Movie Ratings That Actually Work    Become a Member

"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME

The To Do List | 2013 | R | - 9.3.8

Succumbing to peer pressure in 1993, a young woman (Aubrey Plaza) decides to become more sexually experienced before going away to college. Seeking to lose her virginity, she makes a step-by-step checklist of sexual acts to follow, although it doesn't always bring the results she expects. Also with Johnny Simmons, Bill Hader, Alia Shawkat, Andy Samberg and Connie Britton. Directed by Maggie Carey. [1:43]

SEX/NUDITY 9 - The film includes many sex acts attempted in awkward places by unmarried young people ranging in ages from 17 to 19, and who do not know each other well.
 A young woman awkwardly sucks on a Popsicle in a way that suggests oral sex to a man nearby and he asks her on a date, which she accepts; later in a van on a secluded hill, we see her from the waist up wearing a push up bra (her cleavage and bare abdomen are seen) and the man is shirtless (his bare chest and abdomen are shown), both under a quilt from the waist down; she gives him a condom (we don't see it opened), she gets on top of him and bounces violently as they have sex and the man pants and calls out "Oh God" before the young woman complains that the act took only a minute; she looks up to see her father on top of her mother in the back seat of a car (both clothed but thrusting) parked next to the van, gasps and ducks down and we see small cars are rocking all around the van, suggesting sex.
 A man arrives home to find his 19-year-old daughter straddling a man with his pants down, both sitting on her bed, both bouncing in intercourse (the man's thighs and legs are bare and she is wearing shorts); the father shouts and the couple seem stuck together when the girl's mother pulls the father out of the room and shuts the door; the couple continues to bounce as the scene ends. A young man and a young woman kiss violently in a college dorm room after he says he had sex with an older woman; they knock against walls, break lamps, then stop and she turns around and we see their feet and her face as we hear that they are having anal sex; her father walks in and shouts that there are "doors" their family does not do and stomps out as a close-up of the young woman's face shows a grimace and crossed eyes and a caption reads "Orgasm!"
 A young woman "dry humps" with a young man, scooting around a living room floor; he is on top first and then she is on top with their legs are wrapped around each other and they end up with several hickies on their necks and shoulders. In a shower by a pool, we see a longhaired man with a bare chest as his hair dye runs down his chest and we hear that a young woman is performing oral sex on him below the frame as he Oohs and Ahhs and finally sings (orgasm is implied); later, we see her spit semen onto the floor. A young woman watches a movie commercial about a hot dog with a voiceover saying to slip the hot dog into the bun while she masturbates her date with her hand down the front of his pants and we see her shoulder moving as the young man's face grimaces and he finally calls out, "I love you" (ejaculation is implied and we see the woman's hand covered in a sticky white substance); people sitting a few seats away look disgusted and at one point, the young woman runs to the telephone to ask her sister about what to do with an uncircumcised penis (we do not hear an answer), and then runs back to her date to finish masturbation. A young woman attempts masturbation for the first time while clothed on her bed; face down toward the camera with her face and chest raised and her hand apparently under her dress, she bounces up and down and screams, "Yes!" in an orgasm. A young woman masturbating is shown lying face up on a bed and the camera looks down briefly showing us her hand in her panties between her bare thighs and legs and she is rubbing, with no effect. A young woman visits a young man in his bedroom on a waterbed and we see her face on a pillow as she pants and says, "It's working"; the camera pans back to show a quilt with the man's shoed feet sticking out the bottom (oral sex implied but no action shown); his little brother walks in and the scene ends as the man comes partially out from under the quilt and we see his bare shoulders. Two young women swim in a swimming pool while wearing bras and panties; they kiss two older men who are bare-chested and one man's chest is covered in tattoos.
 A young woman writes a list of sexual activities that she's never experienced; she asks friends to help her act them out and a male teen with a crush on her and several other young men agree, then talk about the list items and look them up in dictionaries; we see several pictures of penises, with foreskin and without. A young woman rides a bike through a drive thru and tells her friend working there that she intends to lose her virginity to a certain man.
 Two little boys swim underwater toward two women wearing once piece bathing suits and the boys focus on the women's buttocks; one boy sticks his finger into one woman's behind and makes her screech and jump. A young man removes his shirt in a bedroom and a young woman touches his abdomen while telling him that "you feel like Marky Mark looks" and she kisses him awkwardly; he turns on the light, sees that she is not the woman he thought she was and walks out and the young woman later tells two girlfriends that she thinks she sucked his nipples and does not know why.
 At a high school graduation as the female valedictorian approaches the podium, a classmate among the graduates shouts, "Get off the stage, virgin!" while, a teen boy and a teen girl sitting in the graduation class kiss for a prolonged time.
 A man tells his wife that he was a virgin on their wedding night and she admits that she was not (the husband cries); the wife says that he was good the first time and he says it was because he read "Penthouse"; later, she tells her 18-year-old daughter about uncircumcised penises being the most sensitive and gives her a tube of personal lubricant, telling her to put it in her vagina.
 At a swimming pool, two teen girls read an article called "How to find your G spot" while a little boy listens and afterward, the boy tells a lifeguard that if he drinks pineapple juice one of the girls will have sex with the lifeguard and that the pineapple juice makes semen taste sweet. A 19-year-old girl's parents argue about letting a young man stay in their daughter's bedroom overnight (the mother is OK with it). A woman tells her sister that she will marry a man so that he will take care of her financially and that she persuaded him to marry her through sex. A song called "Me So Horny" plays at the start of the film and includes the phrase, "My appetite for sex" three times and "so horny" dozens of times. On an office wall is a hand drawn picture of a potato with a penis and the text "dick-tater." Teen girls tell another teen girl to remember to tell her male sex partners that she is wet and ready for sex. A teen girl's older sister tells her to drink a can of beer to relax before having sex and the older girl admits to losing her virginity at age 14. Two teen girls at a dinner table tell each other to close the front door and back door and their father tells them not to talk about front doors and back doors (implying vaginal and anal sex) and that there are doors they do not do in their family. A teen girl tells another teen girl that college is a sexual pop-quiz and that in college, there are penises everywhere; she later tells the other girl to enjoy her penis on a date. Several times in the film, high school and college students say that sex is not a "big deal."
 A young woman gets out of a swimming pool and in a headshot, a lifeguard standing near her looks away and tells her to put her top back on; the young woman turns and we see her chest covered by her crossed arms and she jumps back into the pool; the pool owner makes several comments about her breasts being tiny, but we never see them. A young woman stands on her hands for a few seconds at a party as teen boys cheer and her full skirt falls around her waist and back to reveal briefs printed with "Saturday" across the buttocks; friends carry her to a bed and she lies on it, with her shirt pulled up to reveal her bare legs to the thighs. A woman dances while wearing a pushup bra (cleavage and bare abdomen are seen) and short shorts in her bathroom; we see a ring in her pierced navel. Several male lifeguards at a city pool work shirtless and we see bared chest and back.
 A young woman working at a city pool wears a one-piece swimsuit and then she shows up wearing a bikini that reveals very slight cleavage. Many teen girls wear sleeveless shirts and shorts that end mid-thigh or a little above. A few teen girls wear sleeveless shirts or halters that reveal some cleavage. At a swimming pool, teen girls wear bikinis. Young boys are shown wearing knees length shorts or swimming trunks at a swimming pool. A 19-year-old girl exercises while wearing a tight leotard and tights. A woman in a schoolyard wears a midriff blouse and mini skirt while hugging a man wearing jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt that is slit down both sides under the sleeve holes to reveal his ribs. A teen girl wears low-cut, short lingerie that reveals cleavage and another wears a loose knee-length nightshirt. Several lifeguards, male and one female, remove outer clothing and swim in a pool wearing only their underwear (bare chests, abdomens, cleavage, backs and legs are seen). A man shaves his leg, propped on a bathroom sink, in close-up.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A young man knocks down another young man in a parking lot, straddles the downed man around the throat and pushes his crotch into the young man's larynx to cut off his air; the attacker says he's "Smashing meat" and that he had sex with the downed man's girlfriend; the two men roll around on the ground and fight for a few minutes before getting tired and leaving.
 Throughout the film, two young women ages 18 and 19 argue constantly, shouting sexual profanities, name-calling and pushing each other; in one scene, they grab each other in anger and roll on a bed and onto the floor. Three young women shout and call one another names, because they are dating one another's boyfriends; two of the women shun the third woman and leave her house together while the third woman cries. A teen boy and a teen girl argue about their relationship or lack of one and he tells her that he hopes she dies of AIDS, since she has so many boyfriends; he slams a door as he walks out of her room and she cries.
 The staff of two rival swimming pools trash each other's pools with debris and soapsuds on alternate nights. Several lifeguards push a new lifeguard into the pool; she pushes the pool manager into the water and he yells for help, because he cannot swim and she jumps in and rescues him.
 A teen boy drinks beer from a funnel and vomits it back up onto the carpet (we see the vomit). A young woman vomits into a toilet after drinking peppermint Schnapps and we see greenish vomit in the bowl and on the outside of it. In a swimming pool, a lifeguard thinks that a lump of feces is a candy bar, so she picks it out of the water and takes a big bite; screaming, she jumps out of the pool and runs to the bathroom.

LANGUAGE 8 - About 36 F-words and its derivatives, 6 obscene hand gestures, 34 sexual references, 20 scatological terms, 30 anatomical terms, 14 mild obscenities, exclamations (shut-up), name-calling (crazy, idiot, jerk, virgin, loser, slutty Oompa Loompas, lesbo, lesbian, retarded, puff-tard, kinky, buzz-kill, sucker, doofus, bossy, nerds, Lolita, Grumpy Gus, Double D, loose, animals), stereotypical references to teenagers, men, women, parents, college students, virgins, nerds, jocks, Mormons, the homeless), 15 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh my God! Oh God! God! Thank God, Jeez, Jesus, Christ, You better hope to God).

SUBSTANCE USE - Several men share a marijuana cigarette, a man smokes a marijuana cigarette in a maintenance building, and two young men and two young women at a party smoke a bong and drink beer and wine coolers until one young man falls asleep. Teenagers drink cups of beer from a beer keg at a graduation party, a teen boy drinks beer from a funnel and vomits it back up onto a carpet (we see the vomit), a teen girl becomes drunk as she does a handstand and chugs beer from a tube running from a keg (she falls without injury), several young women chug peppermint Schnapps and one vomits it into a toilet (we see greenish vomit in the bowl and on the outside of it), two teen boys drink peach Schnapps from a flask, a man and a 19-years-old boy drink cans of beer around a public swimming pool in the early morning and we see empty crushed beer cans on the cement, a man drinks cans of beer alone at night by a pool in two scenes and one daytime scene, several men drink beer around a swimming pool at night, and a teen girl's older sister tells her to drink a can of beer to relax before sex and that night while on a date the girl chugs a can of beer first before beginning to have sex (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). A man smokes a cigarette.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Adolescent sexuality, teen drinking, drug use, safety, relationships, communication, honesty, love, preparing for college, developing good judgment.

MESSAGE - Love is not a checklist.

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.


how to
support us

PLEASE DONATE

We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

NO MORE ADS!

Become a member of our premium site for just $1/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we don't always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.

how to
support us

PLEASE DONATE

We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

NO MORE ADS!

Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter

Know when new reviews are published
We will never sell or share your email address with anybody and you can unsubscribe at any time

You're all set! Please check your email for confirmation.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This