License<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>Or maybe you should? It\u2019s hard to say. At only 1.5k logs on Letterboxd<\/em>, Tamra Davis\u2019 Skipped Parts <\/em>(2000) languishes in the great DVD Library of Alexandria, preserved but seldom and ill seen. Few movies have ever had the same effect on me. It\u2019s a mummy, a statue of the Buddha from Edo Period Japan, an invitation to CBGBs printed on crumbled, thin paper. Skipped Parts <\/em>is a relic of a society bygone. That\u2019s why I must recommend it\u2014for professional study\u2014even as I cringe at the thought of watching it again.<\/p>\nWe open with a clich\u00e9. In the early 1960s, Sam Callahan (Bug Hall) clinks away at his typewriter as he, in voiceover, informs us he wants to be a novelist. At just that moment, his profligate mother (Jennier Jason Leigh) and he prepare to get kicked out by his grandfather (R. Lee Ermey), a not-so-genteel North Carolina aristocrat running for the governorship. Sam has no father, suspects only that his father is one of several men of whom his mother keeps photographs. They disgrace the family and must away to Wyoming, where Lydia, his mother, drinks, smokes, and cavorts her way from the couch, to a local Native American\u2019s trailer, and back again. Meanwhile, Sam falls in love with Maurey (Mischa Barton) a local girl whose father spends long stretches away, caring for the animals at his ranch in the mountains.<\/p>\n
Here, Skipped Parts <\/em>veers sharply into weird territory. Maurey and Sam are 14. Yet, often left alone, they decide in a purely practical, almost clinical manner that they\u2019d like to experience sex. As friends. Several very awkward scenes ensue that\u2014I think\u2014Davis means to be tender and a little funny. Lots of shots of ankles and underwear falling down, discussions of \u201cthings\u201d and \u201cgoo.\u201d Sam dreams often of Drew Barrymore, who kisses him, at one point, on the mouth. As a viewer, \u201cawkward\u201d barely begins to describe it.<\/p>\nAt this point, I wanted to lend the movie the benefit of the doubt. Okay\u2014things have changed, sure. Both our expectations about what\u2019s acceptable and the general demeanor of young people toward sex. They\u2019re having less of it and want less of it in their TV shows and movies. Certainly, porn is everywhere. In both the 2000s and 1960s, parents failed to \u201cproperly educate\u201d their kids. So, you got teen pregnancy and the whole rigamarole. I convinced myself Skipped Parts <\/em>stood on morals.<\/p>\nNot so fast. Sam\u2019s mother begins offering them advice, jokingly, flippantly but actually. Maurey becomes pregnant and full-fledged communal breakdown ensues, that is, until the power of found family can overcome the tyranny of blood (Sam\u2019s grandfather). Color me confused.<\/p>\n
The performances don\u2019t help. Bug Hall remains stilted, though fine, throughout. Given the subject matter though, I have to imagine this film played some role in his becoming a traditionalist Catholic and retreating into the deep Midwest with his barefoot wife and sullen children. Mischa Barton carries herself in the alien way she always does. In some films, I love it. Here, it\u2019s intriguing but ultimately just adds to the oddity of it all, makes Skipped Parts\u00a0<\/em>feel like a joke played on exactly no one.<\/p>\nIs it just supposed to be funny, then? The whole thing nothing but a big joke? But then why go here in the first place? Admittedly, 2000 showed less reticence in explicitly depicting sexuality. The term \u201cjailbait\u201d floated around. If right wingers have something right, it\u2019s that we spared fewer prayers for sensitives back then. Sure. But none of that even begins to explain Skipped Parts<\/em>.<\/p>\nI still don\u2019t have any answers, not yet anyway. Who knows if I\u2019ll even want to think about this too much more? But it seems important as a cultural object. I can\u2019t help but feel like it tells us something, whispers from the not-so-distant past some truth that will illuminate the present. But rewatch it? I don\u2019t know. Watch it for the first time? Reader, that decision, rests with you.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Or maybe you should? It\u2019s hard to say. At only 1.5k logs on Letterboxd, Tamra Davis\u2019 Skipped Parts (2000) languishes in the great DVD Library of Alexandria, preserved but seldom and ill seen. Few movies have ever had the same effect on me. It\u2019s a mummy, a statue of the Buddha from Edo Period Japan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2640,"featured_media":4096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1731],"tags":[5077,5080,2745,4482,5074,1958],"class_list":["post-4093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-bug-hall","tag-jennifer-jason-leigh","tag-mischa-barton","tag-r-lee-ermey","tag-skipped-parts","tag-y2k"],"yoast_head":"\n
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