Engaging Culture

Once upon a time, Jennifer Lopez actually gave me hope that she could be a quality actress. That was back when she took roles in movies like Selena and Out of Sight, before she fell prey to the desire to be popular and took roles in God awful movies like Gigli and Monster-in-Law. However, she’s been off the big screen for four years and I had high hopes that perhaps that break was what she needed to get some sense. Oh, how wrong I was.

The Back-up Plan was the worse piece of drivel that she’s created yet. The worst part is that the concept isn’t a completely bad one. A woman is fed-up with men to the point that she has decided to forgo men all together and “start a family” (a.k.a. have a child) on her own. But she meets the man of her dreams only moments later and must confront him with that information. However, unlike most rom-coms, this one doesn’t put that revelation in the third act only to have him run out and then come crawling back for the final kiss. Instead, it is about this woman and her issues. She tells him and he sticks around and genuinely loves and cares for her, but she has been bitten by so many bad relationships with men that she is always paranoid that around the next curve, he is going to come to his senses and leave. She has issues with being loved, and don’t we all.

But this great concept for what could have been a phenomenal film turned into a game of let’s watch the beautiful girl make a fool out of herself with poop and vomit jokes. I don’t want to go into just how bad it is. I will simply put it this way, my wife and I have three small children and while all of the gags involve things that we deal with regularly either as parents or a couple there were several times when my wife had to turn away to keep from throwing up.

When you add to the un-funny humor the fact that there is almost no chemistry between Lopez and Alex O’Loughlin this movie goes from failure to disaster. The most awful part is that I am getting word that actual people in actual theaters have sat down and watched this movie and laughed and enjoyed it. These people inhabit a world that I am not remotely interested in visiting. Ladies, if you are watching this movie hoping that Stan “The Goat-Farming Man” might just step out into your lives, forget about it. A man that perfect doesn’t exist on this green planet. Oh, sorry, he does have a flaw… he’s in night school! That’s right the worst part about him is that he is bettering himself by going to school at night. He is a ruggedly handsome, leather jacket wearing, goat farmer, complete with tractor (which he rides shirtless and covered in baby oil). He lives just outside of the city, making his organic cheeses, but is always conveniently in the city at a trendy farmer’s market. There is no conflict in this film, it is a daydream for mentally unstable women, preaching you the lie that there is a perfect guy out there who will complete you in every way.

I had hopes and they were smashed to pieces. But I didn’t leave without some deeper insights into myself and the human condition. How could I not, the whole film is about how screwed up this girl is. And when you think about it, we’re all screwed up the same way. The Bible says that we’ve all sinned. We’ve all bought into the lie that this world has what we want, and we have had our hearts and spirits broken. I know that I’ve felt like Zoe, that I wasn’t worth God’s love. I wake up every day wondering if he has left me and forsaken me, despite the fact that he told me he never will (Hebrews 13:5). Because I’m not worth it. When I look at the stars and the galaxies and the beauties of this earth and then I look in the mirror, I think that God has much better things to do with his time than to love me. The hard journey of a Christian is not to earn God’s love, but to accept it. We will never deserve it, but he gives it freely. Conceptually, I give it a 90, but for dunking my hopes in the toilet and then pooping on them, I give it a 40.

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Opening up alongside Iron Man 2 is a distinct new documentary, perfect for it’s Mother’s Day weekend slot. The film, Babies, is a documentary without dialogue. That’s right, Morgan Freeman’s voice won’t be telling you what to think. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the film’s French director, Thomas Balmes said, “I don’t want to do the work for the audience, I don’t want to tell them what to get out of the movie.” The movie however is not 2 hours of Anne Geddes photo shoots. Cuteness was not his goal. The film is poignant, funny and sometimes disturbing as it explores the first year of the lives of four infants being raised under vastly different circumstances.

The film takes a deep look at third-world child rearing techniques against our Western techniques. The San Francisco parents, are a model of progressive parenting, at-home birth, and vegetarian diet for their baby daughter, Hattie. That is a big difference from the more primitive and often hazardous conditions in Mongolia or Namibia, where the challenges aren’t choosing the right stroller or bouncy seat, but much more basic problems, like finding non-polluted water.

Balmes continues, “All the parents are doing totally different things, with totally different tools, to make sure their children are growing up in the best way possible.”

In another interview Balmes was asked, “Now that you’ve made the film, is there anything that… you would do differently as a parent?” his response to me sums up the purpose of this film and his hopes as the film-maker. “What happens between parent and child is so crucial, and I hope our film reminds people of that. Sometimes, with life happening, you can get a little lazy in developing a real relationship with your kids. I myself have. I hope Babies shows that no matter what their conditions are, wherever they live, these babies grow up happy as long as they are loved, and that this is universal.”

I hope all of you moms and dads have a happy Mother’s Day. I give Babies a predicted score of 78, you can check out the trailer for Babies below or see others clips and featurettes at TrailerAddict.com.
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