Entertainment

Today I finished watching Batman Begins (2005,PG-13) (Screen It! Review). From Wikipedia:

Batman Begins is a 2005 motion picture based on the Batman character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Nolan and David S. Goyer. Although it is the fifth live-action Batman movie since 1989, the movie is a neither a prequel nor a sequel to the previous Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher movies, but rather a re-start of the movie franchise.

After hearing so many people tell me that this was good, I was more disappointed to see that it was unremarkable. I give it 3 out of 5.

Today I finished watching Cradle Will Rock (1999,R) (Screen It! Review). From Wikipedia:

Cradle Will Rock chronicles the process and events that surrounded the production of the original 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. Tim Robbins, in his third film as director, adapts history to create this fictionalized account of the original production, bringing in other stories of the time to produce this commentary on the role of art and power in the 1930's. In telling the story of The Cradle Will Rock, a leftist labor musical that was sponsored by the Federal Theater Project (FTP), only to be banned from going on after the Works Progress Administration (WPA) cut the project and diverted its funds elsewhere, Robbins is able to tie in issues labor unrest, the repression of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as well as questions the role and value of art in such a tumultuous time.

I give it 4 out of 5.

Today I watched This is My Father (1999,R) (Screen It! Review). From Reel.com:

Starring: Aidan Quinn, Moya Farrelly
Director: Paul Quinn
Synopsis: The discovery of old photos leads a Chicago teacher to suspect his father may have been a different man than he was lead to believe while growing up. He travels to an Irish village with his nephew to investigate.

I enjoyed this one. 4 out of 5.

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.

There's a recent interesting blog post by Greg Stevenson about moral stories and the entertainment company Walden Media. Here's a quote:

In our constant attempt to wring all complexity or ambiguity out of stories, we have traditionally defined moral stories solely with reference to the amount of sex, violence, and profanity present. This despite the fact that the Bible contains sex, violence, and even vulgarities, thus demonstrating that such things can be present in the telling of "moral" stories. We have largely ignored the most central element of a "moral" story, which is the overall perspective or moral vision that the story communicates. Failing to recognize this has led to many Christians embracing shows as wholesome (due to the lack of sex, violence, and profanity) that are in fact communicating immoral messages. On the flip side, it also leads to rejecting shows with a sound moral vision because of certain undesirable content elements (Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to mind, as I argue in my book).