Zack and Reba

What a crude, hilarious sense of humor! The actors, director, the writer, were all unknowns to me when I picked up the video and took it home. Sean Patrick Flanery is adorable, but all the characters in this offbeat film leave an impression. The scene with the preacher had me laughing out loud, and rewinding the tape to watch it again. I've never seen a movie quite like this.

I bought this film at Blockbuster for $3.00, because it sounded interesting (a bit Ranma-esque, with the idea of someone dragging around a skeleton), because there was a cute girl in a mini-skirt on the back, and because there was a Restricted Viewing sticker on it. I thought it was going to be a sweet or at least sincere coming of age story with a weird indie edge. I was 100% wrong.

Having watched it, I have to wonder how it got the restricted sticker, since there is hardly any foul language, little violence, and the closest thing to nudity (Honestly! I don't usually go around hoping for it!) is when the girl is in her nightgown and you see her panties (you see her panties a lot in this movie, because no matter what, she's wearing a miniskirt of some sort). Even the anti-religious humor is tame (and lame, caricatured, insincere, derivative, unoriginal, and worst of all not funny in the slightest--it would be better just to listen to Ray Stevens' "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His Television Show"). This would barely qualify as PG-13 (it is Not Rated), but Blockbuster refuses to let anyone under the age of 17 rent this--as if it was pornographic. Any little kid could go in there and rent the edited version of Requiem for a Dream, but they insist that Zack and Reba is worse.

It is, but not in that way.

In a way, this worries me--the only thing left that could offend people is the idea of the suicide at the beginning. If anybody needs to see movies with honestly portrayed suicides (not this one, but better ones like The Virgin Suicides), it's teenagers. If both of those movies were rated R purely because of the suicide aspect, then I have little chance of turning a story I've been writing into a PG-13 movie (the main characters are eleven and a half and twelve). Suicide is one of the top three leading causes of death in teenagers (I think it's number 2), so chances are that most teens have been or will be affected by it.

Just say no to this movie, though. 2/10.

I bought this movie before seeing it, because it was rare and had two favorites of mine (Flanery and Murphy). I watched the entire thing, not knowing whether it was okay to laugh at lines like, "at...at my wife's bones." - then decided it was fine, and continued to laugh uproariously throughout the rest of the film.

Dark humor mingled with fantastic line delivery and offbeat, oddly lovable characters make this movie one of my favorites. Murphy is beautiful and sweet as the girl who doesn't want to admit that her ex-fiance actually killed himself after she broke it off with him - and definitely doesn't want to admit that she's got a crush on the town looney's grandson. Flanery is superb as a young man who rarely leaves his room after the death of his wife...who's bones are never far from his side. (as a sidenote, Flanery deserves to be out of the indies, I don't know of anyone who can flesh out characters as well as he can - however, I would hate to see him in the mainstreams, because it wouldn't be a challenge - nor would he get such interesting roles) And for those of us who are mothers of small children, there's an extra special surprise in the form of Michael Jeeter - who we recognize from Elmo's World. He plays a cute little drunken grave robber - which will give you all (or maybe just the morbid ones like myself) something to giggle about when you next watch Sesame Street with your little one.

Overall, find the movie, get silly, and appreciate the morbid humor. You shouldn't regret it.

Debbie Reynolds outside her perky persona is what drew me, but this movie is a lot more. Brittany Murphy is adorable, and Sean Patrick Flannery should be out of the indies by now. It makes you smile while you watch,a clever story, and no glaring holes in the plot. What more can you want?

Well, first of all, I give it 6 out of 10. The plot is not very well thought out, and the characters are portrayed as very bland and superficial. The only good performances come from Sean Patrick Flanery (who excels in any movie that he's in) and Debbie Reynolds. There were hardly any chemistry between the leading characters, which I suppose isn't really their fault but the script's. Overall, the movie is not even worth commenting much about so I guess I will stop here.