There was a time when Hollywood portrayed marriage as a happy institution that was key to a healthy society. Sure, a lot of those films and TV shows were propaganda along the lines of “Father Knows Best,” going over the top in their promotion of a world in which a kindly man ruled the roost over his doting wife and children.

Then along came “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” a devastating cinematic portrait of poisonous marriages and repressed lives that featured Elizabeth Taylor shrieking her way to winning one of the film’s five Oscars. But even as that 1966 film presaged the social revolution and decades of divorce to come, it seems that it also resulted in any serious portrayal of marriage being filled with hatred and negativity, in which “’til death do us part” became as much of a fairytale concept as “once upon a time.”

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This week marks the release of another low point in movie marriages, as “Blue Valentine” hits theaters with the red-hot indie-actor coupling of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The film has already stirred up reams of headlines because of the battle surrounding its rating, which originally was NC17 for a graphic sex scene that appeared to border on rape, but which the film’s head distributor Harvey Weinstein successfully appealed to be released with an R.

Weinstein won his battle without having to cut a frame of film, and now is advertising “Valentine” as “uncut and uncensored,” no doubt hoping to draw in couples looking for sexy shenanigans. But unlike the much more enjoyable and vastly sexier recent release “Love and Other Drugs,” the scene in question here is beyond depressing and will prove to be more of a turnoff than turn-on to anyone with a healthy sexual attitude. (more…)

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Whenever I watch a retrospective of the Golden Age of Television, I find the shows considerable less entertaining than television I’ve watched as an adult. The Golden Age actually refers to the dramatic programs, sometimes broadcast “live” starring many great Hollywood stars and written by terrific writers.  But I was watching television then from the mean streets of the barrio and usually from a neighbor’s house because we couldn’t yet afford a TV set.  My perspective of the era is skewed in favor of the sitcoms and variety shows that presented an escape from my reality.

What is noteworthy, however, is that much of television during that time period was considered politically incorrect but in a strange way was actually more honest. How can that be, you may ask? The fake domestic bliss of “Father Knows Best,” the racism of “Amos and Andy,” the sexism of “I Love Lucy” and so on. Yet there was a lot more credibility in those shows as entertainment than in the supposedly PC programming that probably started with Norman Lear’s “All in the Family.” (more…)

Okay, let me start by saying I really liked “Taken.”  

If you haven’t seen it, it stars Liam Neeson as an ex CIA badass who has retired so he can be near his teenage daughter. She lives with her mom (Neeson’s ex-wife) and her stepfather, a rich, nice guy who you hate just because he makes Neeson look like a shmo – but not for long! 

Neeson’s daughter is kidnapped by white slavers in Paris and Neeson is very, very serious about getting her back.

You can learn all that from the trailer or the commercial, so I’ll put the real spoilers below the fold. 

Again, I was taken with “Taken,” but you can be sure that some post-modern, critical-whatever-studies types will hate this movie, what with the not-too-subtle “Death Wishy” attacks on non-Americans and the patriarchal revenge fantasy of it all. This is “Thelma and Louise” for fathers. (more…)