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I know it may seem a little cheap to go with another video review after last week's awesome Halloween Tricks vs. Treats showdown, but big things are happening in the Jenness world, and it's caused me to have to adjust my schedule slightly. My second child, a daughter this time, was born Monday, and as such, I've been thinking about that sub-genre of Hollywood films that I refer to as the "family" film.

I'm not referring to the fun-for-the-whole-family fare that cater to kids and their harried parents. Rather I mean movies about families, both the having, and the getting. These films span the genres from horror to action to comedy, and not surprisingly, considering the universality of the theme, many of them are not bad.

On the other hand, many of them are. Here then is a quick sampling of some of the so-called "family" films that have graced the silver screen:

The Good, the Bad, and the Iffy: "Raising Arizona"

This is one of my all-time favorite films. One of the Coen Brothers' early efforts, this elaborate fable about kidnapping is fall-out-of-your seat hilarious and reminds one of simpler days before Nicholas Cage was swallowed up by the big-budget action-movie machine. The story in a nutshell goes thusly: Holly Hunter and hubby Cage can't conceive, but want a baby so bad they'd move heaven and earth to get one. Brilliant performances all around, but one of the most indelible images on film is that of bellowing bull John Goodman hurtling down the road in a stolen car, covered in blue paint, screaming, "You never leave a man behind!"

Grade: Great!

"Rosemary's Baby" and "Children of Men"

These films are each a brilliant example of how bleak the genre can get. In the finally-arrested Roman Polansky's horror masterpiece "Rosemary's Baby," Mia Farrow finds out too late that her unborn child's paternity is not exactly what she was expecting. Even more frightening than the idea of giving birth to the son of Satan, however, is the chilling climax wherein we see that a mother's love knows no bounds. Yikes.

"Children of Men," on the other hand, gives us the possibility the birth of a savior, which would be nice considering that it's set in a world where, for two decades, there hasn't been a single baby born across the planet. Anarchy and chaos are the rule of the day in this sad, frightening, but ultimately hopeful pseudo-sci-fi flick.

Grade: Good, but not much of a pick-me-up.

"Parenthood"

Ron Howard's comedy/drama about the trials and joys of family is really the poster-child for the genre. It's got pregnancy, toddlers, teens, and teen parents -- middle and upper-class families, and those just scraping by. Ron Howard is a great director, and working here with a brilliant ensemble cast, he manages to encompass one of the most vast and varied aspects of the human condition into a mere 124 minutes. Not bad.

On the other hand, "Parenthood" is the rare good example of one of the biggest pitfalls filmmakers run into when making these movies. Everything about having a family has to be amped to the extreme. The result is that you get films like "Cheaper by the Dozen," and the if-you-think-12-is-tough-try-18 knock-off, "Yours, Mine, Ours." These movies make it look like kids are either demolishing the house, projectile vomiting, or soiling themselves 24 hours a day, and often doing all three at once. I suppose these movies should be considered a form of birth control, and I'll support anything that scares teenagers away from premature procreation, but honestly, parenthood's not that bad.

Grade: Good, though leaning heavily toward Lame.

"Knocked Up" and "She's Having a Baby"

These are two heartfelt and very well made comedies, but I think if I had it to do over again, I would put them on a list of films not to watch while pregnant. The idea here is to try and gently capture the essence of what life is like during those nine tumultuous months, leading up to those last terrifying few hours, but in doing so they offer a sampling of all the different things that could possibly go wrong (along with, to be fair, some of the things that go right, though those are never as funny).

The problem is that those situations which might well look funny in hindsight, are not funny at all when you're actually staring them in the face. We actually saw "Knocked Up" while pregnant with our first child and came away somewhat shell-shocked.

Grade: For those either on the far side of the this experience or those who see it in the distant future, these movies are Pretty Good. For those in the middle, they're akin to watching a plane crash movie on a cross-country flight.

The Rest

There are a whole host of movies in this genre that I would gladly label "bad," except that I, in anticipation of their awfulness, never saw them. These would include the Swarzenegger-with-child horrorshow "Junior," the similarly-themed "Rabbit Test" which introduced the world to Billy Crystal as a leading man, and the mega-hit "Three Men and a Baby." (OK, I did see that last one. Who didn't?) These movies are just insulting because they assume that a) men are incapable of empathy without this bizarro science-fiction set-up; and b) men placed in any kind of childcare environment would be reduced to drooling idiots.

I'll certainly admit that women have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to issues of sexism, but these movies just stick in my craw. The worst of the worst, however, and again, I'll have to assume, would have to be the idiotic "Look Who's Talking" series, which do to babies basically what "Babe" did to pigs. Here's a hint in case any future sequels are planned: computer generated mouths on animals are cute; on humans they're downright creepy.

Grade: Skip!

Chris Jenness is a freelance graphic designer, artist and movie buff who lives in Nikiski.