is either perpetrated by or directed at the mechanized drones. Several people are blasted by them—zapped right out of the movie, as it were. (We don't see dead bodies, and there is very little blood or gore.) One man is knocked into a wall by a careening drone, but recovers in time to shoot it.

Jack deals with several nonlethal but painful encounters. He engages in a firefight with scavs in which he's nearly dragged into a gaping crevasse and suffers what must be at least a 20-foot drop. He's hit in the head with a rifle butt, leaving his face bloody and a lingering cut on his nose. A melee involves kicks and punches and an incapacitating choke hold.

It looks like Julia is about to be executed, with a gun put to her head. And in another scene she's shot in the stomach. (We see her bloody shirt and a blood-covered hand that was on the wound.) She's healed with an effective-but-painful surgical tool. (We hear her screams.)

Drones are demolished. Stuff blows up. People die in a nuclear blast. There's talk of starving to death.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word and five or six s-words. Milder exclamations include "b‑‑ch," "h‑‑‑" and "p‑‑‑ed." God's name is misused four or five times, often with "d‑‑n."

Drug and Alcohol Content

Somebody smokes a big ol' cigar. Others use or brandish futuristic syringes with drugs in them. Jack and Julia recount the dreams they had for their married life, including how they'd "fight and maybe drink too much."

Other Negative Elements

Julia vomits up "breathing fluid."

Conclusion

"Everybody dies," Jack tells an adversary. "The thing is to die well."

Oblivion is a clever sci-fi thriller designed to show us that there are things worth living and dying for. That while we may feel insignificant at times—just one of several billion people crawling around on Planet Earth—we can still live lives full of meaning and purpose.

Oblivion also reminds me of some of the flimsy films I used to watch and enjoy in my teens and early 20s. It's meant to be a fun popcorn muncher, and (never you mind what I just wrote in the last paragraph) its philosophical ponderings are as much window dressing as anything.

That's never license to check your brain at the box office, of course. In fact, it could be argued that the question of Jack's and Victoria's discernment skills—related to whom they're listening to and taking orders from—might be the movie's central source of tension. It's a concept that makes me think about why we write these Plugged In reviews to begin with. Because there's much to discern here—not in the sense of rejecting or accepting out of hand, but weighing carefully and thoughtfully.

Oblivion's violence isn't extreme, but it is pervasive. Its sensuality isn't obscene, but certainly it's impossible to ignore. Its worldview is both strangely affirming and subtly corrosive. And that puts this flick in something of a broad no-man's-land when it comes to thoughtful moviegoing, perhaps a bit like Earth circa 2077. This isn't a bad film, really—and yet it's more of a war zone than you might think.

IRON MAN 3 REVIEW

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It's been said that clothes make the man. Sure, God may care what's on the inside, but the world is different. What we wear becomes social shorthand, a way to discern and judge and often misjudge the people we meet. An oil-stained shirt and pair of overalls tells us something. An Armani suit says something else. An emblazoned T-shirt might trigger a chuckle or a school suspension. We cover ourselves in cotton and cashmere and designer labels, and there's a danger that we can lose ourselves underneath it all. For years, Tony Stark has been defined by his suit—not a cotton or wool or silk number, but a blend made from exotic metals and embedded computers and super-powerful mini-engines. Sure, he may still be a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist underneath it all. And yet, strip the iron from Iron Man and you have, merely, a man. Stark is feeling all too mortal these days. He can't sleep. He's subject to debilitating panic attacks. His Avengers-sponsored sojourn to New York left the man a shell of his former self—funny, given that the man's self-made shell has embodied him for so long. But evil cares little about Tony's lingering psychoses. Whenever Iron Man strikes down one threat, another rises to take its place, and this time it's embodied in the Mandarin. Bedazzled in rings and cloaked in mystery, this bin Laden-style leader hijacks America's airwaves and promises to shower death and terror on the nation's people. And when one of his attacks injures Tony's longtime bodyguard, Tony's had enough. A furious Stark calls out the Mandarin in the media, inviting the terrorist to stop by for a taste of terminal justice. The Mandarin does—by proxy. Helicopters blow apart Stark's Malibu mansion, burying the billionaire's high-tech toys in rubble or ocean. And while Iron Man still lives, his metallic shell has been rocked to its core, energy sapped, defenses breeched, computerized brain useless. Tony Stark is a superhero emperor without clothes, a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist without a supersuit. He lives, yes. But without his metallic cocoon, is he still a hero? Can he still save the world? Positive Elements Tony Stark is at times stripped of his iron in Iron Man 3. And that allows for this bit of positivity: We see that the suits are mere tools. Because Tony's forced to go without his armor, we better see his less digitized attributes. His brains. His ingenuity. His relentless drive. The underlying message—that even the best technology is only as good as the people using it—is timely. There are moments when many of us can turn to the latest manmade invention as a savior of sorts, be it a new weapon or medical advance or smartphone. And yet we see here that they, like Iron Man's suits, are merely tools that can be used for whatever ends we choose. Of course we see plenty of traditional superheroism as well. Iron Man saves loads of people during this cinematic adventure. But he, in turn, is saved … by girlfriend Pepper, by Col. Rhodes, by a kid he meets in Tennessee. So the point is again driven home that we can all be heroic. We can all do good work even if we don't have a superpowered jumpsuit. We also hear ruminations on the nature of evil—a force that's pretty sneaky here. "We make our own demons," Tony says—demons often born of our own moral compromises and mistakes. And as such, Iron Man 3 offers two distinct morals: We need to be careful in what we do and how we act toward other people. We must try to avoid those moral compromises because they'll likely corrupt us in the end. But the movie insists that we can also overcome our mistakes if we have the courage and determination to do so. Spiritual Content There's little overt spirituality here. But Tony and others make several glancing religious references. As mentioned, Tony classifies evildoers and crises as "demons." When he and Rhodes face off against a cadre of evildoers, Tony says, "It's Christmas. Take 'em to church." He says that the Mandarin speaks like a "Baptist preacher." We see crosses at a memorial. Tony visits the scene of a disaster with a kid named Harley. The bomb blast was so hot it vaporized the victims and left their shadows on the surrounding walls. So, why five shadows when six people died, one being the bomber? The shadows indicate that the victims were accepted into heaven, Harley tells Tony (recounting a local legend). The fact that the bomber had no shadow means he went to hell. (Tony is skeptical.) We hear references that our bodies and minds are essentially machines and computers "destined" for an upgrade. Though the Mandarin is not apparently motivated by religion, the images we see of him will remind many of Middle Eastern terrorists typically inspired by radical Islam. Sexual Content Tony and Pepper are now officially an item, and the two live together. We see them kiss and share a bed. We hear Pepper invite Tony to take a shower with her. We're also witness to a flashback to 1999 and Tony's womanizing past. He goes up to a hotel room with a promising female scientist; she wants to show him her research, but he's far more interested in her. They trade sexual innuendo before falling into bed together. (The next morning Tony's gone.) Credits include clips of previous Iron Man movies showing Tony with several scantily clad beauties. Lots of women strut about in bikinis and other skin-baring tops. We see Pepper in her sports bra. (Tony asks why she doesn't dress like that around the house.) Other women wear just bras and panties. A man is in the company of two women, both of whom wear negligees and share his bed. Various sexual and anatomical allusions are made. Violent Content After Pepper kills a bad guy (for what would seem like the 14th time), she turns, horrified, to Tony. "That was really violent!" she says. And she's right. In fact, the whole movie is really violent. And while we certainly come to expect a level of chaos and carnage in these sorts of superflicks (I've yet to hear of a superhero film based on the exploits of the Avenging Pacifist), this one comes with more of an edge than you might expect. The first act of terrorism we witness takes place in Hollywood's Chinese Theatre, filled with innocent tourists who are (mostly) utterly vaporized. (We see Tony's bodyguard lying on the ground, his face severely gouged.) The scene might make some moviegoers think of the Boston Marathon bombings, and indeed, the Mandarin makes it a point of pride to hit America in the fashion of a terrorist—striking out at civilian targets and gloating over the results. He talks about how his men attacked a Middle Eastern church filled with the spouses and children of American military personnel, comparing it to the 1864 Sand Creek, Colo., massacre (when American troops killed Native American women and children while the braves were away). But even discounting moments of uncomfortable real-world parallels, some of the scenes here are still downright disturbing. The evildoers don't make use of mere suicide bombers, but people who actually explode—heating up from the inside out until they pop like kiln-heated sausages. There is very little gore, but the people in the throes of this transformation are obviously in horrible pain, and we see the heat radiate from their skin, eyeballs and mouths. We see veins and bones outlined by the literal light from within. You can probably guess from all this that the body count is pretty high, what with the innocent civilians destroyed by the Mandarin's men and the scads of evildoers laid low by Tony, Rhodes and their phalanx of armor-plated suits. People are bashed and smashed and crashed. They get hit with fists and feet and bullets and jet-like weapons and flying metallic gloves and grand pianos. They're burned or superheated or submerged in water or thrown into walls or plunged into massive fires or flung from aircraft. We see someone's mangled body hanging lifelessly from telephone wires. Another person has an arm sliced off. An attacker is choked with a pair of handcuffs before her neck burns through the metal. It's suggested that someone takes a bullet to the head live on television. We see images of war and violence on TV. A man is strung up above an immolating pool of oil. Tony painfully injects sensors into his arms. He crashes in his suit. His suit crashes into him. We hear how someone contemplated suicide. Crude or Profane Language One s-word. Four or five uses each of "a‑‑," "d‑‑n" and "h‑‑‑." We also hear "p‑‑‑ed" twice and that same number of "bloody." There's one use of "b‑‑ch," one of "p‑‑‑y" and one of "d--k." There are more than a dozen misuses of God's name (once paired with "d‑‑n"). Drug and Alcohol Content A villain admits to having substance abuse problems before his evil employees found him. Tony asks if they helped him get off the stuff. No, the villain says. "They offered me more." We see him drink beer. Others down wine and champagne. Tony lounges in a huge wine cellar. Other Negative Elements Tony makes light of Harley's father leaving the family. A super-smelly bathroom serves as the setting for a joke or groan or two. Conclusion The original 2008 Iron Man was, arguably, the film that truly launched our current era of supercharged summer superhero blockbusters. Yes, Spider-Man was a huge hit in 2002 and Batman and Superman had success well before then. But until Robert Downey Jr. slid into his CGI suit and helped its makers collect an unexpected $318 million domestically, the true potential of the multiplex superhero had not been fully appreciated. But I'll argue that it was the story, not the CGI, that propelled Iron Man to such heights. There was narrative power behind all the splashy special effects—an almost spiritual spotlight of sorts that tracked a shallow, shortsighted man on a journey of penance and redemption. And that makes Iron Man 3 a bit of a disappointment. Oh, it's splashy and exciting and filled with Downey's roguish charm. There were certainly moments of heroism, bravery and sacrifice. And perhaps the spectacle alone will make this, for some, the favorite of the three. And yet there's a promise unfulfilled here, particularly if this is (as is rumored) Downey's last turn in the Iron Man suit. All the movie's high wire hijinks betray, in a way, the promise of the trailer—which suggests this Iron Man flick might have the weight of the first, or the depth found in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. I had hoped to be inspired. Instead, I was merely entertained. Iron Man 3 is what you've come to expect from a standard superhero movie, then. It's chock-full of glossy graphics. It boasts frivolous (kiss kiss) sensuality and mounds of discomforting (bang bang) violence. It's somewhat ironic, I suppose: A movie that forces Tony Stark out of his suit is itself unwilling to take the same chance, cocooning itself in piles of popcorn when it could've showed us its soul. More