Movies

Via Andrew Sullivan, the organization See Jane recently released a study of the portrayal of males in G-rated movies titled "G Movies Give Boys a D: Portraying Males as Dominant, Disconnected and Dangerous". Some of the highlights:

• There are three male characters for every female.
• Fewer than one out of three (28 percent) of the speaking characters (real and animated) are female.
• Less than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.
• More than four out of five (83 percent) of films' narrators are male.

...males are less likely than females to be portrayed as parents and...nonwhite males are way less likely to be portrayed as parents. In addition, Black and Hispanic males are extremely scarce in G-rated films (they appear at well under half their actual rate in the general population), and when they are present they're far more often portrayed as violent than white males.

Today I finished watching Oscar and Lucinda (1997,R) (Screen It! Review). From Wikipedia:

It tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, an English Anglican priest, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. They meet on the boat over to Australia, and discover that they both like to gamble. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church into the outback in one piece. This bet changes both their lives forever.

I really enjoyed this one. I give it 4 out of 5.

Today I finished watching The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). From Wikipedia:

It tells the story of a man who has to impersonate a king, whom he happens to closely resemble, when the king is abducted by enemies on the eve of his coronation.

It was mildly enjoyable. It's certainly a crime for me to give it the same score I gave The Nutty Professor, but that's what I'm going to do. Obviously, my rating is intended to gauge how much I enjoyed the films, not their objective intrinsic merit. I give it 3 out of 5.

Today we also watched Eddie Murphy's remake of The Nutty Professor (1996,PG-13) (Screen It! Review). From Wikipedia:

A 1996 remake starred Eddie Murphy as nice university professor Sherman Klump, suffering from severe obesity. He invents a miracle weight loss potion so he can seduce the girl of his dreams.

This was loaned to us by a friend from our small group after he and our preacher were fondly reminiscing about all the fart jokes. Yes, we have an interesting preacher. I give it 3 out of 5.

Today I finished watching Princess Mononoke (1999,PG-13) (Screen It! Review). From Wikipedia:

Princess Mononoke...is a Japanese animated film by Hayao Miyazaki and was first released in Japan on July 12, 1997 and in the U.S. on October 29, 1999 in select cities and on November 26, 1999. It is a jidaigeki set in late Muromachi period of Japan, and centers on the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who need its resources, as seen by the outsider Ashitaka. "Mononoke" is not a name but a description that might be rendered in this context as 'spirits', making the title of the film "Princess of the Spirits/Spirit Princess."

I have watched too much Japanimation, but what I've seen I've liked (and that includes this one). The first time you see an animated head go flying from a body is kind of strange. The conflict between humanity and nature was interesting too. I give it 4 out of 5.