Just a side note… before I even get started… Jason Bateman has always looked like a kid to me. Always, even if he’s about five years older than I am. I love the kindness in his eyes, the innocent youth that is always there. I have always enjoyed this guy on screen and look forward to many more movies with him in it. I just needed to get that out of the way.

Oh! Another side note… A huge HighFiveDownLowTooSlow to Doug and the gang here at Movie Madness for allowing me to blather all over this site about movies and a giant thank you to you <yes, you!> for intensely examining casually reading somewhat scanning vaguely thumbing my reviews and editorials here! I love you more than you can possibly know. No seriously, look out your window. That’s me across the street in the van.

Okay, where was I? Oh yes, we were talking about a review here, weren’t we? Sorry. I love family get togethers. In real life and in the movies. Love them! I have literally fallen in love with movies that have this idea in mind. I love seeing siblings reluctantly fly in from all over the world, usually meeting up at their parents’ upper class New England home during Fall or Christmas, to be there for a particular reason they all must address. Usually it’s for the funeral of a family member, which is ironic but also gives the story a strong thread to keep it on track until the credits roll.

Strong memories of past laughter and pain mixing with different personalities and experiences, all the siblings’ spouses meeting each other (some for the first time), getting to know each other, hearing the stories, sharing the love and communing in fellowship with the interesting brothers and sisters who share the same name. It’s always fun for me to mix these ingredients up and see what comes out of the oven.

Movies like this can be hard to make. There have been some horrible movies made this way. The Family Stone was so far off the mark, that I figured this genre of stories was finally over and I lost all hope in family movies for Hollywood these days, but no. Along comes TIWILY and I’ve fallen in love all over again.

Judd Altman (Jason Bateman) loves his wife, Quinn. He just doesn’t really pay much attention, when suddenly he finds out she’s cheating on him. The look in his eyes broke my heart, ripped it all to pieces and threw it out a plate glass window into traffic. It hit so hard and so fast that I hardly had time to recover before his sister Wendy (Tina Fey) calls him in tears and tells him that, <Bam!> their dad is dead.

Something happened to me that hasn’t happened before: I found myself actually crying before the opening credits even splashed across the screen in a movie. Never happened before.

You read that right. This all happens before you even see what movie this is! This is not a spoiler alert because it doesn’t spoil anything. The movie hasn’t even started yet! Fortunately, it being Jason Bateman and Tina Fey, they somehow take these tragedies and twist them with laughs and, this time, something happens to me that hasn’t happened in a long time: I’m laughing while I’m crying!

Okay, now the opening credits roll. I wiped my eyes, still giggling.

The long and the short of it is that the family’s Dad had a final request before dying that all his children hold a seven day “Sit Shiva” <~ Gotta be careful saying that one! And so, all the brothers and sisters who really don’t have much in common and haven’t spoken in years get together and have to deal with each other, all while dealing with the complications that they have forged for themselves in life.

I won’t give anything else away, because after the first seven minutes (in which I had already determined this movie is being added to my DVD shelf) the movie really takes off. This is one of the most disfunctional families I have ever seen, and yet, they remind me of every family with multiple brothers and sisters that I’ve ever met. It’s amazing how down to earth this story is, and how well those who read the scripts bring it to life.

Love shows both its sides in this story, the darker side and the lighter side. The love of a family and the love of others around it supporting them and you feel it’s such a safe place to be because you know that this family is always there for each other, accepting each other’s limits and pushing each other’s boundaries as only brothers and sisters can. You see the best and worst in people throughout these seven days, you laugh, you cry and in the end you are completely smitten.

As family friend Penny (Rose Byrne) says to Judd when he talks about the complications in his life: “Cut yourself some slack. Anything can happen. Anything happens all the time.”

I very much agree.

In the great desert of late summer/early fall films there are a few small movie oases that show up to quench the thirst. Trust me, by this time of the year I’m parched.

Join Doug and me while we take a look at When the Game Stands Tall and This is Where I Leave You to see if they provide a little moisture on the way to the holiday tsunami. Yes, I know, but corny metaphors are the little islands in the sea of writer’s block. If ya can’t think of anything clever a little cheese never hurts.

Okay. I promise. I’ll stop. But seriously, we do have a little fun and a nice balance between sports drama and light comedy this week: Football and Jane Fonda’s character’s new boobs. How can that be bad?

Hey, let us know what you think at: moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com or call the voice mail # 260-573-0015 or post them to Twitter, Facebook or the Ultimate Movie Geeks community on Google+

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