It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Frankly, I'm rather glad I didn't read a single review here before watching the movie. Several reviewers evidently take this movie as a convenient platform from which to bash the Religious Right™ for not adhering to the Christian-hating Left's benighted sexual libertinism. To be sure, Skipped Parts is rather brutally frank about all matters of sexuality, but as at least one reviewer pointed out already, the pro-abortion and anti-family bigots of the Left will find very little of this frankness to be at all friendly to their despicable ideology. Actually, one would be hard-pressed to find any "message" to this movie at all, as it is more a reflection of our times than an effort to shape them.This brings me to one of the real strikes against this movie: though set in the 1960s around the time of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the protagonists (Sam, Lydia, and to a lesser degree her cousin Delores) all have ridiculously anachronistic points of view for people from the 1960s, while the antagonists (Sam Callahan, Dothan Talbot, Coach Howard Stebbins, to a lesser degree Maurey's parents, and to an even lesser degree the rest of the students and townspeople) are all basically contemporary Hollywood caricatures of people from the early 1960s. Someone is clearly guilty of either executive meddling or lazy writing.Yes, there were "easy" girls and single mothers back in the 1960s, but none of them would have thought and behaved the way Lydia does, nor would society have dealt with them so mildly if they had; nobody would even have considered rolling out a welcome wagon for a single mother and her illegitimate child in the first place, nor allowed their children to hang around with Sam. Moreover, in those days when the "unwritten law" was still somewhat in effect, the threatened violence against Sam, played for laughs in this movie, would have been no joke. He would be fortunate if Maurey's aggrieved father didn't decide to invite him to a "shotgun wedding" ceremony that was all shotgun and no wedding.As for the much-remarked hypocrisy of several of the characters (particularly Coach Stebbins and Maurey's mother), I'll concede that stereotypes — yes, even Hollywood's — are not entirely without foundation; hypocrisy and hypocrites we have with us always. Anyone who thinks this hypocrisy is offered as any kind of justification for Lydia's evil beliefs and behaviors, however, would do well to reconsider. Sincerity by itself, as Lydia demonstrates, is no virtue at all, and hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In this movie, vice pays a very grim tribute indeed to virtue in several truly horrifying scenes concerning Lydia's attempt to cover up Sam and Maurey's mistake by murdering their unborn baby.Most horrifying of all is the scene in which Sam pleads that it's his baby too; doesn't he get any say in what happens to his child? No, Lydia insists, he doesn't. In fact, nothing he says can sway her, though he promises to take responsibility, get a job, marry the girl, do anything if only his mother will let them keep the baby. In the end, it's hypocrisy which proves to be both a deus ex machina and diabolus ex machina, as Maury's mother happens to be down at the very same illegal murder mill having her love child with Coach Stebbins butchered, traumatizing both mother and daughter when they meet and leading to a very awkward moment between Sam and Stebbins as well. How can I *not* see this as being a thoroughly damning portrayal of abortion and all of the cruel baby-butchering child-snatching misandrists calling themselves "feminists" who support it?No, unlike some reviewers here, I would definitely *not* show this movie to teenagers as a part of their sex education. If we must have entertainment while educating our kids about sex, we have plenty of other more informative and positive movies that would serve the purpose far better: The Blue Lagoon (1980) and 17 Again (2009) come to mind. Honestly, did that gross-out moment with Lydia and the sock, or any of the references to oral sex (which also quite understandably grossed out Sam and Maurey) need to be in this movie at all? It would have been far more enjoyable to watch without them. Some movies really should be exclusively restricted to adults even if some of the main characters are kids, and this is one of them.If anything, Lydia's efforts to expose Sam to too much of our unrated world too soon is a precautionary tale, not an example to be followed as some of the more foolish reviewers here seem to believe. Yes, Lydia does seem to be a bit more responsible by the end, having gotten a job and a man to support her so she won't end up being another welfare leech (the way so many single mothers these days are), but it's not clear that she's really learned her lesson; neither she nor anyone else shows any remorse for having nearly murdered her granddaughter, and there's no wedding scene, so it's not clear whether she's actually married to Hank even by common law.Ultimately, however, the reason I don't like this movie very much is that the story is actually rather depressing. Skipped Parts is a comedy, yes, but a black comedy full of disgusting behavior leading to mood whiplash and coming to an only partially satisfying ending. I sympathized with Sam, laughed at the funny parts and was duly horrified at the horrifying parts. On the whole, I don't regret watching it, and I think anyone who can take a few revolting scenes and characters in stride and doesn't mind a few anachronistic attitudes could benefit from seeing this movie. All the same, I'd rather not see this movie again any time soon, if ever. It might be worth a rental, but the jury's still out on whether it will ever be worth a purchase.

Basic story, a politician in the Carolinas is about to campaign for office and wants his unmarried daughter and her love-child son of 14 out of the way to avoid distraction. He pays for their subsistence, so he sends them on a road trip, to live in Wyoming until the election is over. There the mom and son find a new kind of life. (Note: actually filmed in Canada.) Jennifer Jason Leigh is the 30-someting mom, Lydia Callahan, and she insists that her son call her Lydia, not mom. Bug Hall is her son, Sam Callahan. Sam is a good kid, bright, reads a lot, and in fact is an aspiring author. But Sam is very naive about life, and especially about sex.One morning while having a romantic dream Sam wakes up to find some messy stuff on his abdomen. Doing what any 14-yr-old boy would do, he goes to mom and tells her he must be very sick, but she explains that he is just going through puberty and what he experienced is normal.By this time Sam had made a friend with 14-yr-old Mischa Barton as Maurey Pierce and, as any 14-yr-old boy might do, explained to Maurey what happened. Sam and Maurey have the type of friendship where they can talk of anything without thinking a topic might be off-limits.All of this brings about the major events that shape the rest of the story. Maurey decides that she wants to learn what sex is all about before she is in love and has to be good at it. She has a boyfriend, but wouldn't think of having sex with him, but asks Sam if he will help her, have sex with her so she can figure it out. Sam of course is taken aback but liking Maurey as more than a friend gladly goes along.Later they casually tell Lydia about what they are doing, with no hint in their minds that it may not be an acceptable activity for teenagers, and Lydia unexpectedly tells them to have their fun, but be sure and stop when Maurey starts her period. So that they won't have a baby, as Lydia did 14 years ago.|The rest of the story involves Lydia taking up with various men in her loose lifestyle, but actually falling for a local Blackfeet native American, Michael Greyeyes as Hank Elkrunner. Plus of course Lydia's dad, old drill Sergeant R. Lee Ermey as Caspar Callahan, shows up to give them orders for their next move.Saw it on Netflix streaming, in spite of the subject it is done very nicely and I enjoyed it.SPOILERS FOLLOW: As time goes by and Sam and Maurey keep up their friendship and experiments with sex, at some point she starts to feel "different". Lydia asks when her last period was, she says she never has had one. She is pregnant, first considers an abortion, but when she gets there finds her own mother there, as a result of an illicit affair with a school teacher. Maurey leaves with Sam and Lydia, moves in with them, and has the baby, a cute little girl. Sam refuses to go to military school as Caspar wanted, instead they stay in Wyoming, Lydia gets a job at the restaurant, Hank moves in with them, they end up one big, happy, very unusual family.

Skipped Parts was a dark comedy, there is no doubt about that. I especially enjoyed the innuendo; it added to the feeling of guilty pleasure you get from watching a movie like this. I guess the typical Leave it to Beaver image of the 1950s in my mind created a sense of perverse pleasure while viewing the characters' twisted lives. Bug Hall's last few lines at the end of this movie summed up it's purpose: the movie is one big statement about the sexual and social paradoxes present in the society of the 1950s and, in all reality, in today's society also. While being poorly developed characters, you cannot help but root for the two kids. The religious right would go ape over this movie, if they watched anything besides The Bible Network. It raises some curious questions about the nature and structure of the family and reproductive responsibility. Overall, I would give it a 6.5 out of 10. A good waste of time, but little else.

This movie in my opinion had some very interesting twists, but I did not want my 7 yr old daughter to watch after I had seen it. In the end, you get the sense that no matter how strange the family, or who makes up a "family", that anything is possible and that no matter how rough the situation, with a strong family and group of friends that you can get though anything. This movie is one that Mothers and teen age daughters could watch together and both learn something about growing up.