Medicare For All

Movie Monday on Tuesday

I didn’t post yesterday because it was Labor Day in the U.S. ( You can google its origin and learn the rocky road workers have had in the U.S. A lot of them paid with their lives to give us decent working conditions.) I don’t like to work on Labor Day. (Now, there’s an oxymoron.) So I didn’t.

But today, pretend it’s Movie Monday and I’ll tell you about Over the Hedge. It’s the second movie in my diatribe against some kids’ movies today.

To back pedal a bit: last week, I and the girl (the boy wisely stayed in the basement playing) watched Sorority House (1939) with Anne Shirley. It was typical Andy Hardy stuff but with girls this time: Anne gets rushed at a girl’s college and she must decide to acknowledge her hardworking dad or side with the snotty rich kids. Typical pablum. We sat through the whole thing. (Oh, the torture!) But in the end, we could discuss the moral decisions with no peripheral distractions (No, I don’t mean the boy.) That is, unlike Her Majesty where I spent that small window of opportunity after a movie, when kids are willing to sit and talk, discussing the psychotic behavior of the brother. Luckily, in Sorority House there were no nascent Michael Myers lurking in the script.

Over The Hedge falls in the same category as Her Majesty but this time it’s about animated furry critters and the queen is not coming for a visit.

The plot as I remember it (and I’m not siting through this one again to check) is: A furry creature is caught by a hibernating bear as he is attempting to steal the bear's junk food while he is in his winter sleep. The bear gives the guy the two weeks left in his hibernation cycle to replace all the food. (Oh, I forgot. The food rolls away and down a cliff.) So at this point it’s your regular mob movie: You got two weeks or I break your knee caps.

Soon our furry creature stumbles upon other furries with a wise, practical leader. He also stumbles on the fact that during the winter their habitat has been reduced by acres and acres of new homes and the hedge in the title is all that separates them.

The movie follows our furry guy taking leadership from the wise, practical leader and convincing the furry pack to follow him into the development to steal junk food. (Talk about product placement in movies.) The moral dilemma becomes: does furry guy continue to only consider his selfish interests or does he decide to work for the good of all.

But.......during the search for the junk food, the creatures destroy homes, fences, and backyards. After all, how many rodents took driver’s ed? Yet scriptwriters love to put them in the driver’s seat.

Now, there are villains in this piece: the overbearing condo leader and the dim-witted exterminator but the destruction is just random and enormous. Now, I know that CGI artists love to create more and more special effects just because they can do it: the ultimate male pissing contest. But this is a cartoon, for crying out loud! Even I know you can do anything in a cartoon. BFD! What are they trying to prove with all the destruction?

So, as with Her Majesty, I spent my time with questions like: What did you think about all the damage those animals caused? Do you think that was right? You get the drift. And before I could even get to the meat of the movie: thinking about yourself or others, the boy turns to me and says: Want to play Mario Carts?

Movies are a great way to talk to kids gently about big issues. However, this was another opportunity lost. Parents really don’t have that many golden discussion opportunities these days with every family member’s busy schedule. It would be nice if kids' movie makers could cut them some slack.

Oh, and we did play Mario Carts and I finished in 12th place - again.