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Midnight in Paris | 2011 | PG-13 | - 4.2.4

During a magical trip to Paris, a writer (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) are forced to confront their misgivings about each other and the illusion of a life that is different than their current reality. Also with Kathy Bates, Kurt Fuller, Michael Sheen, Carla Bruni, Corey Stoll, Alison Pill and Adrien Brody. Directed by Woody Allen. [1:40]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A woman lays on a bed, fully clothed and a man sitting next to her kisses her passionately. A man and a woman kiss passionately. A man and a woman walk arm in arm, and then stop and kiss.
 A man grabs a woman's hip, makes a remark that she is "giving off pheromones" and kisses her neck and cheek; they are interrupted by another man that makes a crude remark about alcohol dulling the ability to have sex. A man and a woman dance, and the woman's head rests on the man's shoulder.
 A woman and three men discuss an abstract painting of a woman: we see what appears to be a woman's bare buttocks in the painting as the woman explains that the painting is "carnal to the point of smoldering." A man tells two women and another man about an abstract painting of a woman: we see what appears to be a woman's bare buttocks in the painting while the man tells them that the subject of the painting was rumored to be a "real volcano in the sack."
 A man and a woman walk down a street and see women, presumably prostitutes, standing nearby; the women lift the hems of their skirts slightly (we see a portion of their upper thighs), the woman asks the man if he likes what he sees, and he agrees jokingly saying he likes "cheap sex." A woman wearing a towel wrapped around her (her bare shoulders are visible) stands in front of a man that remarks on how attracted he is to her; he grabs her by the waist, and she pulls away and ignores his advances. A woman tells a man that she and her friends had hired a prostitute to "teach them what she knew," and the man remarks that he will not stop thinking about that. A woman reads aloud to a man a passage from a book, including that a man and a woman had sex. A man asks another man if he has sex on a regular basis, and the man responds positively and offers that his fiancée is "sexy." A man asks a woman if she was having an affair with another man, and the woman acknowledges that she "got with" another man on multiple occasions. A man describes to another man the way that rhinoceroses mate, saying that the male mounts the female.
 A woman wears a shirt-dress with a high slit on the side. We see several women's upper thighs when they raise their skirts to dance. A woman wears a T-shirt with cutouts on the back that reveal portions of her bare upper and middle back.

VIOLENCE/GORE 2 - A man and a woman grab another woman about to jump into a canal, the woman says she wants to end her life, she attempts to jump a second time and the man and woman pull her back.
 A woman shouts at a man. A woman screams when she sees a man, he runs away and two guards chase him while the woman shouts, "Off with his head!" A man shouts into a crowd, "Who wants to fight?" A man asks another man if he would like to take up a fight with boxing gloves.
 A woman tells a man that her father is experiencing chest pains and that he had been "pale as a ghost," and we see the man being examined by a doctor as his wife explains that he had an angioplasty previously.
 A man tells another man a story about a soldier that had his hand blown off by a grenade during a war and that they had been told to aim at the first line of troops. A man jokes that the only thing missing from a place is tuberculosis. A man jokes that there were no "drug cartels, nuclear wars" or acid rain in the 1920s. On multiple occasions a man discusses death, including telling another man that he had made it through a war but wishes he would have died with grace and dignity. A man tells a woman to choose another man because the man had faced death more often than he had. On three occasions a woman makes a joking remark that a man has a brain tumor that is affecting his mind. A man asks another man if he had ever shot at a charging rhino, the man says he had not. A woman tells a man that another man and a woman had gone hunting in Africa.
 We see several men and women examining taxidermy animals.

LANGUAGE 4 - 7 sexual references, 5 mild obscenities, name-calling (francophile, demented lunatic, antisocial, pseudo intellectual, Hollywood hack, stumped, stupefied, anesthetized, lobotomized, crazy, toreador, difficult, art groupie, moronic, infantile, Crypto-fascist air headed zombie, moody, obsessive, pedantic, defeatist, communist, martyr, a part missing, raving lunatic), 7 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man gives a woman a Valium and explains that they are the "drug of the future" and that he uses them for panic attacks, a man tells a woman that he had a dream that there were no more antibiotics or Novocain at the dentist, a woman half-jokingly asks a man what he is "smoking," implying that he is acting intoxicated (he is not smoking), and a man jokes to another man that time is measured in "coke spoons." We see men and women drinking wine, champagne and liquor throughout the movie, including drinking to the point of drunkenness (a man remarks he is already extremely intoxicated when a woman offers him a drink) and men and women are seen drinking while riding in a car. Men and women are seen frequently smoking cigarettes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Paris in the 1890s, Paris in the 1920s, yearning for the "golden age," nostalgia, surrealist paintings, abstract paintings, French and English philosophers and writers, early 20th century American writers, going back in time, suspension of belief, infidelity in a relationship, depression, panic attacks, the desire for something greater.

MESSAGE - You can have illusions about the past, but you cannot live in the past. Sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to understand a situation.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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