we will update as we publish at AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES WEBSITE - some issues with blogger are preventing this

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Adoption Themes in the Movies 2012 BEST AND WORST

My TOP FAVES:
1- The Lost Child-2000 TVM; Mercedes Ruehl, Jamey Sheridan; Rebecca goes in search of her natural parents. After her adoptive father dies, Rebecca decides to find the family her dad had described to her. In response to her search, she is contacted by a woman on the Navajo reservation who is looking for her twin siblings who were stolen from their mother soon after they were born. The women soon realize that they are sisters and Rebecca is welcomed. But when her husband, Jack, comes to see them, the differences between the two cultures rise to the surface.
2- Breakfast on Pluto - This dark comedy stars Cillian Murphy as a transgender adoptee/orphan searching for love and her long-lost mother in small town Ireland and London in the 1970s.
3- Sudden Fury - A Family Torn Apart is a 1993 television film directed by Craig R. Baxley, based on the novel Sudden Fury: A True Story of Adoption and Murder by Leslie Walker, which itself is based on a true story. One of the adoptees in the family is Native American and he was thought to be the murderer of his adoptive parents but he wasn't.
4- The Italian - see this stunning movie for the brilliant ending. (Subtitles)
5- Bambi - Animated film about a young deer, Bambi, growing up in the wild after his mother is shot by hunters.
6- Stolen Babies-1993 TVM; Lea Thompson, Mary Tyler Moore; Social worker exposes the Tennessee Children’s Home Scandal. Mary Tyler Moore plays the evil babyseller Georgia Tann.
7- Liebestraum: 1991 adoption-theme thriller with dark twists (see my review on Dec. 30, 2010.   http://splitfeathers.blogspot.com/2010/12/liebestraum-1991-adoption-theme.html)

Not the Best:
1 - Sioux City aka Ultimate Revenge-1994; Lou Diamond Phillips plays the role of a doctor who gets suspended on his birthday. At his adopted parent’s home, he has a party and one of the gifts is an American Indian necklace with a note from his birth mother who he has not heard from since he was given up for adoption when he was very young. In the note she wishes to see him. So he leaves to visit her only to arrive a few days after her death. He visits the local sheriff because he is curious of the circumstances of his mother's death. He then heads to the reservation in search of any relatives. He runs into his grandfather who is kind of a witch doctor. On the way back to town he is attacked by some of the sheriff's men who try to kill him. They leave him for dead, but he is rescued. He does a vision quest to try to identify why he was attacked. He discovers the reason he was given up for adoption: his father was the local sheriff. He didn't love the birthmother and ordered her to give him up for adoption...

2 - Flirting with Disaster-1995; Ben Stiller, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin; Farce about an adoptee searching for his birthmother. I was disappointed.
3 - Mommie Dearest-1981; Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid; about the adopted family life of Joan Crawford; several of her adopted children were stolen by the Tennessee Children’s Home and Georgia Tann. I hurt to watch this film.

4- Juno:  Juno is a smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy by her classmate Bleeker. With the help of her friend Leah, Juno finds her unborn child a "perfect" set of parents: an affluent suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa, longing to adopt. Luckily, Juno has the total support of her parents as she faces some tough decisions. Even as popular as this movie was, it disturbed many adoptees including me.

5 - Orphan: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1148204/ Disgusting!

6 - The Blind Side:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0878804/ Propaganda at it’s finest.


No comments:

Post a Comment

tell us your thoughts!

Contact Trace

Name

Email *

Message *

1-844-7NATIVE