Family friendly movies vs harry potter & shrek! (1 Viewer)

[Ricardo C]

...the hell??

 

[Ernest Rister]

Jacob, it doesn't MATTER how popular a character is with kids -- its the ability to convince PARENTS to spend money on the film that is the real subject. I think 17 million is a bit low, personally. I think it will wind up doing fairly well. I expect it to open strong then fade. But open, it will.

A word of caution before you get all gleeful over first weekend numbers, Jacob - box office does not equal quality. Box office means squat. Box office only measures how much money a certain movie made, it doesn't measure how much a movie was liked. It's a fact I've had to demonstrate here far too many times. Pearl Harbor grossed around $200 million. Everybody I know hates the damn thing. Just because something is seen does not mean it is liked. Garfield is n Scooby Doo territory. It will open well, and you will say this is proof it is good. Then it will slide off the radar, but it will have made $70 - $100 million or so, enough for you to claim victory.

 

[Jason_Els]

Rupert Grint did this???? I hope he doesn't end-up like the Coreys destroying his career picking abominable movie after abominable movie eventually forced to sell his teeth and hair to support a drug habit.

 

[Tino]

Jacob will be happy to know that Roger Ebert agrees with him and has given Garfield :star::star::star:

 

[Colin Jacobson]

"Not too shabby"? A $17m opening for a major summer movie would be terrible!

 

[Sam Favate]

I'll admit up front that I have not seen Garfield, nor do I plan to. However, I spoke to a friend (whose opinion I trust) last night who did, and he said the film is not really appropriate for young children. He said there are scenes of torture to dogs and some antics that it would be wrong for young kids to imitate. FWIW.

 

[TheBat]

I did notice that tino. which really surprised me, I figure he would hate it.

there are some minor torture about the dogs..

its more about cats fighting dogs then kids imitating some of garfield's action.
the cartoon violences is very mild compared to other films.
JACOB

 

[Chris]

In the right hands, this could be a monty python quote.

 

[Tim_Stack]

I saw the first Potter film and I immediately went out and read books by Crowley. When the CGI monster came out of nowhere to threaten the kids, I fell in love with Satan and all his horrible works...ugh, yeah right.

A few years ago I was on vacation visiting my brother and he lives in the town I graduated High School from. At the same time, some church group organized a book burning for the Potter books. I couldn't believe that this was happening - I was so ashamed that I actually lived in that town.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"The Christian calendar actually keeps the pagan calendar."

BURN THE CALENDAR! Down with the unclean ordering of months and days!

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Tim,


More royalties for Rowling! They have to buy them first, in order to burn them. Then after the kids burn the books, they just go out and buy them again.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

It hurts to go home sometimes.

If one ever hoped to challenge this regressive kind of thinking, which is thankfully limited in scope these days, one would have to be extremely familiar with the bible, which is itself peppered with stories of magicians (Simon Magus), fortune tellers (in the form of prophets and other mystics), psychics, witches (the Witch of Endor), alchemy, casting of lots, ghosts and spirits, seances (calling up the dead for advice), and other things that have, for some strange reason, in our modern times, been continuously disproven under many different kinds of properly-controlled scientific testing that they could not possibly have had in ancient times. And lets not leave out medicine, astronomy, and various other areas where people were once burned for having the unmitigated gall to challenge the Word. Thank goodness they just stick to books these days, otherwise folks behind Harry Potter might be screwed.

I have to wonder if the (hopefully small) group of fundamentalist Christians who rabidly denounce films and books like the Harry Potter series do so out of inability to easily help their young children reconcile situations and events in those products to similar fare in the good book itself...

 

[Ernest Rister]

Brian -- sadly, communities are sometimes forged by creating an enemy. That's all this is, a few over-excited church groups attacking "the devil" in the form of Harry Potter, getting their members all hot and bothered in the process. It doesn't hurt me and it doesn't affect me, and until it does, I say let them be. I find it distatseful and I don't agree with it, but I'm not going to tell them how they can or can't express themselves.

When they try to burn down Warner Bros. studios, then I'll have a few unkind words for them.

 

[andrew markworthy]

In one sense I agree, but in another I can't help thinking that that is exactly what people said about the Nazi party when it started (they had a thing about burning books as well).

 

[Mark-W]

Did anyone catch The Daily Show last night when John Stewart interviewed Jennifer Love-Hewitt?

He pretty much tried to avoid talking about the
movie, other than to say that Garfield as a character
is long passed his popularity of the 1980's, AND
then went on to say that when Bill Murray agreed
to do the voice he musta' been whoring himself
for money...to which Jennifer sat there with mouth agape.

Then Stewart turnned to the camera and said
he was the worst host ever.

God, I love it when he has the balls to be honest!

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Here's a brief review from Seattle's weekly newspaper THE STRANGER:

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, both of those reasons are correct. It is about the right time of year for the resurection, as of the bible, but it also corrisponds with the Vernal Equinox. The church often coopted pagan holidays to ingratiate themselves to the cultures they influenced. Most of the traditions of Easter (Eggs, bunnies, etc) are probably from the pagan celebration...

Jason

 

[Nathan Eddy]

It bothers me that the term "family" has been co-opted by fundamentalist Christians so that the word--which literally means a group of related individuals--has now taken on a moral connotation. Why should a group of related individuals have a moral componant at all? Are members of families more inherently moral than orphans? Childless widows/widowers? This is absurd, and we need to reclaim the word "family" for ALL people and ALL belief systems. Families are universal; fundamentalist Christianity is not.

Thus, a "family-friendly" movie should be one that the whole family can enjoy together, not one that Christians feel comfortable exposing to their children. "Family friendly" shouldn't imply any religious or moral belief. If you want to discuss movies acceptable to Christians, then you should talk about "Christian-friendly" movies.

Witchcraft, piss and fart jokes, and scary scenes have nothing about them that would necessarily preclude families enjoying them together. (My kids enjoy a good scare as well as a good fart joke--or even a "little penis" joke [Shrek].) To automatically assume these are unacceptable to children is to impose your own personal morality upon all the rest of us families.

Be honest and authentic with your word choices. If you mean "Christian-friendly," then be strong enough to say what you mean. Don't try to disguise your religious judgements with a term that is morally neutral to make them less abrasive to the rest of society. This is disingenuous.

 

[Jack Briggs]

And it's somewhere we don't want to go in this thread. So let's stay on whatever seems to be the topic here: a nearly universally panned CGI movie that can be suffered through by the entire family.

 

[Holadem]

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H