Nov 28 2008
Movies for Mature Folks
Movies for Mature Folks sounds like a pretty dull subject.
There aren’t very many movies made for people with brains over the age of 14. (At the bottom of this post are 2008 Movies for Grownups.)
I can’t figure out the fascination with Animation. It must be a youth and gaming thing. Animated movies hold absolutely no attraction for me. I have seen some…it is almost impossible to avoid them if you have young grandchildren over to visit. They LOVE them! It’s like watching cartoons for them, plus there is adult humor that they can try to figure out.
Perhaps Disney can be credited with this phenomenon. Disney always made movies for kids who have kids for parents. They made movies with real people but the stories were almost cartoonish; then he developed the full-length feature cartoon.
On television, we saw the Simpson’s become a hit. This was originally just a little “filler” bit on Saturday Night Live. The adult humor–well, I will re-phrase that. It is actually 14-year-old boy humor. Anyway, this form of entertainment expanded into the evening primetime hours on television, and the Simpson’s success spawned other “copy-cat” shows, each one trying to “out-gross” the other with their own version of 14-year-old boy humor. I kept expecting the entire genre to self-destruct, but so far the audience for bad taste has exceeded my expectations.
I did see Shrek. Then I heard people talking about how great Eddie Murphy was in Shrek. I say, “Eddie Murphy didn’t act in Shrek! It was his voice! It was a cartoon!!” Ridiculous.
2008 Movies for Grownups (from AARP.org) Here are three of my favorites:
The Savages (About caring for an aging parent with dementia. Savage is the family’s surname. Stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman.)
The Kite Runner (Story of Afghanistan was a huge bestseller of a novel)
Atonement (World War Two setting, the British at Dunkirk. Stars Keira Knightley)
Hooray.Thanks for your comments re the animated genre. I agree entirely.I always found the Disney animated films far too saccherine,even when I was younger.Though confess I did like Shrek.The profile for The Savages sounds good,and I read the Kite Runner a couple of years ago.Brilliant.Will have to pass on Atonement…I find Keira Knightlley as boring as batsh*t LOL.
Haven’t seen your selections, but as I am in total agreement with you about animated films, I may check them out! I avoid cartoons (televised or movies) of all types–Bah! Humbug!
I agree, not big on animated movies. I hated Finding Nemo, it was just so stupid. Do not care to see “The Bees” in spite of Oprah’s plug for it on her show. I did see Shrek and liked it.
I was happy to see your take on film. My mom and I were having a discussion about this last night. She has a problem finding movies she likes to go to because she doesn’t like profanity and it’s VERY hard to find movies without profanity in it unless you’re going to a kids movie. And even then sometimes there is “questionable” stuff in it.
Regarding animation… I have grown to like it over time since I have kids now. I got sort of tickled about Karen saying she hated Nemo and thought it was “so stupid”. IT’S FOR KIDS. It’s not *for* you, it’s for my 5 year old. The reason they put remotely mature stuff in it is so parents and grandparents don’t feel like someone is shoving toothpicks under their fingernails when they have to watch them with youngsters. So, before you judge them harshly, I’d say remember who the real audience is.
Digging deeper, Nemo actually has some gems in it… it covers family ties, loyalty among friends, perseverance, courage, ingenuity, and persistence. One might think it silly to “analyze” a kids movie, but I say there is no better movie to analyze. It terrifies me to think of this, but my 5 year old and his friends are going to be running the country when I’m old and I would LOVE for them to have the values of loyalty, perseverance, courage, ingenuity and persistence. If everyone in the world had those values we’d be a step farther ahead in a more highly evolved society.
Anyway, actually, I didn’t mean to go on about that. I really just wanted to tell you that you’re not alone in picking out good mature movies!