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Meet The Fockers (Widescreen Edition)

List price:	~~$29.98~~
Our price:	$19.49 that is 35% off!
Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Jay Roach
Starring:	Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo
Release date:	19 April, 2005

Average user rating: Average user rating: 2

I've Been Fockerized

"Meet the Fockers" is a funny film with an all- star cast of Hollywood big wigs. This movie is a sequel to the fun film "Meet the Parents" from many years ago. This time around, the soon to be married couple is driving to Florida with the bride-to-be's parents to meet with the groom-to-be's parents. The bride's father is a conservative stick in the mud type who dislikes anything he doesn't consider normal. The groom's parents are throwbacks to the 1960's- strong believers in free love, hugs, and unconventional living.

Barbara Striesand and Dustin Hoffman play the roles of the two liberal parents, and they offer some good, entertaining on- screen chemistry. There is plenty of contrast among the different characters, and this adds to the movies appeal. There are also a few surprises in the plot and some original humor, making the movie that much more enjoyable. And the basic premise is something most people can relate to. We all feel a little bit of anxiety when we meet our significant others' parents for the first time, and this movie uses this scenario (in an exaggerated way, of course), as its main plot.

Director Jay Roach moves this film in a few different directions to keep it from becoming a boring, standardized comedy. In the middle and near the end, he introduces a new segment to the plot involving a young teenage boy who looks very much like Ben Stiller's character. The bride's father, played by Robert DeNiro, decides that his future son in law is the actual father of this boy and he sets out to prove his point, with the ultimate goal being to eliminate Stiller and convince his daughter to marry someone else.

This movie isn't a comedy classic, but it does have its moments. Whether it's the contrast between the characters, the contributions from the baby, the comedic timing, or something else, you will probably like "Meet the Fockers". It isn't quite as good as the original, but it's still a fun flick to watch for its good humor and fun plot.

Meet the Toilets

During the seventies and eighties, American movies were obsessed by cars. They raced relentlessly over rain-slicked streets at night and desolate interstates in such classics as "The French Connection," "Bullit," "The Terminator," "The Getaway," "Easy Rider." Since 2000, the car has been replaced as a major plot device by that appliance found in every home, hotel and motel: the toilet. Not since the excrutiating usage of toilets in "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," has this appliance been given such a workout as you'll find in "Meet the Fockers." Early on in the movie, we're introduced to glum, grim Robert Diniro whose teaching his little grandson to make hand signals when he needs to "poo poo". (Big audience guffaw). When everyone enters Diniro's monstrous van, he again reminds the travelers about the do's and don'ts of using his vehicle's state-of-the-arts toilet (more chuckles). Or, as Mae West once referred to bathroom humor as "tur-let" humor. You suspect correctly that we're being set up for a major happening later in the movie involving this gleaming item and we're not dissapointed. At the Focker's residence, Dustin Hoffman then instructs everyone about the proper usage of HIS toilet (Uncontrolled giggles). Perhaps the most indelible image one carries away from this constipated comedy is the sight of Hoffman sitting on the john and doing Number Two. (Major hysterical laughter). Diniro is taking a shower just a few feet away and he peers out and says he'd like to have some privacy. Hoffman flashes him that endearing Hoffman grin and says: "I've nearly finished." This scene is so striking in its crudity that you wonder how it was filmed. In his heyday, Hoffman was notorious for shutting down sound stages while he got "into the mood" for his role, or, as this Method Actor put it, until he found the proper "sense memory." What sense-memory did Hoffman recall to create that look of satisfied well-being on his elfin little face? How many takes were necessary before achieving this glowing visage? Were there really numerous rolls of Charmin' used for the sake of authenticity? What a sublime moment in film history! From Ratso Ritzo in "Midnight Cowboy" to toilet sitter. And how could a movie like this end without the requisite toilet disaster being caused by that adorable cat and dog? Call me old-fashioned but I found all those cars of decades ago vastly more entertaining than all the boring, porcelein 'turlets' in "Meet the Fockers."