Top Ten Movies about Parenthood #7

Dear Frankie

Do you guys remember that guy called Gerard Butler? Yeah, the one who stared in several indie films and played Dracula in Dracula 2000?  Well this is him in his pre-heart-throb days, or you can say that this was the movie that began that painful chain of events.  The movie takes place in Scotland (Ga-der) where a single mom is mysteriously running from her abusive husband all across Scotland, dragging her young/def son named Frankie along with her.  Now while this lovely bunch of Scottish trash are running around, Frankie is under the impression that the reason why they're traveling so much is because they want to be around for when the father's boat docks, and the mom is feeding him these lies by pretending to be the father and sending him letters about his voyage, but don't worry, nothing could ever happen because the mother made up a fake name for the boat so that Frankie wouldn't question anything.  Well look what happened! The boat with that same fake name showed up and now she has to hire someone to pretend to be the father for the day that the boat is docked in the town (Datline's To Catch a Predator anyone?), and who better than Mr-Heart-throb-I-want-to-bake-eggs-on-your-chest Gerard Butler?!!!  I'm not going to say what happens next, but let me just tell you that this part of the movie will make a brother cry about as much as that time I was eating a lasagna filled with too much onions and watching Schindler's List at the same time.  What makes this an important parenting film for me is that although it appears the mother is just going crazy moving all the time and lying to her son about the father, they are lies that are only meant to protect her son, now I'm sure some of you would raise ethical questions that lying is never good, but by watching the movie and understanding the reasons why they are always on the run, things will make a little more sense.

 4 out of 5

Top Ten Movies about Parenthood #8

Easy A

Do you know those times in your life when you're conflicted on whether something is good or bad?  Examples for me would include Darth Vader, Captain Jack Sparrow, Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and a cheap hole in the wall Chinese restaurant that got poor reviews and will no doubt give you the runs during church, at a funeral, or during your daily morning run... but I digress.  Olive's parents in this movie are hysterical!  they are the kind of parents you want to be friends with, and whom you would have a lengthy Facebook chat with several pokes that would no doubt lead to someone getting Facebook pregnant (I don't even know if that's a thing).  So that's when I think that parents like that would be awesome, but the kind of style they have makes them more like good friends than actual parents, and that can have a negative affect on the children later on in life because of the lack of discipline going on.  Whoops!!  Looks like I'm getting ahead of myself, because I've neglected to give the movie's synopsis, which I don't think is too horrible because unless you've been living under a rock or in an Amish community you've probably already seen this movie.  This is a loose and modern adaptation of the classic Scarlet Letter book and follows the story of Olive and her lie about getting freaky with a college dude, which in turn came around and slapped an "A" on her Victoria's Secret wardrobe, dubbing her the slut of the town.  With this lie spreading, she chooses to use her newfound title to pretend to have sexy times with people who are gay or have low self esteem issues, so that they can appear straight or BAD-@$$ until High School ends; basically she's helping them out without actually "helping them out" if you know what I mean.  Obviously things get complicated for her, and you would think that the parents would be around more during this trial, because although they do give her counsel every once in a while they don't think anything of it and just let this "phase" just pass on by.

3 1/2 out of 5