- Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n
![\"Rethink](\"\/home\/graphics\/rethink_reviews_small.jpg\")
<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong><\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em><\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Mr. Popper’s Penguins<\/strong><\/p>\n
Based very loosely on the beloved 1938 book of the same name, \u2018Mr. Popper\u2019s
\nPenguins\u2019 seems like a natural choice for parents looking to take young kids out
\nfor some nice, clean family fun. After all, it has penguins, the adorable,
\ntuxedoed clowns of the animal kingdom, and stars Jim Carrey, the clown king of
\nHollywood, whose silliness and over-the-top physicality have been a hit with
\nkids and immature adults for years. <\/p>\nAnd judging from the laughs of the kids and adults during the screening I
\nattended, the filmmakers got the formula right. But I couldn\u2019t help feeling that
\nif I was a single, divorced, or remarried parent taking my child to \u2018Mr.
\nPopper\u2019s Penguins\u2019, it might lead to some uncomfortable questions and perhaps an
\nawkward ride home. But I\u2019ll get to that in a second.<\/p>\nCarrey plays Mr. Popper, a budding New York real estate mogul whose habit of
\nputting his job before his family has led to a divorce from his wife, Amanda,
\nplayed by Carla Gugino, and resentment from his teenage daughter, played by
\nMadeline Carroll, and younger son, played by Maxwell Perry Cotton. But that
\nstarts to change when Popper\u2019s absent explorer father sends Popper a crate
\ncontaining a live penguin, surely violating dozens of international laws on
\nanimal trafficking. <\/p>\nSoon, more penguins arrive, making six in all, and are assigned names like
\nBitey, Stinky and Nimrod. But Popper\u2019s kids fall in love with the birds before
\nhe can get rid of them, so to keep his kids coming back, Popper decides to keep
\nthe penguins and turn his luxurious apartment into their habitat by opening his
\nwindows to the winter snow. That is, unless the birds are taken by an evil zoo
\nofficial played by Clark Gregg, who doesn\u2019t seem to like animals and has the
\ndespicable notion that exotic animals should be kept in a zoo and cared for by
\nprofessionals. In the meantime, Popper is also trying to make partner at his
\nreal estate firm by negotiating to buy Central Park\u2019s famous Tavern on the Green
\nfrom its owner, played by Angela Lansbury.<\/p>\nAs a kids movie, \u2018Mr. Popper\u2019s Penguins\u2019 is passable fare, though I can\u2019t
\nimagine many children caring much about whether the Tavern will continue to
\nretain its old school charm. The penguins, a mix of real, animatronic and CG
\nbirds, are cute, and unless you find penguin poop and fart jokes offensive, the
\nfilm\u2019s humor is kid friendly, with a few jokes for parents sprinkled in. The
\nsupporting cast does a decent job, and Carrey\u2019s exaggerated performance is
\nentertaining and similar to the role he played in the superior kids movie, \u2018Liar
\nLiar\u2019. <\/p>\nBut what stood out for me is the film\u2019s message that divorced parents need to be
\nreunited to achieve familial happiness. This is a common fantasy for children
\nfrom broken families and has been around in movies at least since 1961\u2019s \u2018The
\nParent Trap\u2019. But with divorce and single-parent households increasingly common,
\nit\u2019s a sentiment that strikes me as outdated, as well as unfair to divorced or
\nsingle parents who don\u2019t want to rehash the difficult conversation about why
\nmommy and daddy aren\u2019t together anymore. It\u2019s also potentially cruel to
\nimpressionable, perhaps emotionally fragile young children from broken families
\nwho will have to be reminded that their parents will, most likely, never get
\nback together. <\/p>\nSo be warned, single\/divorced parents, especially single or remarried dads who
\nmight think an afternoon at the movies with the kids might be a nice way to
\nspend Father\u2019s Day. However, in a rare move, \u2018Mr. Popper\u2019s Penguins\u2019 is only
\nbeing offered in 2D, so cash-strapped parents tired of inflated 3D ticket prices
\nmight take their chances anyway.<\/p>\n\u2018Mr. Popper\u2019s Penguins\u2019 is rated PG and is in theaters now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}