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My Life in Ruins | 2009 | PG-13 | - 6.3.4

An unemployed Greek History professor (Nia Vardalos), takes a job as a tour guide in Greece. She is stuck with broken equipment, poor accommodations, and disgruntled tourists, while the agency's most "fun" male guide is given the best of everything. She decides to quit until she meets her new bus driver (Alexis Georgoulis) and an aging widower (Richard Dreyfuss) on her final tour. Also with Alistair McGowan, Rachel Dratch, Harland Williams, Brian Palermo and Jareb Dauplaise. Directed by Donald Petrie. [1:38]

SEX/NUDITY 6 - A man wears a sexually suggestive T-shirt with Greek lettering that we are told says, "Enter from rear" and with a drawing of two small male figures beginning an anal sex act; he is propositioned by two other men drinking with him with winks and blown kisses, he becomes upset and jumps into a pool to escape (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
 A married couple dives into a beach tent, emerge later, and he's pulling up his shorts (sex is implied). A man and woman kiss and embrace, we then see an empty unmade bed in a hotel, and we see the floor where the couple lies together under a blanket (it is implied that they have had sex and we see the man's chest, while the woman wraps herself in a sheet).
 A man tells a woman to look inside for passion and puts his hand on her chest to indicate her heart; his hand covers her breast as well and she removes it with a smile. A woman describes the Oracle of Delphi as being naked underneath a flowing scarf, and she says that goddesses would call out "Take me Zeus! Take me, take me, take me!" and acts this out by wiggling and the driver of the bus she is in is distracted and has an accident (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
 Two women stare at three shirtless men cooling themselves in a fountain; two more men remove their shirts and splash in the fountain, they thrust their clothed buttocks at the women and flex their muscles, and three elderly women approach the men, smile and feel their biceps. Two younger women wearing only lingerie (revealing cleavage, legs and thighs) come out of an elderly man's room. A man opens a door and sees two women in lingerie (revealing cleavage and full legs). In a beach scene, six women of different ages sit up to stare at a muscular man wearing knee-length black shorts and no shirt; he smiles and walks past them. Several beach scenes include women of many ages in bikinis and one-piece swimsuits. In a few scenes, two women wear short shorts and low cut blouses revealing cleavage. We see a man in a cramped bathroom; he sits on a toilet with his pants down and we see bare legs and thighs. In two restaurant scenes, several women wear low-cut gowns that reveal cleavage and a few wear short skirts cut to above mid-thigh level.
 A man asks a woman to have sex with him to pay for a $20 postage fee on a letter she wants mailed; she asks him how many women have agreed to do that and he replies that four have done so (she does not accept the proposition). A woman arriving at a hotel yells loudly, "Hurry up and get our rooms, I'm ovulating right now." A middle-aged man tells a woman that he can handle two women sexually at once because of the little blue pill (Viagra). A woman talks aloud to herself in English, believing that everyone else in a shop speaks only Greek and says, "I haven't had sex forever"; a man beside her smiles, a man hands her his card and it is clear that all have understood her. A man tells a woman that porn stars have the best and easiest jobs because they get to have sex all day (using a suggestive reference). A woman turns down a beer saying, "Oh no, one drink and I'm looking for a bellman to make out with." A man tells a woman that she is too tense and needs to have sex more often, and makes a crude remark. A middle-aged man announces that he came to Greece to fondle as many nude statues as possible. A man tells a woman to enliven her tour narratives with dirty stories because "sex sells." A woman asks a man (pretending to be the Oracle of Delphi) why her husband cheated on her and the man tells her it was not her fault and that her ex-husband was afraid to be happy. A female tourist states that she and her friend are recently divorced and off men. A character picks up an armless, headless marble figure of a female torso and tells his wife, "What she lacks in arms, she makes up for in breasts."
 A woman kisses a man briefly. A man and woman kiss briefly. A man massages the bare feet and calves of two women. Three women soothe a man with a split lip with ice packs and kisses as a distraction. A male shop keeper kisses a woman on the cheek when she makes a purchase, the woman's husband tells the shop keeper to leave her alone (it is explained that this is simply a custom and the husband is satisfied with the explanation). In a beach scene, an elderly couple wearing swimsuits rolls in the sand together and laughs.
 Throughout the film we see statues of semi-nude men and women (we see women's breasts, male and female buttocks, but no genitals): these figures are shown in postcards, life-sized on a tour and in shops as smaller souvenirs, and around frescoes on ruins. We see semi-realistic wall murals of wresting nude men and a similar painting of a male nude throwing a spear and their genitals are evident.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A man that is tricked into wearing a T-shirt inviting homosexual sex is propositioned by two other men, he becomes upset, and they all jump into the swimming pool and struggle; they then switch attention to another man, whom they punch several times (we see him later with his lower lip split, swollen, and showing some blood).
 A bus driver looks away from the road momentarily, avoids hitting a loaded truck, but runs off the road (the passengers are jostled, crates fly off the loaded truck in all directions and no one is hurt).
 A middle-aged man is visited on a beach at night by his deceased wife's ghost and we see the man in a collapsed state; others rush to help him and we see the man later in the hospital with IVs and hear that he will recover. An elderly man struggles mightily with a walker and looks very sick.
 A woman's boss argues with her, and several couples on a bus tour argue and raise their voices briefly. A middle-aged man announces on a bus full of tourists that he is cranky because he's on medication (Preparation H, and it's not working).
 A woman throws herself down on a hard bed and she shouts in pain, a TV explodes in a cloud of smoke as she presses the remote control, and the woman yells at another woman over the phone. Two men dangle fish and eels in front of women's faces and make them scream. A man looks sinister while playing with a large pocketknife and snaps it shut.

LANGUAGE 4 - 18 scatological references using of a man's name as reference, 7 anatomical references, 2 sexual references, 9 mild obscenities, 1 religious profanity, 14 religious exclamations, name-calling (bear, idiots, dummies, fat, jerks, twit, tart, bipolar, dinglenut, sauceboss, sloppy), 18 stereotypical comments regarding Canadians, Americans, Greeks, tourists, history teachers, women, the elderly and the disabled.

SUBSTANCE USE - At a bar a woman drinks 8 drinks (we see the empty glasses lined up in front of her), a bartender drinks a shot of liquor, three men have a drinking contest and begin to slur their words, bottles and cans of beer, wine bottles, and liquor glasses are shown on tables in bars and restaurants and people drink, throughout the film a man and woman are always shown carrying open cans of beer and continually drink from them, a man finds a bottle of Ouzo 3 feet tall and dances with it, and a woman turns down a beer. A man carries an unlit cigar in his mouth and is later given two more cigars.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Greece, Mediterranean vacations, relationships, marriage, careers, competition, money, attitudes, aging, shoplifting, pickpockets, alcohol, tourist traps, global religions, oracles.

MESSAGE - You can find joy at any age and in any profession.

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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