Top Ten Movies about Parenthood #10

Something new has happened to my wife and I!!  The Stork has decided to drop on by and present us with a baby boy, and I'm assuming he arrived by Stork, and that he wasn't created the way it was shown to me by Jack and Rose in Titanic.  I was going to go back to my African American roots and name him Demarcus, but then caved to a more Celtic name because it was just straight awesome, For Certain reasons lets call him D for short.  Now that my son is born it made me reflect back on some of the better movies out there with a central theme of Parenthood, and let me tell you there are a lot.  To narrow them down to only a few, I'm going to give you my top 10 Parenthood movies that I feel every parent needs to view at least once.

10.  What to Expect When You’re Expecting

Everybody wants a baby right now!!  Some are prepared, some are not, some want a baby, and some don’t give a crap, and then some are Jennifer Lopez.  The movie takes the Love Actually way of telling a story of pregnant women, meaning that there are several characters in different stories involved in some ways of having a baby.  Some of the stories are noteworthy and some are just unrealistically stupid, but the one that stood out to me the most is between my 2^nd love Elizabeth Banks and Ben Falcone.  Their story is one of a couple parents who desperately want kids but are unable, even though Banks owns a baby shop.  Despite all the trials/troubles they were finally able to get pregnant, and even though Ben’s dad gets his wife pregnant at the same time with twins and treat it like it's some kind of competition, Falcone and Banks are extremely grateful for their child, and treat him like he’s the greatest treasure on earth… I'm hoping that the baby they have in the movie is a boy because otherwise I would be sounding really stupid right now.

3 out of 5

Slither

Overview:  Some of this is going to sound like my review of “Invasion”, but I swear on my crohns, and all my merit badges from scouts that it’s almost completely different.  A wormy alien falls from the sky in the form of a meteor, and once it possesses the body of an incredibly built man, it gives birth to millions of tiny worm critters who infect the town residents one by one.  Once the worms get inside the people, they turn into genuine made-in-china zombies.  Sounds like “Invasion” right? 

The Good:  Just like the Poke’ Mon fad, I went through a zombie obsessed phase for about a year, and that time Pikachu was not at my side… stupid rat.  This was a very different and original approach to the zombie theme, and it actually INCREASED my faith that there are still original zombie movies out there.  What I liked is how the filmmakers were able to combine “Evolution”, “Invasion”, and “Zombieland” into one beautiful offspring of a movie; just like if Brad Pitt and George Clooney had a baby.  Nathan Fillion makes me happy no matter what he’s in, but in this movie he sparkled like Edward’s chest.  Not that any of the scenes need saving, but whenever the movie started to slow down a bit, Nathan would come in with some sound or comment that would always make me laugh; kudos to you Nate.  Elizabeth Banks was also very good, even though her accent made me want to punch her a couple of times, that punch would be followed with “I could never hurt you… now read me a bedtime story”. 

The Bad:  I don’t know what it was, but there were times during this flick that it felt like a straight to DVD movie.  The Production values were good, the graphics were awesome, and the actors were very famous, so I think the only reason it felt so ‘straight-to-DVD’ is because it’s another zombie-comedy (and those are very common).  One last thing is the movie can get pretty gross, after all it is a B-movie, and whenever a Horror film claims the “B-Movie” status they can do pretty much whatever they want.  So fairly be warned, this movie might not suit certain people.

The Ugly:  I had a lot of fun with this.  It’s an original zombie story, which is a breath of fresh air, since every zombie movie is identical to “Dawn of the Dead”.  Go have fun with this movie, and remember we hate aliens.

3 out of 5