Why did I go anyway? Because the movie is a satire that also features Robert Downey Jr. in black face, which can be extremely offensive itself. I'm a huge fan of comedy that employs satire, sarcasm and irony, but I know these can be incredibly hard to pull of. (As I realize each time my own self-satire on this site goes unrecognized as humor and falls pathetically flat.) The reception of satirical humor depends a great deal on who the audience is, and I simply don't trust other people to interpret it for me, nor do I feel I can judge fairly from out of context snippets. (Um, and also, I really, truly love Jack Black and was so looking forward to this movie.) So, I decided to suspend judgment until I had seen the movie myself.

And after I saw it, I had some more thoughts on the controversy, but I also asked myself if the movie was worth seeing or not, independent of these issues? Well, not really. The movie did have some scenes that were quite funny. I was thinking of the Junky's Wife and laughing until I couldn't breathe during Jack Black's character's desperate attempts to get heroin. Robert Downey Jr. did a good job of handling the racially charged "n-word" and pulling off his his self-mocking use of black face. But Tropic Thunder wasn't wasn't consistently well done or consistently entertaining. It's not something you're going to quote for years or even remember for long after it leaves the theaters; it's a unevenly fun two hour distraction, much like Don't Mess with the Zohan.

But back to that controversy. What I found surprising was that the dialogue about disability that I found most deeply hurtful hasn't been mentioned in any of the press I've seen, which has focused exclusively on the use of the offensive word "retarded." I was disturbed by one quick scene in particular, in which agent Rick Peck (played by Matthew McConaughey) asks superstar Tugg Speedman (played by Ben Stiller) how Speedman's attempts to adopt a child are going. When Speedman tells him the adoption process has been fraught with complications, Peck looks at a picture of himself with a developmentally delayed middle-school-aged boy, who appears later in the movie wearing a bib, and says, "At least you get to pick yours."

Of course, I'm lifting Peck's line out of context, and you might think (as I would) that perhaps this was meant to mock Peck's character rather than his son. Sadly, no. The implication was that if one could choose to have one's own disabled child or another child free from disabilities, the wish would clearly be to have another child. But alas, those who have with children with disabilities are simply stuck with the unhappy burden of a despised and disappointing disabled child. And the movie did portray that view as one the audience ought to understand and sympathize with. One that should (but fortunately didn't, in our theater) bring a big laugh.

And that was what I found really awful. I know many parents of children with disabilities, different abilities or those quirky superpowers that just don't fit well in so many parts of this life. And we love our kids, fiercely. We love them in the face of those, like the makers of Tropic Thunder, who cruelly find them worthless and and think we ought to too. We love them, because we see them as the full and beautiful human beings they are.

So, I'm here to say that, on the whole, I love Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. and their movies. And because I do, I went to see this one in spite of the negative press. But now, having seen the work as a whole, I do agree that the portrayal of people with disabilities in this movie is inflammatory and derogatory. Far from adding to the humor of the film, it detracted from my enjoyment. Tropic Thunder would have been a better and more consistently funny film if, among other things, the portrayal of disabilities was actually used as satire, rather than as cheap mocking or cartoon slapstick.

Skip Tropic Thunder because it's offensive or skip it because it's not a great film, but either way, my recommendation is to skip it. (Unless you're the Junky's Wife, in which case you should totally rent it to watch Jack Black offering blow jobs for heroin.)

The movie was carried by Heath Ledger, whose performance as the Joker was terrifying. On the car ride home (where my husband and I deconstruct the movie) we talked about how comforting we both found routine, predictability and sameness in our lives and how terrifying unpredictability like the Joker's was. While we didn't encounter anyone in our own lives as dangerous and maniacal as the Joker, watching Heath Ledger somehow brought us both back to the powerlessness we felt in our lives as children: how we would try to find structure and rules for the craziness or rage we encountered, so that we could predict and avoid it. We cling to the structures we create to give us the illusion of control and avoid the terror of chaos, the terror of knowing that some people (people -- not machines or monsters or animals -- people) can and will hurt you and you may never understand why.

I also found a parallel in the movie between the pains of early recovery and the battles waged by District Attorney Harvey Dent and Police Commissioner Gordon resembled the pains of early recovery. Things, the movie kept telling you, get worse before they get better. Try to take down the mob bosses (or fight your personal demons or beat back the compulsions that have ruled your life) and those mob bosses (or demons) will fight back. They will not go quietly into that dark night. When you let them rule, there is a kind of peace. When you've found the tools to fight them and made some headway in restoring the rule of law, there is some peace. But in transition, in change, there is fear, violence and desperate struggle.

The thing that annoyed me most (that always annoys me) was the weak female protagonist. The character of Rachel Dawes was (presumably) the Assistant District Attorney of Gotham, but was defined throughout the movie by her relationship to Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, and was referred to (even on the job, in court and by reporters) as "Harvey Dent's girlfriend." When Mark mused after the movie that he didn't understand her and that her role seemed dull and simplistic, I speculated that (like most female characters, in action movies or otherwise) she wasn't there to be an actual person, but was an object to move the plot forward: something for the men to fight over. Of course, the fact that she wasn't a fully fleshed out or real person made the actions she was supposed to forward nonsensical. (Note to writers: write your female characters as real, multi-faceted people, just like the men, and your work will benefit for it.)

And now I'll leave you with this: Dark Knight may have been a great adrenaline ride and given me lots (from childhood demons to portrayals of women) to think about, but Holy Recovery Nerddom, the Batman I love most will always be Adam West.

Mark and I went out to see Hancock last night. We were really looking forward to this one: July 4th weekend opening, Will Smith, superhero antics and alcoholism. It was slated to have everything!

And the first half of the movie delivered on its blockbuster promises. Will Smith was delightfully hilarious in his drunken belligerence and blaming. Like a good active addict, he destroyed everything he touched. Jason Bateman as Ray Embrey, Hancock's PR man, was the movie's codependent, out to fix him right. It was actually a refreshing twist to see a codependent role played out by a male buddy character rather than a female love interest.

Hancock, at Ray's insistence, starts attending meetings for alcoholism. I appreciated the fact that these meetings involved less crosstalk and less of an active leader role than the typical Hollywood screen versions of 12 Step, most of which employ these inaccuracies as narrative devices. (I'll have to do a separate post sometime on Hollywood 12 Step.) And Hancock reminded me of myself in early S-Anon meetings: saying nothing and listening grudgingly, although I liked his first share better than mine.

Yep, the first half of the movie had it all. There was action. There were laughs. There were 12 Step meetings and redemption. Then, it seemed to Mark and me, the writer died right there in the middle of the script. It was like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Brother Maynard reads the last words of Joseph of Arimathea carved on a cave wall: "He who is valiant, and pure of spirit, may find the Holy Grail, in the Castle of... Aaaaaagggh." He speculates that Joseph died while carving and Galahad chimes in (in one of the movies many great lines), "Perhaps he was dictating."

It truly seemed as if someone new took over in the middle and wrote a completely different story, one which made no sense. It wasn't funny or dramatic or gripping. It was just jaw droppingly nonsensical. You'll notice, as I did, after you see the movie that every single scene from the trailer is one that takes place in the first (good) half of the movie.

So, here's my recommendation to you on Hancock. Go and see it. And when you are about halfway in, there will be a scene where Hancock puts on his new superhero outfit and is called in to rescue a female police officer. (I'm not giving anything away here; this is all in the trailer.) At the end of that scene, get up and walk out. You will have seen a complete story, from down and out bitterness to redemption. You will have seen everything funny and worthwhile and exciting in the movie. You will leave happy and feel it was money well spent, even if the movie was on the short side. You won't sit there for the rest of the movie wishing he were doing anger management classes with the villains (oh, that would have been delightful and funny) instead of "fighting" them, such as they are. You won't leave thinking, "What the hell was that about? And I wonder how that first writer died."

And for those of you girls and boys who enjoy ogling Will Smith's firm and well-formed behind, allow me to alert you to the fact that, like I Robot before it, Hancock did contain one gratuitous Will Smith bare butt cheek shot. It even came conveniently packaged with the line "my ass was hot," which allowed you to giggle and say, "Yes. Yes it was." And as with all good things in this movie, the scene even came in the movie's glorious first half, so you won't miss it if take my advice and walk out halfway through the show.

This past weekend, Mark and I left our kids in the care of our wonderful babysitter, who, next to The Junky's Wife is the love of our son's life. (Seriously, I don't even come close. I'm a distant fourth behind Daddy, JW and the babysitter.) Then we headed off to perform our weekly movie night ritual: stopping for take out at a local sandwich shop (where we are now officially regulars) before heading out to enjoy the latest blockbuster.

This week brought The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton. The "starring Ed Norton" part is important, because this movie wasn't on the original spreadsheet, where we painstakingly plotted out our summer movie watching. It was a late addition, after we saw previews in which Ed Norton flexed his acting muscles and looked just the right kind of tortured for the part, but maybe that's just those Fight Club overtones he carries with him. (What a great addiction movie that is!)

The Incredible Hulk was decent, as action movies go. The theater we were in had a good sound system, so the whole place vibrated as the Hulk walked. And the special effects -- the ease with which he broke and threw, um, almost anything -- really knocked home (so to speak) his size and power. They were the kind of scenes that make you exclaim things like, "Holy crap!"

But, of course, what Mark and I were looking for were some good addiction parallels. After all, there was Ed Norton with his Fight Club self in a life that was clearly out of control and unmanageable. And he did (I think I can tell you this, since it's hardly a spoiler) work on some (gasp!) breathing and anger management techniques. However, our hopes that the movie might explore this quest more deeply were in vain. It was not Bruce Banner grappling with his inner monster that kept the Hulk from going on killing rampages, so much as it was his outer codependent in the form of Liv Tyler. Sigh! (Poor Discovering Alcoholic -- waiting days for this, only to have me gloss the whole addiction subtext in one disappointing paragraph.)

My favorite part came during a cameo by the hot-in-recovery Robert Downey Jr., who was reprising his Iron Man role as Tony Stark. Mark did that comic book nerd thing and leaned over to excitedly whisper to me the movie makers were setting the stage for some future comic book thing I'd never heard of. I love that man. Um, Mark that is, not Robert Downey Jr. Well, ok, mostly Mark.

On the docket this weekend were You Don't Mess with the Zohan and Kung Fu Panda.

Zohan was a cotton candy movie: light, attractively artificial, entertaining in a way that hit hard with a none-too-complex sugary burst and then dissolved into nothingness. I laughed loud and long all the way through the movie at typical Adam Sandler penis centered humor, and as I walked out of the theater, found that I couldn't remember a single funny moment.

I actually had a hard time with the movie for two sex addiction related reasons, which contributed to my queasy dissatisfaction afterwards.

The first was Zohan's crazy oversexed behavior, which ends (in a fantasy as unreal as peace in the Middle East) when he meets the right woman. That particular codependent/addict fantasy (that change is easy and bad behavior can stop cold for "the one") is one that always cuts close to home and makes me particularly irritable.

The second was a bit more personal and specific to my situation. My husband had an affair (and hit his bottom as a sex addict) with a woman from Israel, and in spite of the fact that I know my feelings are bizarre and irrational (after all, he acted out with Americans and I don't have a problem with my own country because of it), all things Israeli now make me (at best) uncomfortable and (at worst) sick with rage.

I used to see news reports about terrorist attacks on Israelis and scan them for her name. (Yes, I admit it. I'm a self-proclaimed pacifist, and I was secretly, in my heart of hearts, cheering for terrorists based on my husband's philandering. Is it any wonder we're so far from world peace?) I've made progress on this front. I've forgiven the woman for her part in what happened. And I now pray that she'll find healing instead of have her arms ripped off by a car bomb.

Even so, the mention of Israel still has the potential to send me spiraling. Just a few weeks ago I was out shopping and found I was unable to buy a piece of clothing I liked as soon as I noticed the label "made in Israel." So, needless to say, Israeli music and women frolicking on Mediterranean beaches sent me spinning into a few post-traumatic flashbacks of details I know of that relationship. And that probably contributed to me feeling cranky enough when I got home to go sleep alone on the sofa.

Today (after some Tylenol took care of sofa-induced aches) we took the kids out to see Kung Fu Panda. We spent more on gas and incidentals than we spent on the actual movie, unless you calculate the cost on a per hour basis, in which case, the movie itself was really, really expensive. Our first mistake was not buying tickets ahead of time, online. We are experts at the online movie purchase, so I think our brains were simply addled by trying to get four people out of the house at the same time.

We got the kids all geared up for the show, drove to the theater and found the showing we expected to see was sold out. So, we bought tickets to the next show, and my son headed for meltdown mode because it was (ack!) a change of plans. A quick decision to blow some allowance money at the toy store averted that disaster and we headed home for a snack before a return trip to the theater. Because outings with my son are iffy, we took two cars (yeah, double the gas, good times) in case an early emergency escape became necessary.

Ordinarily we time our outings to avoid the previews, but the crowds were such that we would not have gotten seats together, if we waited. So, we were right on time. My son sat attentive through the first preview, asked "when is it starting?" for the next, and slumped in his seat for the remainder. My daughter, fortunately, was happily captivated by M&Ms and popcorn.

The movie started with a dream sequence in which the animation style was different from the commercials the kids had seen, leading my son to wail, "Why is this a different panda?!" When the dream sequence ended he squirmed and made noises for 5 or 10 more minutes before my husband took the emergency escape option. My daughter made it for another 15 or 20 minutes, when, having eaten her fill of popcorn and M&M's she said, "I'm all done watching this movie."

So, my review of Kung Fu Panda is, um, I didn't get to see Kung Fu Panda. I'll rent it sometime and let you know. I still have some Milk Duds left.

"What?"

"That was so boring. But this song is good. I think it's my favorite part of the movie."

"Ugh! This song is making my skin crawl. It's that warbly, high pitched style that gets on my nerves. You really didn't like it? I thought it was the best movie we've seen so far."

"Really? I couldn't get into it. I could have walked out."

"Wow. I was totally entranced."

So, the movie got, um, mixed reviews, to say the least.

We determined that the problems stemmed, at least in part, from our relationship with the original books by C.S. Lewis. I was entranced with the books as a child, and as with Peter Pan and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they formed the fabric of a fantasy world into which I escaped. In all three average people (children or those childlike in innocence) find magic and adventure; I used to dream of Pan knocking on my window or my closet suddenly opening on a wintry wood in another world or a wizard calling on me to become something extraordinary. If the Harry Potter books had been around then, no doubt I would have added waiting for an owl and an invitation to Hogwarts.

I reread The Chronicles of Narnia a few years ago, aloud to Mark. And the books were significantly less magical as an adult. I was shocked to find them downright offensive at times, in their underlying racism and particular Biblical interpretations: things that all went completely over my head as a child. Mark enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but by the end of the series was left with a bad feeling about the books in general.

The movie made several changes to the plot of Prince Caspian, which tightened it and made it much more exciting and compelling than the book for me. It also toned down (but didn't entirely eliminate) some of the Aryan superiority elements. (Am I the only one bothered by how the fantasy bad guys -- the Haradrim, the Telmarines -- are described as "dark skinned" and subscribe to some religious beliefs that seem to be taking digs at non-Christians?)

The movie was able to suck me in to that imaginary world of my childhood, rebuilt in even more vivid splendor than my imagination painted, with a plot that moved along briskly (especially compared to the book, which spends a significant amount of time following the Pevensie children as they search for food and trek lost through the woods). And I remembered little enough of the book (in spite of having read it only a few years ago) to remain in a state of uneasy suspense. I also appreciated the Shakespearean overtones the movie brought out: from Macbeth's defeat by the wood moving against him to Hamlet's quest for vengeance against his uncle.

Mark, meanwhile, was cringing, emotionally divorced from the characters, waiting for Aslan to show up and spew a moral message. Oh well. That's what I get for sharing the books.

And this weekend my husband and I went to see Speed Racer, a special film for us, since our mutual love of the original cartoon was one of the things that made us fall wide-eyed in love twenty years ago. Speed Racer was one of my first great loves in life, up there with Peter Pan and Shaun Cassidy, and it was thrilling to find a man who would watch those cartoons in unabashed good fun with me.

What I loved most about the movie was that it reviewed itself very early on. There is a flashback scene in which the young Speed Racer is in school taking a math test. He looks at the page and as he reads the words of a problem, they turn from "if Suzie has 640 jellybeans and Janie has..." to "blah blah blah blah... Start your engines. Go, Speed, go!" That completely summed it up for me: the race scenes were what made the movie and everything else was just a lot of blah blah blah.

Unfortunately, the movie (outside of the racing scenes) took itself far too seriously and included far too much of the blah blah. I missed the campy, over the top dialog of the original. I didn't want to hear Pops Racer say Speed couldn't change the world by driving a car, and I didn't want to have Speed try to hit the bad boys in their wallets. Blah blah blah. I wanted one long, insane race against evil rather than races interspersed with blah blah.

There was an audio clip from the original series during the closing credits -- something along the lines of "Speed Racer, the fate of the world rests in your hands." I heard that and thought, "Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about." Speed needs to beat the Devil in a race around the world, punch him square in the mouth at the end, causing Osama bin Laden's heart (like the Grinch's) to swell to three times its size, Israelis and Palestinians to engage in a group hug and Goodyear to pay women an equal wage.

Still the race scenes were dizzying, fun and innovative. The cars fought like the best kung fu warriors and came equipped with spectacular weaponry. The pace was blindingly fast, and the twists and turns took some getting used to. (I admit, I felt a little motion sick at first.)

Mark and I disagreed on how compelling the action scenes were, especially relative to Iron Man. I was much more engaged in the racing scenes than in any part of Iron Man, while Mark found them both (in terms of the action scenes) equally engaging. (We both agreed that Iron Man was a much, much, much better movie overall, but for me, the high of the action scenes in Speed Racer beat the high of the action scenes in Iron Man by several fast paced miles.)

I wish the movie makers had paid attention to their own internal review: less seriousness, more campy fun; less talk, more Mach 5. But regardless of the format, cartoon or live action, Sprittle and Chim Chim remain annoying. It's good to know that some things never change.

While Iron Man was not a great movie, it was an entertaining action flick with a wonderful addiction subtext. I felt the weight of its not-greatness when I had to step out to take a call from the babysitter on something fairly inconsequential (where to find a DVD my son wanted to watch), and found I was not torn apart that I was missing those two minutes. I wasn't afraid that something thrilling was going to happen in my absence or that I was going to miss some key component of the (deliciously simplistic) plot. But I walked out happy and had a good discussion on the car ride home, which I count as an overall success in the world of summer movie fun.

During the course of the movie, Tony Stark (Iron Man's alter ego, played by Robert Downey Jr.) spends most of the time that he's not working on or thinking about his engineering projects (primarily the Iron Man suit) drinking alcohol and hitting on or having sex with women. The first time he takes his Iron Man suit out for a spin around the skies of Malibu, he pushes the limits and nearly kills himself. His response is to whoop with joy and exclaim that he has to do that again. Mark and I turned to each other at that point in the movie, and Mark said, "Total addict." To which I responded, "Oh, yeah. Totally." Of course, after that high, Stark heads out to a party, to, um, drink and hit on women.

Stark also has an assistant, Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow), who takes care of (and generally anticipates) his every need, from doing dry cleaning for the women he has sex with to hacking into weapons manufacturing computer systems. The relationship between the two is a beautiful portrayal of a codependent/addict relationship: he does his crazy addict thing and she takes care of the details, cleans up the messes and worries about him. Both Downey (who has his own real life experience with addiction) and Paltrow play out these roles beautifully.

After the movie, Mark and I disagreed about how intentional the addiction subtext was. After all, addiction is never brought up in the movie, and not even implied in the ways one typically sees (e.g. falling down drunkenness). It was Mark's opinion that the addiction subtext couldn't have been as well done as it was if it were simply operating unintentionally based on stereotypical behavior. But it was my opinion that the aim was to portray a rich, self-centered, hedonistic playboy (there was even a direct nod to Hugh Hefner) and that the movie makers (like most people) didn't equate self-centered, hedonistic playboy with addict. (Yes, I think Hugh Hefner is a huge addict.) I believe that the codependent and addict personalities are so prevalent and distinctive that we all recognize them without knowing them for what they are.

Of course, Mark and I come to the superhero subset of action movies from a different viewpoint. I come in with few preconceptions, armed only with my life experience and whatever superhero lore has eked into the culture at large (which, in the case of Iron Man, was nothing). Mark, on the other hand, is a comic book geek, who knows what the characters and villains are supposed to look like. He comes into movies like this with a certain level of secret extra knowledge. So Mark pointed out: "It's well known that Stark is an alcoholic." (Well known, of course, to everyone with a closet full of boxes upon boxes of comic books, not to those of us who never heard of Iron Man before the first trailer for the movie.)

But Mark and I agreed that the subtlety with which the addiction was framed means that either it was done skillfully by folks who would recognize those subtleties or it was done by folks who intended to leave the alcoholism out, but portray the playboy, and accidentally hit upon the characteristics or an addict anyway. If it were done by folks without a knowledge of addiction, who were intentionally trying to portray addiction, Stark would have been flying his Iron Man suit clearly drunk out of his mind. And let's face it, sex addiction is still so far out of the public mind that no one sets out to portray sex addiction without having someone actually say the words "sex addict."

We also agreed that Robert Downey Jr., who is the star of two separate blockbusters this summer and is not exhibiting his former train-wreck, bottoming out behavior, must be working his program. Yay, Robert Downey Jr.! Sobriety looks hot on you.

Now see what happens when nerds get into recovery and go to the movies? I can't wait to review Hancock.* Will Smith as an alcoholic superhero? Be still my beating codie heart! Things are going to get steamy!

Next week: Speed Racer. And while the Racers are clearly dysfunctional (the eldest son ran away from home and the youngest smuggles into car trunks with his pet monkey?), I'm going to see that one purely for the kick ass special effects.