As lovable as she is in the movie, Amy Adams is possibly even more charming in real life. She participated in the CATCH ME IF YOU CAN junket five years ago in New York; at the time, no one really knew who she was. But she was so incredibly amusing and delightful to talk to, everyone was definitely taking note of her name afterward. I begged my editor to let me do an extra story on her in conjunction with the film, but she said, "No one knows who she is and everybody wants to hear from Hanks, Spielberg and DiCaprio." The point was valid, I guess. But I look forward to interviewing her again one of these days. And I agree: ENCHANTED would not have worked nearly as well without her. By the way, JUNO, ATONEMENT and WALK HARD are all well worth seeing; I won't get a chance to see NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS until next Wednesday. But the original is one of my brother-in-law's favorite movies of all time!

 

One more thing: Adams is also in CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, opening next Friday. She plays Tom Hanks' assistant who travels with him to Pakistan and gets a first-hand look at the toll the Soviet invasion has taken on the Afghan people. It's not exactly a juicy role, but she gets about as much screen time as Julia Roberts and she does a very nice job.

 

Sue, I just saw NCFOM and yes, it is disturbing and creepy and brutally violent and the best film I have seen in a long time. If you could take and enjoy "Children of Men", I think you could handle it.

 

I too have wondered exactly what it takes to get a G rating. I think that at this point they only give G ratings to movie that are overtly aimed at children -- although wasn't there some buzz about how The Straight Story get a G? I seem to recall hearing once that anything that complied with the Hays Code -- anything made in Hollywood between the mid-30s and the early 60s, in other words -- would get a G today... but I have a hard time imagining, say, the Maltese Falcon getting G.

I saw the previews for Charlie Wilson's War and it pissed me off to no end. Can we seriously make a movie about the US secretly and quasilegally funding Muslim fundamentalists to fight the enemy of the moment without any sense of irony? I mean, everyone knows half those guys went on to found al-Qaeda, right? But the movie makes it look like it's us funding a plucky bunch of freedom fighters, which frankly wasn't really believable when it was Rambo III.

 

Tom: I didn't see "Children of Men" because I thought it looked too violent/scary. I'm overly sensitive. Sometimes I check those parents' movie guides when deciding whether or not to see something!

Josh: I think the Pixar films, which appeal to a wide demographic, have all been rated G. "The Princess Diaries," which was about as innocuous as "Enchanted," was G -- OK, I guess it was a kiddie film, but I sort of liked it. A lot of documentaries, like "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" and "Winged Migration," also got G ratings.

 

Josh, don't worry: There is a strong sense of irony and missed-opportunity melancholy in CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR. Without giving too much away, I will say that it finally comes across as a story about how we might have had a chance to do some good in the Middle East until Washington walked off the field midway through the last quarter of the game. It's by no means a rah-rah picture of U.S. policies (and I understand the original screenplay was even more bitter).

 

I think movie companies don't want their movies to get a "G" rating unless they're aimed primarily at kids...because adults will stay away, thinking it's either a kid's movie or too goody-goody for words. The Straight Story is probably an exception because Lynch is so perverse he probably insisted on it, despite the marketing issues. The more I see him (I mean interviews with him, and such), the more he reminds me of someone's crazy uncle: mostly a nice guy, with some odd ideas, but capable of occasional moments of bizarre nastiness. Hmm...I guess that is rather like his films, ultimately.

 

Yes, to a large portion of the moviegoing population a G-rating on anything not produced by Pixar signifies something that's intended solely for children. Obviously, THE PRINCESS DIARIES and its sequel leaped over that hurdle and played to a wider crowd (I think the inclusion of Julie Andrews for adults and Anne Hathaway for teens helped, as did Disney's extensive campaign of early screenings for the press and audiences that spanned all demographics). Hilariously, many of the films from the '30s, '40s and '50s that are shown every day on Turner Classics would probably get PG-13 ratings if they were submitted today because many of them feature characters who smoke and drink frequently. Nobody gave a fig about such things 50 years ago, but today the ratings board finds this kind of behavior positively shocking.

 

Some relatives were talking up "No country For Old Men" a lot recently and then I saw "Fargo" on one of the movie channels yesterday.

I was also channel flipping and found "Hard Candy" with the star of "Juno" in it. I couldn't watch it to the end.

I've always heard that there is a cutaway to a severed arm in the original Star Wars solely to get a PG rating. It doesn't take much. One "damn" or fart joke and you're in.

 

I believe the phrase "douche bag" was put into the dialogue of "E.T." for that reason (to ensure a PG rating).