Friday, March 10, 2006

To see or not to see, that is the question!

My son Chris wants to go to the movies this weekend. Last night at dinner, we had a massive discussion about what movies he should be allowed to go to, and specifically whether Date Movie was a good movie to see on Saturday.

I argued that films like Date Movie(comedy, M rating) aren't really worth paying money to go and see. He felt that it was his decision as to what he went to. In the end I looked up several review sites on the Internet. One was full of reviewers' negative comments about the movie from the perspective of the comedy 'Crude, tasteless and cheap!' 'Worst movie of the year' etc. etc. Another gave explicit details of why it was rated as a PG (Parental Guidance required - but that was a rating for the States; here it is an M) mainly in terms of sexual reference. I decided in the end to give him the choice of whether he should see it or not - BUT, he had to read both review sites carefully before he made his decision.

Of course, he read both sites and promptly announced that he was going to the movie! Which is exactly what I expected him to do. But I felt that I'd made my point about the content and its value - or rather, lack of value! Since then, someone who has seen it has told me that it really is NOT worth going to, but I'm sure that Chris' friends are equally convinced that this is the best comedy they will have seen in a long time. It all depends on your perspective, I guess.