Movie Pix Weekly Movie Review

I know what you all must be thinking. Why is the guy that wrote and article about Circumcision and contemplating writing an article about Corporal Punishment (spanking), writing weekly movie reviews? Well, I don't really have a good answer for that, but I'll try my best.

In my quest to cheapen the bill to my Netflix subscription, I had an idea pop into my head. "You're still getting paid for all those page views for your Circumcision article, right?", the other voice in my head asked. It then occurred to me what that voice was trying to tell me. I could get at least a few pennies to help with the monthly fee by publishing movie reviews about movies that I have watched recently.

"Wow, that'll be amazingly easy." I told myself. Yes, usually it's the other voice that's the smart one. And, yes, he was right, again. It turned out that this wasn't so easy of a task.

The hardest part was deciding on a name for the weekly series, and I'm still not sure I want to stick with "Movield Pix" but I'll keep it for now, until the smart voice comes up with something better.

Now I had to decide on a rating system to use. I'm pretty sure Ebert has the two thumbs up or down thing copyrighted, so I decided against that. After hours of deliberation, I came up with a very simple rating system which I will detail below:

There are three possible ratings a movie can get:

Renter: A Renter is a movie that you may want to rent, but if you bought it, you'd watch it once and it would be collecting dust on your shelf.

Keeper: A Keeper is a movie that you will watch over and over again and never get tired of.

Canner: Don't even bother getting this movie unless you want to be bored to tears.

I will write a review of the movie and then give it one of the three ratings.

So, that's it. I am finally ready to write my first review. And you're probably ready to close the page after all of that boring mess. I promise it won't happen again after this week. I had to explain it for the Dumb Voices out there. So for the first movie:

HAROLD AND MAUDE
Starring Bud Court, Ruth Gordon, and Vivian Pickles

Okay, so I know this one is a little bit old (1971), but for some reason I wanted to watch, and I can't remember the exact reason yet. In the first 15 minutes of the movie, I will a little unsure about why I would watch this movie and confused about how someone could call this a "comical cult favorite."

I almost turned the movie off and gave it a "Canner" rating at this point, but something made me keep watching. "It'll get better" I told myself. Although, just how long it would take to "get better" I wasn't sure.

And then it happened, I found myself laughing every couple of minutes about Harold (the teenager) and his crazy antics to get his mother's attention and also scare off the dates his mother has arranged for him. You see, Harold is obsessed with death, and you can imagine the things he does to scare the girls off.

Now, I'm laughing at Maude too, who is the 79-, soon to be 80-year old, woman that Harold falls in love with. Maude who loves to steal other people's cars just for the fun of it makes these criminal activities look less criminal and more entertaining.

I'll admit the prospect of a teenager falling in love and making love to a 79 or 80 year old woman seems a little grotesque. Okay, it's really grotesque, but these two make it seem entertaining. The way these two play it out, you're actually mad at the people who are trying to tell Harold that he can't love this raggedy old lady. You start to think "Well, if it was an 80-year-old man and a 19 year old girl, society wouldn't look twice, so it should be okay here, too."

The movie is decent, if you can sit through the first 15 minutes of it, you'll enjoy the rest. However, I do disagree with the PG rating here. I know this was back in 1971 and the ratings were a little more lenient, but I still wouldn't let my child or pre-adolescent watch this movie. The "suicide" acts that Harold performs to get attention can be pretty disgusting and could also give children the wrong idea about it if they didn't understand he was just acting.

Also, there is a painting by Maude that is briefly showed that probably shouldn't be viewed by children either. So keep this one away from the little ones if you decide to watch it. I hope this review has helped you and if you watch Harold and Maude and would like to comment on this article, please do, but do not post any spoilers, or they will be deleted.

FINAL RATING: Renter: I don't think I could watch this movie over and over again. It was good the first time, but this movie depreciates in value like a new car.

Next week's movie review: The Spiderwick Chronicles