MovieChat Forums > Summer Eleven (2011) Discussion > don't know what the user raters are look...

don't know what the user raters are looking at


I'm saying, this film isn't even close to mediocre. More like the best kids' film I've seen in a really long time, and brother, I've seen a few with the six kids in our family.

My 11-year-old spotted this in a local video store and immediately wanted to see it. If you have kids, you know what I'm talking about when I say being skeptical of children's movies in general is a good thing, because so many of them appear to be made by the intellectually challenged, or those who think everything vulgar is funny, or people who have products to sell, or usually all three. The local library had a copy, so we rented it. I am not overstating it when I say that I actually can't believe how good a film this was. I guess some of the user ratings were from people who think more should have "happened" in the movie, but that's missing the point entirely. Girls, especially, will get this film--just the simple fact of being with people you like, with a wistful look ahead to whether these friendships will even be there in a year, or three, or ten. The conversations sounded like real people talking. The girls weren't wearing $200 outfits and didn't look like they'd just been through hair and makeup three minutes earlier. Sometimes their hair looked like it needed to be washed...you know, like real kids, in summer. When they run to catch an ice-cream truck, they're breathing hard, like kids who ran to catch a truck. The parents look like actual people and not soap-opera stars. The houses look like real houses in a nice but not rich neighborhood, not the perfectly scrubbed mythical suburbia with perfectly scrubbed children and adults in Disney (or the artificially gritted-up version--like when they do the soap-opera hair job and then muss it a little bit for a "homeless" person on a lesser film).

Re objectionable content, we're about as vigilant as anybody on that point--there are _many_ shows on TV we won't let the kids watch, and also many movies, even movies that are supposed to be for teens and younger children--but there really isn't anything in this film that would keep it from being viewable by any child around this age, for sure. One of the external reviews (on the main IMDB page) has some specifics if you're interested. If I had to make one change in that regard, I would've cut the stuff about which boy is cute, etc., but that's just me, I guess; I don't think too many 10- and 11-year-olds would be all that interested, if we didn't saturate them every hour of the day from daycare age on up to be aware of the absolute pressing need to be a boyfriend or girlfriend Right This Moment Or There's Something Wrong With You, and I wanted this film to be the one that didn't push that point even further. But even that is really, really minimal in this film, and I guess you could make the argument that 11-year-olds _do_ talk about this some, or at least some of them do. (My counterargument would be that this becomes a circular thing, where depicting what is "real" only tends to perpetuate more of it--cf. Natural Born Killers for an obviously much more extreme example--but that's a much larger argument for some other time.)

I used to be a published film critic and had film as one of my areas in graduate study. Maybe it's just that I'm so unapologetically enthusiastic about little films that outdo the big-budget piles of utter garbage we get bombarded with daily, but I really, really, REALLY loved this movie. I was not prepared for how quietly good it was. I don't want to raise expectations so much that the most you can get out of it is "Eh, yeah, I guess it was pretty good." But trust me on this: If you have a kid anywhere around this age who is at least a little bit thoughtful, caring, and nonsuperficial, she (or even he) will get this film and will love it.

First thing my 11-year-old said at the end of the film, on the final freeze-frame, was "No! I don't want it to be over! Can't they make another one? They have to do one about when they're in middle school!" And so on.

Put it this way: My 15-year-old son, who is a fan of hard rock (yes, we check the content and disallow many things) and is a rock guitarist with skill way beyond his years, was walking through the room when my daughters were watching this. He saw about 30 seconds of it and then sat down to watch the rest. I have never seen him so interested in a movie of this type. Sometimes, good is just _good_.

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Also: Please, if you like this film anywhere near as much as I do, post something positive here, or better yet, send something to the production company (Gilbert Plains Productions) and tell them how much you'd like to see another one, maybe even a sequel. Somebody needs to get behind projects like this.

For what it's worth, I have not been able (yet) to find info on the production company, which leads me to believe that Valerie Mahaffey and the director may have simply formed one of those one-off legal entities for the purpose of having a production company only for this film. Image Entertainment is the distributor, and I'm going to contact them for further info. If anybody else has a more direct route, please post it.

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Just finished watching this little film, and I must agree with emncaity. I found it heartwarming and thoroughly enjoyable.

I agree that most 10-13 year olds would love it, too!

A winner!

^_^







"The Opener of the Way is Waiting"

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Nice to hear you liked it too...

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Of all of the films that my younger sister has chosen to watch, this is definitely my favorite. I can say that.

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Awesome movie

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