Movie Review: Flipped

Flipped Needs to be Flipped Off

Rob Reiner takes us through a very weird tale of "young love".  With an all star cast, how could you go wrong with this movie?  But, he does it in style and with aplomb, crashes like a Japanese Kamakazi going down in a blaze of glory.  It is 90 minutes of torture.  I don't think the Alquaeda could have done a better job.

Cast: Juli Baker by Madeline Carroll; Bryce Loski by Callan McAuliffe; Patsy Loski by Rebecca De Mornay; Steven Loski by Anthony Edwards; Chet Duncan by John Mahoney; Trina Baker by Penelope Ann Miller; Richard Baker by Aidan Quinn; Daniel Baker by Kevin Weisman.

Flipped is a period piece of two very young kids and their changing opinions of each other through the ages from age 4 - 12 years old, and their coming into a mutual affection.  It is an on again, off again affection, on both sides.  The young girl admires the young boy, while the boy dislikes the young girl.  We are made to watch this scenario play out for 8 years of their life.

What was right about the movie?: The movie did have the correct cars and costumes for the period.  There were some wide shots of landscape vistas that were pretty.  That is the only thing the movie did right.

What was wrong with the movie?:

• first and foremost the movie sexualized children.  It was 90 minutes of cringing.  It was sick, sick, sick.
• the movie was a period piece and so many things were wrong
1. none of the dialogue was from the 40s or 50s. The very essence of the period was the very proper and fantastic way Americans spoke at that time. The slang they used in those days was so colorful. All of this was completely gone in the movie and replaced with regular modern vocabulary and 2010 euphemisms. It's a travesty.
2. none of the manners that were widely observed in the 40s and 50s were apparent. If this movie is really targeted at baby boomers, as the movie suggests, they will be horrified by how the kids treat the adults.
3. everyone cursed in the movie. To my knowledge, and I am fairly old, people did not walk around cursing each other out, however in this movie, kids, teens and adults cursed like sailors.
4. other than people wearing funky clothes, there was nothing that took you back to the 40s and 50s.
• there was no point to the entire movie. The diaglogue was boring, and the entire screenplay was narrated. To add insult to injury, the narration "flipped" between both lead characters. The only relief of something actually happening was when the kids interacted with the adults in the movie. I don't hate kids, but come on, they are not fun to watch.
• Finally, kids acting like kids, but written by hairy old white men, with Harvard Business School vocabularies, removes all semblance of somehow being transported into a "kid's" world. Someone should have clued Rob Reiner into how kids actually talk, before he sat down to write an entire screenplay about them.

The movie does not fit into any demographic that I could tell. I have no idea who this movie would appeal to. I say that to say, don't go see it, but if you're ... I have no idea ... then go see it, but... I have no idea who would like this trash.  It was agonizing to watch this.

I kept expecting something to happen and ... then the movie ended.  It was a very Sopranos ending.  I am sure more than a few people will be angry at having sat through this movie only to have it end without any conclusion to the story whatsoever.

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