The reason excellent newspaper Sunday magazines are better that the Parade/USA Weekend crap you’re probably being served today: The WashPost takes a look at the PG-13 rating, 20 years old this year and more profitable than all others. More problematic, too: After describing a scene in which a wealthy-looking woman in an expensive car drops off five children, ages 5-13, at a multiplex, just in time for the 10 p.m. screening of “S.W.A.T.,” writer Liza Mundy notes,
Afterward, I found myself often thinking of that late-night drop-off at Wheaton Plaza. The question seemed not so much what was wrong with it as what was most wrong with it. Small children dumped on the sidewalk of a crowded theater at a time when all but the oldest should have been in bed; taking their seats in a hormonal mass of older adolescents; put in this position by a mother or aunt or babysitter who couldn’t be bothered to get out of her car to see them safely inside. What movie they saw seemed almost inconsequential. Given even this limited evidence of their upbringing, “S.W.A.T.” was in some ways the least of these kids’ problems.
Yeah, but the rest of the story’s worth reading, too.
As bonus comic relief, Gene Weingarten interviews the operator of Capalert, one of the internet’s many guilty pleasures.
danno said on November 16, 2003 at 3:41 pm
People actuaaly take this Tom guy seriously??
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danno said on November 16, 2003 at 3:44 pm
Oops! ‘actually’
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Nance said on November 16, 2003 at 4:24 pm
Not many, I’d venture to say.
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alex said on November 16, 2003 at 5:09 pm
Well, someone once told me matter-of-factly that the gross-out scenes in slasher films at the drive-in were designed with this ulterior motive in mind: a girl on a date would be willing to do just about anything so long as she didn’t have to look at the movie.
Now that’s a conspiracy theory that doesn’t hold water. Since when has Hollywood ever considered the public’s needs and wants?
What sucks, in my opinion, is not that there’s so little out there that’s fit for children, but rather that there’s so little fit for an adult.
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Randy said on November 17, 2003 at 11:08 am
So…when I left my two year old daughter at the 9:30pm showing of Texas Chainsaw Massacre last night, I was negligent?
She still hasn’t come home either…should I call the police, or is it just kids being kids, challenging authority?
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Tracey said on March 9, 2004 at 7:31 pm
‘I mean, ask the dead photographer’s family.’
Well, I’m the “dead photographer’s” girlfriend. I couldn’t give a rat’s you-know-what about MJ, but I loved/still love Bill very much. Just hope he can “read this” from above.
Thanks for listening,
Tracey
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