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Aloha | 2015 | PG-13 | - 3.3.5
A USAF veteran and military contractor (Bradley Cooper) leaves government jobs behind to join a billionaire private space agency mogul (Bill Murray). During business in Hawaii, he shuffles love interests old and new, as he confronts angry US military officials. Also with Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Alec Baldwin, Danny McBride and Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele. Directed by Cameron Crowe. [1:45]
SEX/NUDITY 3 - A man and a woman discuss the experience of feeling gunshot wounds as powerful; they stare into each other's eyes, kiss passionately twice and the camera cuts to them sitting in bed (sex implied and his chest, shoulders and arms are uncovered and we see her shoulders and arms). A husband and his wife hug and kiss passionately at home after he left in anger for a few days, but returned. A man and his girlfriend kiss passionately at a hotel front desk. A man and a woman kiss briefly at an open-air market.
► A woman dances with an older man at a party and they flirt, look at each other with exaggerated passionate looks, and laugh. Watching a veteran's coffin exit a plane, a man and his ex-girlfriend stare at each other longingly from several yards apart and he later tells her that he ruins all his relationships. A man visits his ex-girlfriend, her husband, and her children.
► In subtitles, a silent man asks telepathically if another man slept with his wife and the second man thinks, "No, I slept with another woman"; the first man hugs the second man. A man tells a woman, "I love you" and she smiles. A man tells his girlfriend that he ruins all his relationships and she cries and storms out. We hear that a 13-year-old girl is the daughter of her mom's old boyfriend and when she later sees him watching her in a hula class, she cries and runs out to hug him. A man warns another man that he will go to prison and have conjugal visits. A woman says that she once ran naked through a field.
► Several women and teen girls wear short-shorts or miniskirts that bare legs to the top of the thigh. Several women wear tight yoga pants with sleeveless, clingy tops in an exercise class. A few women wear blouses or dresses that reveal slight cleavage. A woman wears a long shirt that reveals bare thighs and legs. A few men wear swim trunks only on a beach or on archive footage of 1960s water skiing (bare chests, abdomens, backs and legs are seen). Several male dancers wear loincloths that look like large bows and we see their bare chests, backs, shoulders, arms, thighs, and legs. A painting in a home depicts a shirtless Hawaiian warrior with bared thighs and legs, lifting a woman wearing a low-cut sarong type dress that reveals slight cleavage. We glimpse a poster of the film "Barberella," in which the female star wears a figure hugging space suit that reveals some cleavage.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - Men carry a serviceman's flag-draped coffin out of a transport plane as people watch grimly. A man admits that he left a male friend on the battlefield at Kabul to die; the friend in another scene says that he suffered gunshot wounds in such a way that 18 bones were broken in his legs and feet. A man shows a woman long scars on his shin, along with two big toes on one foot; he says that it was a botched transplant for a lost toe. A woman tells a man that she broke a tibia running when she was younger. A flashback to the Middle East shows men ducking for cover and the camera cuts to a man in a hospital bed; a close-up shows an oxygen clip in his nose and another close-up shows an IV line in the back of one hand.
► A man has a Santa Claus, Christmas tree, and other holiday decorations in his front yard on a military base and a yard sign shows that he won first place in a neighborhood contest; he pulls the sign and its thin post out of the ground one night and uses it to slam Santa's head off. The driver of a large car slams on the brakes to avoid hitting people in a crosswalk. A man is arrested by military police on a beach and we hear that he planted nuclear weapons on a communication satellite.
► A man roars as he walks into a room and then shouts loudly at a another man for an extended time. A man and a woman argue twice, strongly, about government contractors sneaking weapons into communications satellites. A man is taken to a army general's office, where he is upbraided and told to stay away from a female army captain. A Hawaiian leader complains to a US government contractor that the islands are under military occupation, that his community has no phone service and that the land was taken away from them. Reading information on a flash drive, a man finds that a company's owner has planted weapons on a communications satellite and when a woman learns of this, she becomes angry and asks him if he planted weapons in her hat and she storms away, angry and tearful. A Hawaiian leader states that the sky is sacred and weapons must not be put there. A woman states that the sky is sacred and that the sky and air are magic and spirits like Hawaiian leprechauns are around. A woman wails, "The sky will fill with weapons!" A man tells a woman that the future is a brute force with a sense of humor, but will still steam roller over you. A little boy talks to adults about Hawaiian gods fighting and about human sacrifices in active volcanoes long ago.
► A communication satellite glitches, then explodes with a pop. At the launch of a private company's communication satellite, a woman becomes tearful as the satellite hits orbit safely; we see the launch on a silent screen and see the fuel rockets drop away as the control room men and women cheer and shout.
► Driving at night on a dark road, a woman tells her male friend to pull over as a line of warriors chant and walk up the road; she tells her friend to bow his head to keep from looking at them, because they are searching for their ancestors. Two Hawaiian elders bless the ground on which a new gateway for the US Government will be built for a space industry complex and the elders chant and step around a hole in the ground; a voiceover says that they are blessing the ground and will receive any human bones found buried there.
LANGUAGE 5 - About 2 F-words, 4 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, 6 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, satellite pirates, Great White obsolete whale, crooks, wreck, sad bloodhound, workaholic, loser, joke, morally bankrupt, cool guy, sexy pants, 3-day bear boy, Mayberry, Tupoc), stereotypical references to men, women, ex-lovers, workaholics, gung ho military officers, the rich, corrupt business people, bigots, tourists, civilian aerospace workers, Hawaiians, Asians, exclamations (shoot, wow, shut-up, geez), 6 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Jesus, Oh God, My God, I Danced With The Devil, Holy Mackerel).
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Public and private aerospace defense, motives of civilians in aerospace industries, indigenous religions, respect for other cultures, workaholics, people who cannot express themselves verbally, relationships, love, marriage, heartbreak, avoidance, responsibility, reconciliation, forgiveness, starting over, justice.
MESSAGE - Workaholism can destroy relationships. Civilian aerospace business people can be shady.
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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