CineMARK MY WORDS...
We took our 6-yr-old son to see Fantastic Four tonight at a Cinemark theater.Got good seats...went and did our bathroom break BEFORE the movie.
Popcorn, sodas...ready to go!
And then the previews started.
YIKES!
Who in the heck though that some scary slasher movie "Cry Wolf" would be an appropriate preview for a theatre full of families and their elementary aged children! I immediately put my hands over my son's face, and he didn't bother disagreeing with my move. The imagery will probably give even me nightmares tonight.
THEN...well, holy cow...the Transporter 2 trailer came on, and both my husband and I at the same time reached over to cover his little eyes...again, no resistance from him.
(And you have to know, this is a fairly edgy kid who loves Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Indiana Jones...and he had his ears covered on his own, and welcomed our covering his eyes.)
Well, I was just appalled at the selection of trailers for this film. Mercy, I have concluded that just from the trailer for Bad News Bears that our family won't be going to see it...I had to explain too much stuff just from the preview that I would rather not have to explain.
Why is it that Hollywood can't take a beloved kids' book or show and make it into another beloved KIDS' show? Why do that have to inject it with inuendo and crass language and vulgarity? They say it's what kids want...but parents are the one bankrolling those trips to the movie, so I refuse to send my kids to see that refuse.
To this day I have a hard time explaining to my kids why we didn't see and will never see The Cat in the Hat with Mike Meyers. All I could figure out to say was that while we love the book dearly, the people who made the movie put inappropriate words and actions in it, and it is no longer the story that we cherish...it would make us sad to see what they did to Dr. Seuss's story.
When we left, we went out the nearest exit, but I told my husband over dinner that I would be calling the manager tomorrow to let them know how disgusted I was with the trailer selection before that movie.
I also plan on writing a letter to Paramount Pictures to tell them how disappointed I am in their choice to downgrade the Bad News Bears to a vehicle for cliche bad jokes, kids doing inappropriate things for laughs, and making a drunken womanizer the ultimate hero.
Which brings me back to the Fantastic Four.
Critics panned it.
We loved it.
One bad word (which our kids have heard at least once in their life!)
Campy film that 'knew what it was' and did it well.
Endearing characters...fun super powers...an element of a moral to the story...good, clean fun!
Just too bad that Cinemark chose to mar an otherwise entertaining family outing by showing those inappropriate trailers to a room full of kids and families. Appalling.
Yes, mark my words...
You mark them, because it is probable that they will fall on deaf ears at Cinemark.
posted by Whitney @ 10:10 PM
4 Comments:
Hmm, well Fantastic Four didn't really look like it was meant for kids. You should take your kids to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! A'ight, I really just thought it was a great movie, so I've taken it upon myself to force everyone to see it.
Thanks for the thumbs up on Charlie & The Chocolate Factory -- next on our list! We love the original, so we are hoping it does not disappoint.
With regard to F4 -- it was actually a pretty good movie for our little guy. The very few sexual references were over his head, and he glommed on to the 'moral' of the story of their embracing their powers and using them for good...that The Thing would choose to be different in order to save his friends...that the blind girl saw his character instead of his physique...Were there things I would change about it? Absolutely. Was it cheesy? Yep, but it knew that it was. Evil was evil...and good triumphed.
We don't actually go to the movies that often anymore (which is a shame because we both used to be in the movie biz)...I guess we have just gotten used to cruising through the previews at home...our bad for not checking it out first.
willy wonka will never be johnny depp... he's just WAY too weird in this... why do i get flashes of michael jackson?
totally agree about trailers for kids' movies. Makes me crazy when I take mine!
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