Mittendrin und voll dabei

this is a quirky, entertaining flick. set against the backdrop of small town america 1963, it's a different 'coming of age' movie. goofy, drunken , obsessive adults and saner, wiser children attempt to sort through family roles and societal situations -- bigotry, sexual awakening, family structures, morality, abortion, gender roles --- this movie has got it all. it is, alternately, funny, sad, depressing & invigorating, but always entertaining. a great rent!

As a kid, every adult has had a time in his life that he or she was fascinated by the world of the grown-ups, but didn't know much about it. As an adolescent kid you want to know more about love and sex, but the path to adulthood can be a bumpy road. That's also the reason why there have been made so many coming of age-movies. Not all of them were very successful, but some of them sure are worth a watch, like for instance this "Skipped Parts".

When in 1963, a young woman and her 14-year old son Sam from an unknown man, are expelled from North Carolina by her powerful father who runs for governor, they end up in a small town in Wyoming. Here she continues her irresponsible life of partying and having fun, while her son discovers that the biggest part of his new school is made up by retards who don't seem to know what a book looks like from the inside. There is especially one girl, called Maury, who he can't stand at first, but who he gradually starts to like more and more. When she asks him to help her experiment with sex, they get very close and with the help of his mother they get a pretty good idea of what sex is like. But despite the fact that his mother told them to stop as soon as Maury has had her first period, they are too late and pregnancy is the result. While facing the consequences of their experiments and with grandfather's dictatorial shadow over them, Sam and Maury get help from Hank Elkrunner, a Blackfoot Indian who has become Lydia's newest boyfriend...

I guess that it needs some imagination to believe that all what is happening in this movie could actually be true. I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but sometimes it all feels a bit far-fetched. Nevertheless, this is still a very interesting movie and certainly one of the better coming of age-stories that I have ever seen. Especially thanks to the underlying story line of the double moral (sex outside marriage didn't exist, but abortion clinics were available, the totalitarian patriarch who wanted to keep his influence on his family, but didn't want them near him...) and the fine acting in this movie, this is a lot better than average. It's sure worth watching and I gave it a rating of 7/10 which is far from bad for this kind of movies.

I saw the trailer for this film a few times when I was renting some movies and I thought it looked very funny. Then today I saw it at the video store. I picked it up and watched it and loved it. I thought Jennifer Jason Leigh was so hilarious in this movie and she truly stood out as Lydia, Sam's mouthy, slutty mother. Another acting standout was Bug Hall, Mischa Barton and Angela Featherstone. I thought they played there part perfectly, especially the young leads and Leigh. I was also suprised to see Drew Barrymore in a very small role as "Dream Girl". Although it deals with pregnancy and sex with 14 year olds...I still found it very entertaining and if you want to see some very good acting and a good comedy, i recommend this movie very highly. 10/10

Jennifer Jason Leigh knows her stuff. After picking up Skipped Parts off the shelf, my choice based solely on the interest in Jennifer Jason Leigh movies, I was not disappointed by Skipped Parts. A coming of age story of the American family. You can call it dysfunctional but through all of the problems and obstacles this family saw, it seemed to have more love and happiness than the stereotypical suburban, white picket fence family we are so used to seeing in every movie. Jennifer Jason Leigh is spectacular, yet again, and anyone who loves off-beat movies with a heartwarming feeling from a different direction (compared to other movies) this is a must see and ace on my list. Watch it twice then buy it (as I will do shortly)

I was watching this movie with my roommate on one of those i-have-nothing-better-to-do-evenings. I was really surprised to find out i actually liked this film. Other people have commented on this movie by saying it was to far fetched. But to be honest i don't get that. I know that this film is somewhat surreal, but reality isn't that far behind. I mean teen do get pregnant and when they lack good sex education (so to speak) they do experiment and pregnancy is the logical result. The film is sort of happy go lucky but it didn't bother me. I really liked the fact that it talked openly about pregnancy's among young people. I also thought it was rather sarcastic. Especially the last comment "welcome to the modern American family". I don't think that was serious but really sarcastic. I think it's save to say this movie was really cool. I recommend it to anyone who has an open view on such matters.