Wknd Box Office: The Other Son, Cloud Atlas, Chasing Mavericks, Fun Size, Liberal Arts, Pusher

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last weekand THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: The Other Son, Cloud Atlas, Chasing Mavericks, Fun Size, Liberal Arts, Pusher


By Debbie Schlussel



Sorry I didn’t have my reviews up Friday, but with six movie reviews to post and other stuff, I ran short of time before the Jewish Sabbath. So many new movies at theaters this weekend, so few worth seeing (if any at all). And then there’s pro-Palestinian propaganda (made by–who else?–leftist Jews), parading as a movie.



* “The Other Son [Le Fils de L'Autre]“: You’d think French Jews–who are constantly under deadly attack from Muslims in their own neighborhoods (see Ilan Halimi) and at their own schools (see Toulouse Jewish school)–would have something better to do than to make pro-Palestinian propaganda and fantasy movies. But in the case of Lorraine Levy, the self-hating French Jew who wrote and directed this fictional BS, you would be wrong. Just as you would be wrong in the case of “Cohen Media Group,” the name of which kept flashing on my screener DVD of the movie (apparently, Cohen Media Group produced this). So, that means idiotic Jews, named Levy and Cohen, are the propagators of this crap. No surprise. This leftist Jewtopian, moral equivalency movie is, unfortunately, interesting and well made (if slow). But there’s nothing real about it. The filmmakers act as if Palestinian Muslims are not Islamic terrorists and Islamic terrorism supporters, but kindly loving people with so much in common with the Jews. It’s just baloney, albeit halal baloney. I breathe, eat, and sleep, just like Palestinian Muslims, but our similarities end there. They are Nazi savages, except in this movie. Oh, and did I mention that the Palestinians are the heroes of the movie, who save an innocent Israeli from certain death by stabbing?



An Israeli family (headed by an IDF Colonel) and a Palestinian family learn that their 17-year-old sons were accidentally switched at birth during the first Gulf war, when a scud missile hit near the hospital where they were born and the babies were quickly moved to a safe room at the hospital. The Israelis find out when their son takes his physical to serve in the IDF, as all Israeli Jews are required to do for two years. His blood type makes it impossible that he is the son of those who’ve been his parents for the last 17 years. It’s just not credible that a boy in Western, industrialized Israel–where they have some of the top doctors in the world and where many medial innovations are made–would not have his blood taken at any time from birth until age 17, which makes the entire movie a joke. But, as with all other things connected with reality, the filmmakers don’t let facts like this get in the way of their cinematic screed.



Soon, both families learn of the mistake, meet each other, and–miracle of miracles!–are both fluent in French with strong connections to that country. They have soooo much in common! YAY!



The nebbishly-looking Israeli son is a hippie who wants to become a musician. Upon learning he’s a Palestinian, goes to the rabbi to ask if he is Jewish. The rabbi says no and that he must go through a Jewish conversion. In contrast, he then goes to the West Bank to hang out with the Palestinians who gave birth to him, where they welcome him. He and they sing an Arab song and are all happy together. We are the world, we are the children. Blah, blah, blah, blah. The good-looking Palestinian son, who is really a Jew, has just returned from France, where he is in medical school. He gets a pass to go to Israel and meets up with his Israeli counterpart on the beach, where he is unsuccessful at selling ice cream. The Palestinian (really a Jew) asks if he can sell it, and he’s very, very successful. His Palestinian brother, at first, tells him he hates him because he is a Jew and not Muslim blood, but, then he joins his brother (who is really a Jew), on the beach of Israel and they save the Jewish son (who is really a Palestinian) from being stabbed to death on the beach. Oh, the humane Palestinian heroes who risk their lives to save the Jew! If only that actually happened in real life. Sadly, it doesn’t. Even more sad, they are usually rushing to rip apart and murder the Jews. Also, the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint harass the Palestinian son (who is really a Jew), by looking into the car to see what he looks like and making rude comments. We also hear constant banter from the Palestinians about how bad the JOOOS are, how “they took our land,” and other bullcrap.



In fact, a better, more realistic movie on “switches” in the Arab Muslim and Jewish worlds would be a movie about a milion Jews who had homes and property in all of the Muslim nations, but their houses and property were stolen from them after they were kicked out by the Muslims. But don’t expect anyone named Levy or Cohen to be making any such movie anytime soon, when they can specialize in Jewish self-hatred instead and know they will have all the financing and distribution for such films.



Like I said, the movie is leftist Jewtopian fantasy that has nothing to do with real life. But the ghost of Yasser Arafat is laughing all the way to his next session with one of his 72 male virgins.



FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR ARAFATS PLUS FOUR NOAM CHOMSKYS (for the Excessive Jewish Self-Hatred Involved in Making This Movie)


* “Cloud Atlas“: When I watched this horrible and horribly long movie, I kept thinking, “Help! I’ve been locked in the Church of Scientology movie studio, and I can’t get out!” No, it’s not made by Scientologists, but it might as well be. It has that science fiction, absurdist, New Age vibe throughout and makes no sense. It’s like something L. Ron Hubbard might have written. The movie is high on style–costumes/wardrobe, sets, and definitely make-up–but absolutely empty on plot. It’s six separate stories set in different times over a period of 500 years, and all six stories are diced and sliced and plopped together, cutting back and forth between them in no particular order. The same actors–stars Tom Hanks and Halle Berry–are in all six stories. And it’s just ridiculous. I laughed out loud, mostly at times that humor was clearly not intended by the filmmakers. It’s just that absurd. And none of the stories are interesting in the least. None of them are even really fully realized or resolved either.



Nearly three hours long, this is boring and silly to the max. Don’t waste your time and money on this overhyped, expensive piece of excrement. This movie is a joke. Sadly, the joke’s on you if you paid with money and time to see it.



FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR CRYSTALS (For Excessive New Age Claptrap)


* “Chasing Mavericks“: I had mixed feelings about this movie It’s not violent, doesn’t have sex in it, and it’s fine to take your kids and whole family to see. Plus, the main character in the movie is a good kid who works hard and avoids drugs. On the other hand, it’s about a kid who sneaks out to learn to surf a dangerous, giant wave, and risks his life (and his alcoholic mother encourages him to do it, even though the chance of death is great). Plus, it’s based on a true story, and in real life (and in the movie), the kid dies later on, diving in other water, so I’m not sure what the point was. And, while I didn’t like that in this, as with typical Hollywood fare, the boy’s father abandoned him, there is another father figure in the form of the man (Gerard Butler) who teaches this kid how to surf and is a good disciplinarian. I did like that. The kid (Cooper Timberline) who plays the main character as a young kid (at age eight) was very, very cute and heroically saves the dog of the girl he likes. Plus, the surfing scenes were very cool.



The story: Jay Moriarity (Jonny Weston, who resembles ’80s star Christopher Atkins) is a young kid living in Santa Cruz. At age eight, he almost drowns trying to save the dog of the older girl on whom he has a crush. He is saved by a neighbor (Gerard Butler), who is a surfer and a contractor. Soon, the neighbor is teaching him how to surf, and, now, at age 15, he’s become a great surfer but wants more. One day, he follows his neighbor to a secluded beach miles away and sees his neighbor and a few others surfing giant waves that were then thought to be a myth. The waves are known as “Mavericks.” Moriarty convinces his neighbor to train him for this death defying feat. Meanwhile, Moriarty’s mother (Elisabeth Shue) is a neglectful alcoholic, who is always losing her job. So, Moriarty works at a pizza joint to make money and pay for surfing-related and other expenses. All the while he pines for the girl whose dog he saved, as they remain great friends. He is also trying to avoid the bad kids who do drugs.



The movie has some great messages about working hard and overcoming obstacles and bad circumstances. But, again, it also teaches kids to take dangerous risks.



The movie was a little slow, but it is somewhat uplifting.



ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS



* “Fun Size“: I found this movie long, boring, derivative, and appalling because it has blatant sexual themes, even though it is made by Nickelodeon and aimed at tweens and young teens. Plus it co-stars the absolutely annoying Chelsea Handler as the mom. Uggh.



A teen girl (Victoria Justice) gets invited to the Halloween party of a popular guy in school. But her immature mother, who is dating a man twenty years younger than the mother, insists on going to her boyfriend’s Halloween party and forcing her teen daughter to babysit her brother, the mother’s young son. The teen girl then loses her brother and spends the rest of the night with two nerds in their car, trying to find the lost brother. The movie is chock full of bad jokes, sexual humor, and obnoxious but not funny scenes, such as when a giant robotic chicken falls off the roof of a fast food joint and simulates having sex with the car it falls on. This is for kids? Sadly, that’s at whom it is aimed. I’ve seen a gazillion other, better babysitting movies from which this borrows heavily. The only funny part–and it wasn’t that funny–is when one of the nerdy kids takes everyone to his pretentious two (lesbian) moms’ house, and one of the moms discusses the other mom’s third Ph.D. in “pre-natal psychology.” That probably went over the heads of anyone seeing this crap. Anyone who is smart enough to get that shouldn’t be wasting his/her time and money at this movie. It ain’t aimed at them.



FOUR MARXES



* “Liberal Arts“: I had mixed feelings about this movie, too, though I mostly hated it. It’s long, slow, and boring. On the other hand, I liked the message, that if you are a 35-year-old trying to “date” (euphemism) 19-year-old college students, it’s time to grow up. Long past time. Didn’t need this movie or it’s long way of saying that short message, though.



Writer, director, and star Josh Radnor plays a 35-year-old Kenyon College grad living and working in New York City. He and his girlfriend (or wife–they don’t tell you) have just broken up, and he’s depressed. He returns to Kenyon for the retirement party of his favorite professor, a Marxist nutjob. There, he meets a 19-year-old, pretentious, beautiful daughter (Elizabeth Olsen) of the professor’s friends. She’s a freshman at Kenyon, and they begin dating. She tells him she’s a virgin and wants him to take her virginity, but he pulls back, knowing it’s not right. He also realizes that it’s time to grow up and settle down with someone his own age. That’s a rare thing from Hollywood, and I should applaud it. But still, I found the movie boring and a little annoying. Sorry.



HALF A REAGAN


* “Pusher“: As with many such movies from England, I needed a translator for some of the fast cockney dialogue in this. A lower-level London drug dealer owes a lot of money to a Russian mobster kingpin because of a drug deal gone bad. He needs a lot of cash fast to pay the kingpin back or he will be murdered. He has a lot of drug user loser friends from whom he’s desperately trying to collect the cash. A drug dealer’s life is rough. Gee, thanks for the tip. Nothing new here that you haven’t seen in a million other garbage movies on the same topic, even though lead actor Richard Coyle is very good. And I didn’t need to see the torture and blood. No thanks.



FOUR MARXES