Tag: pedophilia

JUDY – A HORRIBLE WARNING BEHIND THE CURTAIN

AUDIO OPTION FOR REVIEW TITLED JUDY – A HORRIBLE WARNING BEHIND THE CURTAIN

SHORT TAKE:
Harsh look at the woman behind the magic of Judy Garland, aka Frances Ethel Gumm, in her waning professional months, near the end of her life.

WHO SHOULD WATCH:

Adult fare ONLY. Vulgar and blasphemous language, sexuality, implied pedophilia, scenes of alcohol and drug abuse.

LONG TAKE:

One of the things I’ve learned in writing movie reviews is that, once seriously analyzed, you never look at these celluloid miracles quite the same way. Not necessarily a bad thing, just different.

Like when Dorothy gets a peek behind the Wizard’s curtains. She discovers truths about him that perhaps she didn’t want to know but at the same time makes him more accessible.

This can be especially true about biographies, and Judy, a screenplay by Tom Edge, in turn based on the play The End of the Rainbow by Peter Quilter, is a prime example of learning more about the creation of a fantasy than is good for that imaginary world’s longevity.

I knew Judy Garland primarily for her unforgettable performance as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Judy gives a look into the industry that stole her childhood, made her feel betrayed by the adults who should have been protecting her, addicted her to pick me ups and barbiturates, and ultimately contributed to her death at a prematurely aged 47.

Renee Zellweger, (Miss Potter, Bridget Jones, Chicago) up for best actress for her astonishing performance in Judy, is mesmerizing. Zellweger has captured the look and essence of Judy Garland. Not just the easy to imitate woman at the height of her career, but someone who was at the top of her game and now at the bottom of her own self-dug well, who, history dictates, will die in but months from a lifetime of physical abuse and addiction. Yet she is also a woman who has moments of great dignity and kindness in comforting a disconsolate fan, and sparkles brilliantly showcasing her incredible talent. Zellweger shines forth as brightly in Garland’s singing as she demonstrates the desperate darkness of Garland’s personal lows in the last months of her life.

Judy Garland blasted into America’s consciousness with her role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and never really left.

Zellweger looks, sounds and acts more like Judy Garland than Judy Garland. She demonstrates an incredible repertoire, performing Garland’s iconic songs: The Trolley Song, Over the Rainbow, You Made me Love You, Talk of the Town, By Myself, Get Happy, San Francisco, Zing Went the Strings, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Come Rain or Come Shine. These are worth seeing all by themselves.

But as good as Renee Z’s performance is, the same cannot be said for the other performers or the rest of the movie as directed by Rupert Goold, (mostly known for BBC mini-series filmings of Shakespeare). I could not shake the feeling, even while knowing better, that this was a made-for-TV weekly weeper. The close-ups, the episodic nature of the scenes, and the mediocre, caricature acting of the other performers made for a lukewarm film at best.

Renee Z appeared like a diamond sewn onto the waistcoat of a poorly fitting polyester suit from Walmart. The supporting structure is not terrible, and certainly serves its purpose but is nothing special.

The background soundtrack by Gabriel Yared is bland fare, applying fluffy disconnected tunes to scenes, seemingly chosen from a standard library of emotion emoting jingles.

The cinematography, as I have indicated, harkens back to boob tube “Scandal-of-the-Week” bio fodder which used to be sprinkled into the weekly TV Guide.

Judy’s greatest virtue, aside from Renee Z’s astonishing performance, is the horrible warning to parents who might have stars in their eyes. Releasing children into any industry without close parental supervision and protection is a disaster waiting to happen.

Miss Garland’s father cheated on Garland’s mother with men. Judy’s mother, according to the screenplay, as well as the prima facia evidence of Garland’s precipitous decline, sold her to the Hollywood System. Neither parent raised or responsibly watched over her. The child Garland (Darci Shaw) was tyrannically forced into eating and behavioral schedules torturous, inappropriate, and abusive to her slight frame. She was given pills to help her sleep and pills to wake her up so as to accommodate the brutal filming schedules. There were allegations of sexual advances from older men including Louis B. Mayer (portrayed by Richard Cordery from About Time and Les Misérables). In turn, Judy grew up pill addicted, fragile, cynical, and desperate for the attention of men. She crashed four marriages and died three months after marrying her fifth husband, Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock – La La Land, Unbroken, Noah).

Garland struggled desperately to be a better mother for her three children, Liza from her marriage to Vincent Minelli, and Lorna, and Joey, with Sid Luft (played by Rufus Sewell – Hamlet, The Illusionist) but they have suffered from the sins of their parents as well.

Ms. Garland died at the age of 47 looking like she was the wrong side of 70.

Liza Minnelli, Miss Garland’s oldest child, expressly disapproved of the script and I can understand why. Not only does it dig up dirt on poor Miss Garland like dirty underwear on a laundry line, but it serves no end but to satisfy curious titillation. Further, it tarnishes the idealized image of the little girl who went to Oz with which we all grew up.

In Bohemian Rhapsody Freddie Mercury admitted to his failings and, despite his sufferings, carried on, tried to make amends with those he had hurt and soldiered on writing music with his band until days before his death. Ms. Garland, as shown in Judy, continued binge drinking, even showing up drunk to sold-out performances, resulting in her being booed off stage more than once. She fought for her own preferences over what was obviously in the best interests of her children. She was often unappreciative of the help others tried to provide her, and was eventually fired by people who loved and respected her talent when even they couldn’t tolerate her unprofessional behavior any longer. As a result she died penniless.

There is something to said for being a horrible warning. If keeping innocents out of the Hollywood System is the theme, it certainly serves that purpose and is worth viewing for that. But, having grown up with one image of Dorothy, there is a part of me who, having now peeked behind the Wizard’s curtain, kind of wished I hadn’t.

R.I.P. Judy.

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS – MEDIOCRE FANTASY WITH A POSSIBLY SINISTER UNDERTONE

SHORT TAKE:

Mediocre fantasy, under utilizing what should have been a winning combination of Jack Black and Cate Blachett, with scenes which may just have some truly disturbing motivations behind them.

WHO SHOULD GO:

To be safe – adults only.

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LONG TAKE:

The House with a Clock in its Walls made me sad, but not in the way that movies are supposed to make you sad, like in Titanic, or Old Yeller, or at the end of Funny Girl.

Maybe it was because it wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was going to be, or maybe it was something more sinister.　

SPOILERS

The premise is of an orphaned boy, Lewis, who is sent to live with his only remaining relative, a reclusive eccentric uncle, Jonathan, (Jack Black), who, it turns out, is a warlock seeking a dangerous magical item, buried within the house, placed there by the house’s previous owner, Isaac, (Kyle MacLachlan). An interesting idea but not well carried out.

First off, there is the acting. I have liked Jack Black ever since he started doing kid and youth films. He is a goofy pleasure in movies like Kung Fu Panda, King Kong and Goosebumps. Cate Blanchett, who plays Jonathan's best friend and antagonist-neighbor Florence, brings an element of class to everything she's in, even the terrible Oceans 8. And of course Blanchett was spectacular as Galadriel in Lord of the Rings.

However the main character, Lewis, (Owen Vaccaro) was just plain old not very good. Perhaps it was the directing but, for example, when the subject of Lewis' parents' death in a car crash comes up, he tears up and wails so much and unexpectedly, it is as though he is faking it and we're all left waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He is unconvincing in other key moments as well, such as when he is supposed to be desperate enough for a friend that he would break his uncle's one rule about not going near a cabinet which contains a forbidden book. There was no effort to convince the audience that Lewis would want to risk his new relationship with his magical uncle.

Maybe it was the inconsistent characters. Lewis comes to the attention of a school favorite named Tarby (Sunny Suljic), who genuinely seems to want to be kind to this new little outcast. But then, suddenly, Tarby is running for a school office, and after getting elected, Tarby becomes a bully. One of the other kids tells Lewis they are not surprised because Tarby does this every election season. This doesn't make any sense because there is very little Tarby has to gain from the friendship with Lewis. 

This turnabout is so awkward, sudden and confusing that I thought, surely, there was more to this character. Is he possessed by the evil ghost of Isaac? IS he the evil Isaac in disguise, and was just using Lewis to gain access to the house? This latter theory seemed to be further encouraged by Tarby's instant and pointed desire to open the one cabinet in the house Lewis’ Uncle Jonathan told him he must never go near, as though Tarby knew all along the forbidden book was there. But no, Tarby is just a mean kid who likes to be nice randomly but only for a few days and serves as a convenient shoe-horned plot device. Sorry, but that's just bad writing.

Then there is Jonathan’s back story. Jonathan left home because he wished to pursue magic and simply assumed his little sister, Lewis' mother, did not want anything to do with him. So much so that Jonathan did not even go to her funeral. Yet without question Jonathan accepts that his sister would have sent her only child to live with him. These two points are inconsistent. Jonathan never has a real moment or explanation as to why he would be so deeply alienated with his sister. And no explanation as to why he would, without question, believe his sister would leave her only child in his care. Which is it? Did Jonathan believe his sister hated him or not?

The movie has so many misdirections, without purpose, that I got the feeling it was written backwards, with the ending in sight but little attention to making sure the path to it from the introduction made sense. And whenever the writer had to get from point A to Point B he just sewed on a patch to make the two plot points connect.

AND – OH YEAH – the clock turns out to be "under the boiler". I'm sorry, but in what universe does "under the boiler" put it therefore "— in the Walls"?

Also, I’m not sure what demographic audience they were going for. It’s silly enough that it should attract a young child crowd – fart jokes and Addams Family-like purple monster snake-tarantulas, standing up to bullies in middle school and ooh aah moments of solar systems coming to life in the living room.

But then there are extremely creepy scenes which would make the movie unacceptable for that same young group: poisoning evil anthropomorphized mannequins to death, violent repeated shaking preceding transformations much like the very disturbing way Penny-Wise the Clown shook in the modern It, a dead mother, (portrayed by Lorenza Izzo, now the estranged wife of the director Eli Roth) appearing in her son’s dreams to get him to seek out a forbidden book, necromancy, having truck with a forked tongued demon who actually licks blood off one of the character’s hands – basically a 7th book Harry Potter aimed at first Harry Potter book-aged children.

Then there is the more sinister aspect of the flaws.

There is an expression I learned in business: The Appearance of Impropriety. That is when, even if your motives are pure as a newborn baptized baby, there are just some things you should avoid doing. For example, whenever my husband drove our babysitters home, he would always tell our kids, "Come on! Let's all go for a ride!" and away a pack of them would go to keep the baby sitter company on the ride. He and I rightly believe that an adult male alone in a car with a young person not his own child is just not appropriate.

And, we do not much care for casinos in our community, so we boycott them. When a close friend held his daughter's wedding reception at one of the casinos’ restaurants, it was with great regret that we had to decline to attend the party. Had we gone, it would have seemed as though we were endorsing the casino. In both cases, we were avoiding The Appearance of Impropriety.

In The House, I am not saying that the character of Uncle Jonathan is doing anything wrong. He keeps his distance, had not sought out the child but was assigned the responsibility of raising his dead sister's son. But the writers left certain bread crumbs that perhaps it would have been better in the current environment not to have sown.

For example, near the end Jonathan is youthened to a baby but left with an adult head. This puts Lewis in a position of carrying around a naked adult in miniature. After Jonathan is restored, while hiding behind some equipment, he asks Lewis to throw him his pants, but more damningly, asks Lewis not to tell anyone that he, Jonathan, was left naked.

Given the circumstances, this is awkward at best. In the current climate of heightened awareness of an epidemic of underage inappropriate sexual predation by authority figures, this was, even in the best light, ill thought out and in very poor taste. Much like the scene in the dog movie Show Dogs, where an animal was coerced into allowing inappropriate touching for judging purposes, even if the circumstances made the behavior objectively understandable, this is not something you want to use as an example for children to follow. Moreover, as book stories are fantasy and so can be written any way the film makers want, there was ZERO reason to put in scenes where Lewis is carrying around a naked man OR to be sworn to secrecy by that same adult male concerning his nakedness in front of the child.

Even assigning innocent motives to the writers, these scenes smack of grooming for pedophiles and should be cut or re-written AS the makers of Show Dogs said they would do. (Though I have not personally confirmed whether or not they actually HAVE re-edited Show Dogs to eliminate or change the offending genital-touching/judging scenes).

Did the writer, Eric Kripke and director Eli Roth, deliberately set up scenes where a young boy is in a compromising situation with an adult male who swears him to secrecy in order to help desensitize millions of children to a similar real life scenario with far more corrupted, ugly and disgusting motives? Or was this just an ill-thought out, ignorant gag by Kripke and Roth, because neither, best I can find out, have any children so did not fully consider the implications?

I don’t really know. But, as I have inculcated to our own children a zillion times: I have never known anyone who regretted being too careful, but I have known a LOT of people who regretted not being careful enough.

What makes me sad, though, is that a movie which could have and should have been a somewhat fluffy entertainment must be analyzed in this way. Fifty years ago we could have easily attributed the innocent motives of the film makers at face value and shrugged off the possibility of any nefarious underlying motives – ALTHOUGH perhaps fifty years ago pedophia grooming could have been perpetrated in this way and we just would not have known to watch for it because its prevalence was not what it is today. Either way, the fact we live in a culture wherein it becomes necessary that even light fare today MUST be scrutinized so carefully in order to protect children makes me very sad.

So – while it’s fairly brainless amusement for adults, it might just be "Stranger Danger" level inappropriate for the kids – whether the film makers intended it to be or not.

DEADPOOL – A MOVIE I WISH I COULD RECOMMEND

SHORT TAKE:

Airplane  meets Marvel.

WHO SHOULD SEE IT:

Unfortunately, in all good conscience, I can not recommend this movie to anyone.

LONG TAKE:

I once heard that the definition of mixed emotions was seeing your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new car. As I happen to be a mother-in-law I’m not especially fond of that definition though I can understand the intent of demonstrating intense conflicting emotions. I think a better one for me, as an avid fan of superhero movies, is watching Deadpool and its sequel back to back.

First off, Deadpool is not for children. Do NOT take children to see Deadpool. Fritz the Cat was an obscene animated short shown at "art" houses back in the ‘70s. Deadpool is no more for children than Fritz the Cat was. Do not take children to see Deadpool. Do not take teenagers to see Deadpool. Do I make myself clear?

Airplane, which came out in 1980 took every cliche of the disasters happening in a man made construction genre (yes, that was a thing in the ‘70's and ‘80's – Poseidon Adventure, Airport, Airport ‘75, Airport-Concorde, Towering Inferno), and played them for all they were worth – singing nuns, relationship conflicts which were resolved by the disaster, sick children being transported to a hospital, bad weather, hero with traumatic backstory. It was hilarious because it was true – all the movies capitalized on these themes and variations with predictable continuity. (FYI – The ‘90's and 2000's went after natural phenomena – Twister, Dante’s Inferno, Volcano, The Core, Armaggedon).

By the same token, Deadpool does the same thing with the superhero genre: reluctant hero, tragic love story, kids in danger, time travelers, opponents joining up to fight a common enemy, strange super powers and fighting – lots and lots of fighting. Only instead of the sanitized variety, it is quite graphic. So is the language. And the sexuality. And the nudity. And the blasphemy..

Deadpool started in the comics about a mercenary who gets cancer and is given a kind of Captain America super serum which makes him unkillable. Deadpool was never meant to take itself seriously but is the Monty Python of superhero movies. Ryan Reynolds plays the title character to the hilt.

This super… person who by his own admission is no one's idea of a hero… and by his own description is a bad guy who gets paid to kill worst guys than he is, is also very funny. He’s snarky and opinionated and comments constantly TO the audience breaking the fourth wall more than Groucho Marx did. Deadpool has much to commend it. It is well-acted, cleverly written, and has many admirable themes.

On the other hand – and here I’m beginning to feel like the conflicted Jewish patriarch, Tevye, from Fiddler on the Roof – it is gratuitously gory with humans "splating" onto billboards and heads being chopped off. It is extremely sexual with but a paper thin line between some of the scenes and what used to be considered an "X" rating. It is profane in the worst way, sporting every way to insult God and the human body that the imagination can provide.

BUT…… while I was genuinely shocked at the level of sexual activity, profanity, and graphic violence in both the first Deadpool origin story and this sequel it is hard to hate a movie which is so very self-aware that even the credits include such titles as Moody Teenager, CGI Character, and Overpaid Tool. Ergo my dilemma.

Deadpool makes fun of everything, including itself, from Basic Instinct to the most recent Avengers movie of which it is almost in the same universe, both franchises being Marvel.

I always try to judge movies based upon their genre and intent so want to be fair to Deadpool, especially keeping in mind that Deadpool has never advertised itself as anything except an adult parody of superhero movies.

I cannot help but think of the Biblical parable of the two sons, one of whom is disobedient despite his initial verbal assurances and the other who says he will not do his father's will but then goes and does it anyway. Deadpool is the latter.

For example, although the sexuality in the Deadpool origin story is fairly graphic, it is between two people who are monogamous and fully intend to be married, have children, and start a family. This, frankly, is far healthier then your average James Bond movie where the sexual relationships are less visually intense but extremely casual, polygamous, and intended to be very short-term.　

I was genuinely offended by the blasphemous language, yet the actions of those same characters were often Christian – self-sacrificing, demonstrating mercy, seeking to help others to redemption, and aimed at protecting children from those who would take advantage of them, even when those children posed a danger to the heroes trying to save them, which is a whole lot more than I can say for more "acclaimed" movies like Blockers and Call Me By Your Name which tried to push pedophilia into the mainstream.

While I was offended by implications insulting to the Church – such as the headmaster at an abusive school using Bible quotes to justify his actions, or Deadpool, the character, casually comparing himself to Jesus – Deadpool, the movie, never seriously calls the existence of God or Jesus into question as movies like the Dan Brown series do. As a matter of fact, there is a moment when Deadpool is asked if there had ever been someone who was 100% altruistic and he replies "Jesus Christ". It goes by very fast and I had to have it pointed out to me, but that’s a lot more respect than movies like Dogma or Angels and Demons has for the Church.

While it is faint praise to say a movie is not terrible because of what it does not do, Deadpool also has the positive attributes of actively exercising the virtues of self-sacrifice, mercy, family, and marriage.

I can stand the violence as it's mostly cartoonish, I can even wince past most of the sexuality as it's between two consenting adults who intend not only to get married but to have children. However, what I found most offensive was the frequent verbal and referential blasphemies throughout. Sadly, this was the point at which Tevye would have had to have said, "No, there is no other hand."

So for all of its virtues, there is too much, if you’ll excuse the pun, DEAD weight on the other side of the scale for me to me give it a recommendation, even for the older crowd.

TRIFECTA OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY – CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, LOVE, SIMON AND ****BLOCKERS

 

 

SHORT TAKE:

The movies: Call Me by Your Name, Love, Simon and C***blockers (recently released as just Blockers with a picture of a rooster attached) are, in a phrase, child pornography.

WHO SHOULD SEE THEM:

NO ONE!

LONG TAKE:

Now here’s a truly offensive Trifecta for you:

DUE TO THE UNFORTUNATE NATURE OF THIS REVIEW AND PHOTOS NECESSARY TO MAKE MY POINTS,  PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW MINORS TO READ THIS!!

Pornography: From the online Dictionary: "Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings."

I have been freshly disturbed by the succession of child-sexploitative movies recently released.

In full disclosure, I have not seen and do not intend to see any of these movies. Blockers, as it so happens, is not even in theaters yet so my information was limited but easily accessed and assessed merely by the unfortunate happenstance of seeing the trailers.

As to Call Me by Your Name and Love, Simon – I am of the philosophy that you do not have to shoot yourself in the foot with a nailgun to know doing so would have unpleasant consequences. I can, however, figure out the destructiveness of a storyline based upon its synopsis, which you can read for free either at wikipedia or the movie spoiler. You can also get details on the explicit content of a movie from a subscription to screenit – everything about a movie is available, from jump scares to smoking to exact numbers of which profanities are used to explicit descriptions of sexual and imitative behaviors.

I would certainly not pretend to be able to comment on cinematography, effectiveness of the music score or the acting. Then again, if I only read a book or the screenplay I would not be able to assess that either. However, I CAN tell you, after due diligence research, without question, about the extremely vile, sexually exploitive, pedophilia-promoting agenda of these stories.

First there was the Oscar darling Call me By Your Name which featured an older man seducing, sexually using, then abandoning a 17 year old boy. This movie featured graphic displays of male-child sexual behavior and one grotesque event involving a peach which I will leave to your imagination. Not only does the 17 year old boy persuade his even younger girlfriend to have sex with him multiple times but he switches between her and the grown man, putting both members of the young couple at risk for whatever other contacts the grown man has had, not to mention risking pregnancy for the girl. The parents go blithely along with the abuse of their son by this much older grown man. The girl finds out about his homosexual extra lover and, understandably, breaks up with him. The grown man takes advantage of this boy’s raging hormonal state to use him as a sex toy for the summer, then abandons this now damaged youth to his confusion and solitude. This movie, predictably, got all kinds of positive attention from Hollywood and liberal intelligensia for cinematography and acting. It has also been pointed out to me that sex with a child this age is legal in Italy.

Well, if sex with sheep was legal it would still be bestiality. And sex with a child is pedophilia whether it is legal or not. And in our country if you put photos of this behavior on your cell phone you could end up in jail.

Onto the stage appears Love, Simon – a story about a young man who is also confused, as most boys are, about the raging inferno of hormonal emotions churning through him. With no adult guidance he decides he is homosexual and spends the entire movie secretively embarking on a quest to find out the identity of and "hook up" with the "other" "gay" boy –  Bram – who has anonymously come out via electronic social media in their high school. There are a few exchanged emails to justify Simon's infatuation with someone who could be anyone, including an adult predator. Simon rebuffs any romantic consideration of a girl who is already a friend, with whom he shares similar interests and who likes him. Instead, Simon pursues an anonymous gay "other," whom he knows little about, objectifying him to use him to gratify a sexual fantasy. In short, Simon refuses to pursue a promising and meaningful relationship with a friend to pursue someone solely on the basis of a shared sexual fetish. 

His parents are shown to be clueless and non-judgementally accepting of a decision which has far more long-reaching and permanent consequences than college choice or purchase of a car, which you know DARNED well they would have had PLENTY to say about.

Tipping the hand of the script writer and directors’ intentions, without question, is the choice of high school play. In the source material book Simon vs The Homo Sapien Agenda, the high school play to be performed is the innocuous musical Oliver! based on the Charles Dickens story of the orphan boy. For the movie, Love, Simon, Oliver! is thrown out and Cabaret is chosen. CABARET! One of the singularly most sexually graphic and disturbing musicals in the mainstream.

THE FOLLOWING SECTION CONTAINS GOOGLE PHOTOS FROM THE MOVIE AND THEATRICAL VERSIONS OF CABARET. THEY ARE OFFENSIVE. BUT THE FOLLOWING IS WHAT THE CHILDREN IN LOVE, SIMON ARE TO BE IMITATING ON STAGE. CHILDREN!!!:

Cabaret is set in Germany just before World War II breaks out. It takes place primarily in a seedy bar and dance hall from which the movie takes its name. The lead is Sally Bowles who sings about her life of promiscuity ("Mein Herr") and lives it. She sleeps randomly with men and during the course of the play "hooks up" with Brian, a bisexual who also, during his relationship with Sally, has sex with another man and impregnates Sally. (Brian’s a busy boy.) To his credit, Brian wants their child but Sally doesn’t so has an abortion. This ends their relationship (no surprise) and she finishes up the musical singing about life being a cabaret. During the play there is a number where a man is sandwiched by two women ("Two Ladies"), a song and dance about a man in love with a Gorilla ("If you could see her through my eyes") where the punchline is "She wouldn’t look Jewish at all" – a double punch of bestiality and anti-Semitism. And in the musical there is a LOT of sexually suggestive Fosse-dancing of scantily clad women and men. These are not the only unsavory parts of the movie but they are certainly highlights.

Regardless that the original intent of the movie was to demonstrate the degenerate disintegration of German society in tandem with the rise of Nazism, there IS no way to clean this musical up to be appropriate for children to watch much less perform. And THIS, Cabaret, is what the scriptwriter and director chose for a group of HIGH SCHOOLERS to perform, in public, to memorize, to repeat over and over as they rehearse, and then to act out in front of their family and community…..That alone is the lionizing of child – sexual exploitation.

It appears from photos on Google from the movie Love, Simon that the children in the movie did, in fact, act out these sexually explicit scenes.  This alone tips the hand of intent of the pedophiliac sexual objectification prevalent in Love, Simon.

During the course of Love, Simon, along with the lovely Cabaret, there is a plethora of profanity and bodily references, some rather creatively but not constructively, used, including an adult using the word "virgin" as an insult. There is also excessive drinking, homosexual kissing, casual references to masturbating, and casual sex amongst teens.

There is also a montage in which Simon fantasizes that straight kids have to "come out" to their parents. This montage is not challenged. There is no one and nothing in the movie to point out the obvious – that a child coming "out" as straight to the negative reaction of their parents would be the equivalent of a child "revealing" to his parents that they have: normal eyesight, made the honor roll, or do not have juvenile diabetes and having their parents react negatively. Like the reverse of that stupid Geico commercial about people who enjoy sitting on gum or walking into a glass door.

Regardless whether you believe homosexuality is a genetic or learned behavior, only the most deeply entrenched in blindly held propaganda would deny that homosexuality is a biologic disadvantage – never mind the medical, emotional, social, and spiritual repercussions. But logic has nothing to do with anything involved in this movie – only objectification of the children in various sexual connotations.

And now soon to arrive on the scene is C***blockers. Can’t even put the full name of the movie in this blog in good conscience. The premise, according to the trailers, is a group of parents, after translating emojis left on their daughter’s laptop, correctly figure out that their children plan to have sex on prom night. Simple solution: mom and dad go with them to the prom or they don’t go. Problem solved.

Do they do this? No, of course not. Then there would be no opportunity to: show parents as incompetent boobs, have one of the fathers engage with one of the high school boys in a colonoscopy style beer chugging contest, listen to underage girls talk explicitly and with blasphemous language about how they plan to lose their virginity, (with GREAT regret I heard the young ladies express their plans during the trailer in an open public theater in far more graphic language than that I just used), and watch scenes with CHILDREN drinking and carousing in a Caligula-like orgy.

These movies are all designed like a pedophile's dream and every one of the people in these movies should be arrested for sexual exploitation of juveniles. While the kids in the first two movies, Call Me and Simon were, and this is small consolation, JUST 21 when the movies were made, portraying a child who performs sex acts even if you are not in fact a child is still a demonstration of pedophilia. And it seems to me that the film makers knew darned well that what they were doing WAS pedophilia or they would have not chosen the age of the actors so carefully. Had they genuinely thought what they were doing was wholesome they could have hired underaged performers.

The third movie, Blockers, interestingly does not post the age of the teen actors on us.imdb.com. I suspect THEY think they can get away with underaged sexuality because it is a "comedy".

So there we have it – examples of explicit pedophilia, sexual objectification of children and the advocacy of sexual promiscuity amongst children!!

Arriving just in time for Easter.

It is a frustrating and disgusting phenomenon that this kind of debauchery – even against children – can masquerade as entertainment with impunity. Despite the romantic implications of the names of the first two films – Call Me by Your Name and Love, Simon, and the pretend to comedy of the third – Blockers, to paraphrase Mae West, a jaded performer who likely would have been horrified at the proceedings of these movies – Love and humor had nuthin' to do with it, dearie. 

Don’t go.

If you do, don’t say you weren’t warned.