Meet the Fockers

brent · Jan 5, 2005

I haven't seen it yet but I loved the first one. If teeituptom endorses it, that's good enough for me........I'll go see it.

DDRN4me · Jan 5, 2005

saw it last nite with a friend..both of us loved it..its not the kind of movie you go to for mental stimulation....more for "fockerization"!:rotfl: One woman stated as she left the theater.."i'm stopping at the grocery store for some whipped cream!"

kwalker5 · Jan 5, 2005

I'm a male nurse, and I never laughed so hard in my life. People need to stop trying to be so politically correct and just lighten up a little!

InService · Jan 5, 2005

I thought the movie was funny, too. If I remember correctly, there was only 1 mention about him being a nurse and the only bathroom humor is when the cat flushes the dog down the toilet. Quite funny. They even show this part on the commercial. Babs and Dustin are great together and Babs is a sex therapist--this is where the sexual humor comes in--nothing too risky. I liked it and recommend it.

MFlash · Jan 5, 2005

There are two ways to look at that. One is the belittling way (which until the generations change it will be there) and the other is that Gaylord loves nursing and refuses to do anything else although he has the grades to become an MD if he wanted. I prefer the latter. I thought the movie was hilarious. I laughed so hard.

I was wondering if anyone saw "Meet the Fockers". Apparently it's funny to belittle nurses, especially the males. Why do people still wonder why no one wants to go into this field?

Lrosemond · Jan 5, 2005

One, I can't believe that this got so many responses, but am glad that the majority of the responses took it as it was meant to be, a movie.

Two, Nursing has alot of issues and I don't agree with the way we are protrayed in TV and movies most of the time but I LOVED THIS MOVIE. I am married to a male RN and he was sitting right next to me laughing so hard we both were crying.

One of the previous responses mentioned how in the first movie Greg told his girlfriend's family (including 2 physicians) how he loves nursing. How come that didn't make it on this site?

Stacy Motorsports · Jan 5, 2005

as a male nurse i was concerned about the image portrayed in the movie. though i try to ignore being p.c. i think the image was less than favorable. this is the public's perception of the male nurse.

our "be a nurse...i am!!" pro truck racing team works very hard to enlighten people on the real world of the male nurse. we make presentations to schools, colleges and other groups on the opportunities for males in nursing and take the race truck as an attention getter. potential students at racetracks approach us and most people are "surprised" that a male nurse drives a racecar.

yes, the first movie was funny, and i laughed (have not seen the second movie yet) but i thought the male nurse image could have been much more positive.

bill stacy rn

"be a nurse...i am"

racing team

tferdaise · Jan 5, 2005

I was wondering if anyone saw "Meet the Fockers". Apparently it's funny to belittle nurses, especially the males. Why do people still wonder why no one wants to go into this field?

I had a friends father kind of do that to me, tease me that I could not get into medical school crap. Then I politly explained to him that Nurses get 96% of total care to patients while in the hospital. :angryfire

Kingbandit · Jan 8, 2005

I'm a male in nursing, and I think it's hysterical. And if you paid attention in the first movie as to Greg's (Gaylord's) opinion as to why he went into nursing instead of going to med school, it's great. He got in the high 90 something percentile on his MCATs and decided that being able to relate to his patients is more important than being called Dr.
So lighten up, listen to the positive side of things, and have a Happy New Year!!
Another Focker, RN

:rotfl: I to am a FOCHER. This movie goes to show how a narrow minded person has no place in todays society and he eventually comes around to the more sensitive side of thinking. Gaylords parents effasized(sic) his feelings not achievements. They supported any and all undertakings he made in life; like many parents should do, instead of focussing on the almighty $$$$$$$$.

allnurses Guide · Jan 8, 2005

Funny that this thread keeps going - interesting to read the responses.

I think it depends on your definition of humor. I just read some further reviews and here is one that sort of sums them all up.

From "One Guy's Opinion"

The very title of "Meet the Fockers" is sufficient warning that you shouldn't go to it expecting a subtle, sophisticated comedy. That's alright: its precursor, the 2000 "Meet the Parents," was hardly high-toned entertainment, either. Still, the earlier picture's scattershot script about a doofus would-be fiancé visiting his girlfriend's ultra-intimidating father--an ex-CIA man, no less--had its share of dumb, harmless laughs. And it certainly didn't descend to the level of crass vulgarity that's pretty much the only note the sequel hits (or even aims for). The moral at the end of "Fockers" is that it's always best to tell the truth, so let's do that: This picture is just an avalanche of s******ing sexual humor masquerading as a family comedy. Unbelievably raunchy--it would make aficionados of old British sex farces or burlesque shows positively blanch, and exceeds most of the crassest teen movies in tawdriness--it's especially repellent for two reasons. One is that it's been granted a PG-13 rating although it easily warrants an R, and probably would have gotten one but for the fact that it's got big studio backing behind it. The other is that it represents the latest screen pairing of two of our greatest actors--Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman (who previously shared credit in "Wag the Dog" and "Sleepers"); that it should occur in such a piece of smarmy drivel is unconscionable. The set-up is as simple as in the first movie. Nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and fiancee Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) are now living together and planning their wedding. But one hurdle to happiness remains: Greg has to introduce his soon-to-be father-in-law Jack (De Niro) to his parents Bernie (Hoffman) and Roz (Barbra Streisand). So he and the Byrnes family, including Jack's wife Dina (Blythe Danner) and their young grandson Little Jack (twins Spencer and Bradley Pickren), board Jack's gargantuan RV for a trip to Focker Isle near Coconut Grove, a thoroughly appropriate residence, as it turns out, since Bernie and Roz are outrageous characters, pre-advertised by Greg to Jack as a top lawyer and a doctor but actually a stay-at-home ex-lawyer and a seniors' sex therapist, respectively. What passes for comedy--and the verb is used here in the sense that one would employ it with respect to kidney stones--derives from the clash between the happily hedonistic Fockers and the grimly serious Jack; the latter's efforts to derail his daughter's pending nuptials by investigating Greg's past with the former family maid Isabel (Alanna Ubach), a gregarious Latina with a son named Jorge (Ray Santiano) whose mannerisms are suspiciously like Focker's; and the predictable complications that ensue when Pam discloses that she's pregnant and the couple tries to hurry up the wedding ceremony without letting Jack know why. A subplot involves Jack's obsessive efforts to raise Little Jack (whose parents are curiously absent) according to a very strict regimen which, of course, Greg turns into chaos. The ultimate point of it all is that Jack learns to loosen up, in every conceivable way. That's supposed to be a good thing. Your reaction to the lowbrow sitcom-quality content of "Meet the Fockers" will depend not only on your tolerance of gross slapstick and suggestive innuendo--all of it italicized by the sledgehammer direction of Jay Roach--but on your ability to forgive some nearly iconic figures being trapped in the morass. After all, there's no shock in watching Stiller descend to such coorificeness--it's pretty much his stock-in-trade, although Greg's big speech toward the close (delivered, supposedly, under the influence of truth serum) is an embarrassingly unfunny bit even for him. It's the indignities inflicted on De Niro and Hoffman that are truly appalling. Do we really want to see the former wearing a fake female breast as a device for feeding his grandson, or being "mounted" from the rear by Streisand as part of massage therapy on his injured back? Or Hoffman, his face covered in whipped cream, snuggling in bed beside Streisand, whose breasts are also awash in the goo, or talking about his character's testicles? It's degrading to viewers to be fed such material, but even sadder to watch great actors degrading themselves by performing it. (To be fair, De Niro and Hoffman seem to be good sports about it, with the latter in particular expending a lot of energy along the way. But somehow that just makes it all the more depressing.) And the abusively vulgar treatment doesn't stop with the three stars. Little Jack, who's portrayed as having the ability to "converse" with pre-vocal sign language (a much less amusing conceit that the subtitling of Sunny Baudelaire's gurglings in the Lemnony Snicket movie), serves as nothing more than a reaction-shot pawn, playing the sort of part usually assigned to an audience-pleasing dog; and the piece de resistance involving him comes when Greg carelessly teaches him his first word--an obscenity which he then repeats endlessly. (The twins' parents must be so proud.) And even then the makers must have been concerned that Little Jack's presence couldn't entirely make up for an absence of animals; they add a dog to the cat from the previous installment, and then proceed to construct such moments of comic mastery as having the cat flush the pooch down a toilet. In a movie like this, it seems, potty humor must include humans and their pets alike. Understandably, the remainder of the cast walks through the picture looking rather astonished at what's happening around them. Streisand opts for a standard-issue diva turn, flamboyantly exaggerating all her best-known mannerisms; it's less a performance than a series of poses. Polo is sprightly but vacuous, and Danner was probably pleased that Dina Byrnes is so unostentatious a person, able quietly to recede into the background. Owen Wilson briefly reprises his role as Pam's once-upon-a-time suitor from "Parents," looking as dazed as most viewers are likely to be by the time he appears, and Santiago does a reasonably good Stiller impression as Greg's presumed offspring. Then there's Tim Blake Nelson, who pulls out all the Barney Fife stops as a cop who gets involved with Greg, Bernie and Jack in the last act. On the technical side the picture is adequate but nondescript. The fact that "Meet the Fockers" is being released at Christmastime may mislead you into thinking that it's a picture you can take the whole family to. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Its relentlessly blue humor makes it highly unsuitable for children. And for discerning adults, too, since it's also remarkably unfunny. In other words, you don't have to be a prude to feel good about declining the invitation its title offers, but if you are, you'd better make a special effort to stay away.

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A FEW OTHER SNIPPETS:

"Meet the Fockers," opening Wednesday, is the wrong movie for you. Most of the film's jokes fall into one of the following categories: 1) sight gags involving a small dog humping things, 2) boob jokes including a toddler's fixation with mammaries and 3) "funny" plays on the Focker family name, as in family get-together guests Dom, Randy and Orney."

"Pretty Focking bad, even for a sequel"

"Every moment of passable humor is followed by 10 minutes of boredom. Each line of dialogue is overplayed. And all the sight gags came from better movies."

"Just about every cheap joke from the Derivative Comedy Handbook is pulled out, including a flatulence gag and multiple instances of a hypersexual dog getting it on with various objects."

"Exactly what the parties involved were thinking is up for debate, but odds are it had everything to do with fat paychecks, and nothing whatsoever with the pathetic script, in which at least 30 percent of the jokes are simply utterances of the word "Focker."

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Blue humor? Highly unsuitable for children? Unfunny?

I never even considered the whole "male nurse" thing.

I guess the definition of humor is different and some of us, not being prudes of course :) , don't think dog humping is just all that funny.

steph