In addition to also being a 2019 Common Sense Media teen council member, Jake is the founder and co-Director of The SASHA (Students Against Sexual Harassment & Assault) Initiative which is a youth-led activist organization dedicated to ensuring that young people and members of marginalized communities are at the forefront of the social. I loved Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale.She has captured a particular slice of French life during World War II with wonderful details and drama. But what I loved most about the novel was the relationship between the two sisters and Hannah's exploration of what we do in moments of great challenge. Writing for Common Sense Media, Andrea Beach called the film a 'dated '80s comedy with strong language, few laughs.' Collider staff writer Jeff Giles, reviewing the film's Blu-ray Disc release, stated, 'on the whole, it’s more amusing than funny; it’s only 102 minutes, but it feels too long by half. For all the talent involved, there’s. Brainy, mature, emotional film tackles sex, love. Read Common Sense Media's Elegy review, age rating, and parents guide. Is Hillbilly Elegy Kid Friendly? Parents Guide - Lola Lambchops. Maybe check Common Sense Media. Search for: Meet Tania. A Latina mom of 5 girls (ages 16 to 8.

Spies Like Us is a 1985 American comedy film directed by John Landis and starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Forrest, and Donna Dixon. The film presents the comic adventures of two novice intelligence agents sent to the Soviet Union. Originally written by Aykroyd and Dave Thomas to star Aykroyd and John Belushi at Universal, the script went into turnaround and was later picked up by Warner Bros. with Aykroyd and Chase starring.

The film is an homage to the famous Road to … film series which starred Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Hope himself makes a cameo in one scene. Other cameos in the film include directors Terry Gilliam, Sam Raimi, Costa-Gavras, Martin Brest, Frank Oz, and Joel Coen, musician B.B. King, and visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen.

Plot[edit]

Austin Millbarge is a basement-dwelling codebreaker at the Pentagon who aspires to escape his under-respected job to become a secret agent. Emmett Fitz-Hume, a wisecracking, pencil-pushing son of an envoy, takes the foreign service exam under peer pressure. Millbarge and Fitz-Hume meet during the test, on which Fitz-Hume openly attempts to cheat after an attempt to bribe his immediate supervisor in exchange for the answers backfires. Millbarge, however, was forced to take the test, having had only one day to prepare after his supervisor gives him a two-week-old notice leaving him vulnerable to fail and having to stay in the Pentagon trenches.

Needing expendable agents to act as decoys to draw attention away from a more capable team, the DIA decides to enlist the two, promote them to be Foreign Service operatives, put them through minimal training, and then send them on an undefined mission into Soviet Central Asia. Meanwhile, professional agents are well on their way to reaching the real objective: the seizure of a mobile SS-50 ICBM launcher in Soviet territory. The main team takes a loss, while Millbarge and Fitz-Hume escape enemy attacks and eventually encounter Karen Boyer, the only surviving operative from the main team.

In the Pamir Mountains of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, the trio overpowers the mobile missile guard unit using hastily constructed extraterrestrial outfits and tranquilizer guns. Following orders in real-time from the intelligence agency (operating from a military bunker located deep under an abandoned drive-in theater), they begin to operate the launcher. At the end of their instructions, the vehicle launches the ICBM into space, targeting an unspecified area in the United States. Thinking they have started a nuclear war, the American agents and their Soviet counterparts pair up to have sex before the world ends.

Meanwhile, the military commander at the operations bunker initiates the conversion of the drive-in theater to expose what is hidden beneath the screens and projection booth: a huge black-opSDI-esque laser and collector/emitter screen. The purpose of sending the agents to launch a Soviet ICBM is exposed as a means to test this anti-ballistic missile system, but the laser fails to intercept the nuclear missile. Despite this, the military commanders at the site choose not to inform the US government that the missile launch was not initiated by the Soviet authorities, revealing a twisted contingency plan of letting the impending thermonuclear war commence to 'preserve the American way of life'.

Back in the Soviet Union, horrified at the thought of having launched a nuclear missile at their own country, the American spies and the Soviet soldiers use Millbarge's technical knowledge to transmit instructions to the traveling missile, sending it off into space where it detonates harmlessly. Immediately after, the underground bunker is stormed by U.S. Army Rangers, and the intelligence and military officials involved in the covert operation are arrested. Millbarge, Fitz-Hume, and Boyer go on to become nuclear disarmament negotiators, playing a nuclear version of Risk-meets-Trivial Pursuit against their Soviet friends.

Cast[edit]

• Chevy Chase as Emmett Fitz-Hume
• Dan Aykroyd as Austin Millbarge
• Donna Dixon as Karen Boyer
• Bruce Davison as Ruby
• William Prince as Keyes
• Steve Forrest as General Sline
• Tom Hatten as General Miegs
• Bernie Casey as Colonel Rhumbus
• Charles McKeown as Jerry Hadley
• Vanessa Angel as Soviet Rocket Crewperson
• James Daughton as Rob Hodges
• Jim Staahl as Bud Schnelker
• Frank Oz as Test Monitor
• Terry Gilliam as Dr. Imhaus
• Ray Harryhausen as Dr. Marston
• Derek Meddings as Dr. Stinson
• Joel Coen as drive-in guard #1
• Sam Raimi as drive-in guard #2
• Martin Brest as drive-in guard #3
• Costa-Gavras as Soviet highway patrol #1
• Bob Hope as himself/golfer
• B.B. King as Ace tomato agent
• Michael Apted as Ace tomato agent
• Larry Cohen as Ace tomato agent
• Heidi Sorenson as Alice, Fitz-Hume's supervisor
• Edwin Newman as himself

Title song[edit]

The title song, 'Spies Like Us', was written and performed by Paul McCartney. It reached #7 on the singles chart in the United States in early 1986.^[1] It also reached #13 in the UK.^[2] John Landis directed a music video for the song where Aykroyd and Chase can be seen performing the song with McCartney (although they didn't actually play on the record).

Soundtrack[edit]

The film's score was composed by Elmer Bernstein and performed by the Graunke Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande; it does not contain the Paul McCartney song. The film also featured 'Soul Finger,' by the Bar-Kays, also absent from the soundtrack. Fitz-Hume watches Ronald Reagan singing 'I'll Be Loving You' from the musical She's Working Her Way Through College early in the film.

1. The Ace Tomato Company (5:06)
2. Off To Spy (1:52)
3. Russians In The Desert (2:21)
4. Pass In The Tent (2:58)
5. Escape (3:25)
6. To The Bus (3:14)
7. The Road To Russia (3:39)
8. Rally 'Round (2:39)
9. W.A.M.P. (2:48)
10. Martian Act (3:08)
11. Arrest (2:21)
12. Recall (2:38)
13. Winners (1:16)

Release[edit]

The film was a box office success. It grossed $8,614,039 on the U.S. opening weekend and it grossed $60,088,980 in the United States and Canada^[3] versus a budget of $22 million.^[4][5] The film grossed $17.2 million overseas^[6] for a worldwide gross of $77.3 million.

Critical reception[edit]

The Washington Post critic Paul Attanasio called Spies Like Us 'a comedy with exactly one laugh, and those among you given to Easter egg hunts may feel free to try and find it.'^[7] The Chicago Reader critic Dave Kehr criticized the film's character development, saying that 'Landis never bothers to account for the friendship that springs up spontaneously between these two antipathetic types, but then he never bothers to account for anything in this loose progression of recycled Abbott and Costello riffs.'^[8]The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote, 'The stars are always affable, and they're worth watching even when they do very little, but it's painful to sit by as the screenplay runs out of steam.'^[9]

Variety magazine opined in a staff review, 'Spies is not very amusing. Though Chase and Aykroyd provide moments, the overall script thinly takes on eccentric espionage and nuclear madness, with nothing new to add.'^[10]TV Guide published a staff review which stated, 'Landis' direction is indulgent, to say the least, with big landscapes, big crashes, big hardware, and big gags filling the screen. What he forgets is character development, that all-important factor that must exist for comedy to work well.'^[11] David Parkinson, writing for the Radio Times, felt that 'Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase simply fail to gel, and there's little fun to be had once the boisterous training school gags are exhausted.'^[12]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 32%, based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 4.38/10. The site's consensus states: 'Despite the comedic prowess of its director and two leads, Spies Like Us appears to disavow all knowledge of how to make the viewer laugh.'^[13]Metacritic gives the film a score of 22 out of 100, based on 9 critics, which indicates 'Generally unfavorable reviews'.^[14] Writing for Common Sense Media, Andrea Beach called the film a 'dated '80s comedy [with] strong language, few laughs.'^[15]Collider staff writer Jeff Giles, reviewing the film's Blu-ray Disc release, stated, 'on the whole, it’s more amusing than funny; it’s only 102 minutes, but it feels too long by half. For all the talent involved, there’s an awful lot of flab. It’s the kind of movie you can walk away from for 10 minutes without missing anything important.'^[16]

Legacy[edit]

The animated comedy series Family Guy paid tribute to the film with its 2009 episode 'Spies Reminiscent of Us', which guest starred Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase as fictionalized versions of themselves who, according to the series, were made real spies by Ronald Reagan after he saw the film Spies Like Us. The episode recreates numerous scenes from the film.^[17][18]

The live-action spy comedy series Chuck was heavily influenced by Spies, including references to 'GLG-20' and the introduction of character Emmett Millbarge (Tony Hale), combined from the names of the Spies protagonists.

References[edit]

1. ^'Paul McCartney > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles'. AllMusic. RhythmOne. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
2. ^'Paul McCartney'. Official Charts. The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
3. ^Spies Like Us at Box Office Mojo
4. ^David T. Friendly (1986-01-02). 'Purple, 'africa' Pace Box Office'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-07-09.
5. ^Jack Matthews (1985-12-25). 'A Strong Start for 'Color Purple' in Christmas Box Office Race'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-07-09.
6. ^McCarthy, Todd (December 8, 1986). 'Record O'Seas Take For Warners'. Daily Variety. p. 1.
7. ^Attanasio, Paul (9 December 1985). 'Movies'. Retrieved 23 April 2018 – via www.washingtonpost.com.
8. ^Kehr, Dave. 'Spies Like Us'. Chicago Reader. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
9. ^Maslin, Janet. 'SCREEN: 'SPIES LIKE US''. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
10. ^'Spies Like Us'. 1 January 1985. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
11. ^'Spies Like Us'. TVGuide.com. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
12. ^'Spies Like Us – review - cast and crew, movie star rating and where to watch film on TV and online'. Radio Times. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
13. ^'Spies Like Us'. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
14. ^'Spies Like Us'. Metacritic. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
15. ^'Spies Like Us - Movie Review'. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
16. ^Jeff Giles. 'FUNNY FARM and SPIES LIKE US Blu-ray Reviews'. collider.com. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
17. ^'Family Guy Preview: 'Spies Reminiscent of Us''. IGN. October 9, 2009. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
18. ^VanDerWerff, Emily (2009-10-12). ''The Great Wife Hope'/'The One About Friends'/'Spies Reminiscent of Us'/'Home Adrone''. The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2009-11-19.

External links[edit]

• Spies Like Us at IMDb
• Spies Like Us at Box Office Mojo
• Spies Like Us at AllMovie

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a 2016 memoir by J. D. Vance about the Appalachian values of his Kentucky family and their relation to the social problems of his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, where his mother's parents moved when they were young.

Summary[edit]

Vance describes his upbringing and family background while growing up in the city of Middletown, Ohio, the third largest city in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. He writes about a family history of poverty and low-paying, physical jobs that have since disappeared or worsened in their guarantees, and compares this life with his perspective after leaving it.

Though Vance was raised in Middletown, his mother and her family were from Breathitt County, Kentucky. Their Appalachian values include traits like loyalty and love of country, despite social issues including violence and verbal abuse. He recounts his grandparents' alcoholism and abuse, and his unstable mother's history of drug addictions and failed relationships. Vance's grandparents eventually reconciled and became his de facto guardians. He was pushed by his tough but loving grandmother, and eventually Vance was able to leave Middletown to attend Ohio State University and Yale Law School.^[1]

Alongside his personal history, Vance raises questions such as the responsibility of his family and people for their own misfortune. Vance blames hillbilly culture and its supposed encouragement of social rot. Comparatively, he feels that economic insecurity plays a much lesser role. To lend credence to his argument, Vance regularly relies on personal experience. As a grocery store checkout cashier, he watched welfare recipients talk on cell phones although the working Vance could not afford one. His resentment of those who seemed to profit from poor behavior while he struggled, especially combined with his values of personal responsibility and tough love, is presented as a microcosm of the reason for Appalachia's overall political swing from strong Democratic Party to strong Republican affiliations. Likewise, he recounts stories intended to showcase a lack of work ethic including the story of a man who quit after expressing dislike over his job's hours and posted to social media about the 'Obama economy', as well as a co-worker, with a pregnant girlfriend, who would skip work.^[1]

Publication[edit]

The book was popularized by an interview with the author published by The American Conservative in late July 2016. The volume of requests briefly disabled the website. Halfway through the next month, The New York Times wrote that the title had remained in the top ten Amazon bestsellers since the interview's publication.^[1]

Vance credits his Yale contract law professor Amy Chua as the 'authorial godmother' of the book.^[2]

Reception[edit]

The book reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list in August 2016^[3] and January 2017.^[4] Many journalists criticized Vance for generalizing too much from his personal upbringing in suburban Ohio.^[5][6][7][8]

Hillbilly Elegy Common Sense Media Review

American Conservative contributor and blogger Rod Dreher expressed admiration for Hillbilly Elegy, saying that Vance 'draws conclusions…that may be hard for some people to take. But Vance has earned the right to make those judgments. This was his life. He speaks with authority that has been extremely hard won.'^[9] The following month, Dreher posted about why liberals loved the book.^[10]New York Post columnist and editor of CommentaryJohn Podhoretz described the book as among the year's most provocative.^[11] The book was positively received by conservatives such as National Review columnist Mona Charen^[12] and National Review editor and Slate columnist Reihan Salam.^[13]

By contrast, Jared Yates Sexton of Salon criticized Vance for his 'damaging rhetoric' and for endorsing policies used to 'gut the poor.' He argues that Vance 'totally discounts the role racism played in the white working class's opposition to President Obama.'^[14] Sarah Jones of The New Republic mocked Vance as 'the false prophet of Blue America,' dismissing him as 'a flawed guide to this world' and the book as little more than 'a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class.'^[6]The New York Times wrote that Vance's direct confrontation of a social taboo is admirable regardless of whether the reader agrees with his conclusions. The newspaper writes that Vance's subject is despair, and his argument is more generous in that it blames fatalism and learned helplessness rather than indolence.^[1] Bob Hutton of Jacobin wrote that Vance's argument relied on circular logic, ignored existing scholarship on Appalachian poverty, and was 'primarily a work of self-congratulation.'^[5]Sarah Smarsh with The Guardian noted that 'most downtrodden whites are not conservative male Protestants from Appalachia' and called into question Vance's generalizations about the white working class from his personal upbringing.^[7]

A 2017 Brookings Institution report noted that, “JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy became a national bestseller for its raw, emotional portrait of growing up in and eventually out of a poor rural community riddled by drug addiction and instability.' Vance's account anecdotally confirmed the report's conclusion that family stability is essential to upward mobility.^[15] The book provoked a response in the form of an anthology, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll. The essays in the volume criticize Vance for making broad generalizations and reproducing myths about poverty.^[8]

Film adaptation[edit]

Hillbilly Elegy Common Sense Media Book

A film adaptation was released in select theaters in the United States on November 11, 2020, then digitally on Netflix on November 24. It was directed by Ron Howard and stars Glenn Close, Amy Adams, Gabriel Basso^[16][17] and Haley Bennett. Although a few days of filming were planned for the book's setting of Middletown, Ohio,^[18] much of the filming in the summer of 2019 was in Atlanta, Clayton and Macon, Georgia, using the code name 'IVAN.'^[19][20]

References[edit]

Hillbilly Elegy Common Sense Media Youtube

1. ^ ^abcdSenior, Jennifer (August 10, 2016). 'Review: In 'Hillbilly Elegy,' a Tough Love Analysis of the Poor Who Back Trump'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
2. ^Heller, Karen (February 6, 2017). ''Hillbilly Elegy' made J.D. Vance the voice of the Rust Belt. But does he want that job?'. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
3. ^Barro, Josh (August 22, 2016). 'The new memoir 'Hillbilly Elegy' highlights the core social-policy question of our time'. Business Insider. Archived from the original on February 13, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
4. ^'Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction Books – Best Sellers – January 22, 2017'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 27, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
5. ^ ^ab'Hillbilly Elitism'. jacobinmag.com. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
6. ^ ^abJones, Sarah (November 17, 2016). 'J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America'. The New Republic. Archived from the original on March 17, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
7. ^ ^abSmarsh, Sarah (October 13, 2016). 'Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans'. The Guardian. ISSN0261-3077. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
8. ^ ^abGarner, Dwight (February 25, 2019). ''Hillbilly Elegy' Had Strong Opinions About Appalachians. Now, Appalachians Return the Favor'. The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
9. ^Dreher, Rod (July 11, 2016). 'Hillbilly America: Do White Lives Matter?'. The American Conservative. Archived from the original on March 22, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
10. ^Dreher, Rod (August 5, 2016). 'Why Liberals Love 'Hillbilly Elegy''. The American Conservative. Archived from the original on October 12, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
11. ^Podhoretz, John (October 16, 2016). 'The Truly Forgotten Republican Voter'. Commentary. Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
12. ^'Hillbilly Elegy: J.D. Vance's New Book Reveals Much about Trump & America'. National Review. July 28, 2016. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
13. ^'Reihan Salam on Twitter: 'Very excited for @JDVance1. HILLBILLY ELEGY is excellent, and it'll be published in late June:''. Twitter. April 30, 2016. Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
14. ^Jared Yates Sexton (March 11, 2017). 'Hillbilly sellout: The politics of J. D. Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' are already being used to gut the working poor'. Salon. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
15. ^Eleanor Krause and Richard V. Reeves (2017) Rural Dreams: Upward Mobility in America's Countryside, pp.12–13. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/es_20170905_ruralmobility.pdfArchived December 6, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
16. ^Williams, Trey (April 12, 2019). Close%5d%5d plays a strong matriarch, Mamaw, who saves the hero./ 'Ron Howard-Directed 'Hillbilly Elegy' Casts Gabriel Basso in Lead Role' Check |url= value (help). TheWrap. Archived from the original on May 13, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
17. ^WKRC (April 16, 2019). ''Hillbilly Elegy' expected to be filmed locally; more cast members sign on'. Local 12/WKRC-TV. Archived from the original on April 17, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
18. ^Kiesewetter, John (June 3, 2019). 'Glenn Close, Amy Adams, Visit Middletown For 'Hillbilly Elegy' Meeting'. WVXU Cincinnati Public Radio. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019.
19. ^Walljasper, Matt (June 27, 2019). 'What's filming in Atlanta now? Lovecraft Country, The Conjuring 3, Waldo, Hillbilly Elegy, and more'. Atlanta Magazine. Archived from the original on June 28, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
20. ^Chandler, Tom (July 3, 2019). 'Netflix to begin filming movie 'Ivan' in Macon'. The Georgia Sun. Archived from the original on July 5, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2019.

Hillbilly Elegy Common Sense Media Quotes

External links[edit]

Hillbilly Elegy Common Sense Media