A "Hoot"

One thing that bugs me about a lot of movies aimed at kids is the three or four cuss words that they toss in there for no apparent reason. In most cases, they do nothing to advance the stories or the characters and just leave parents shaking their heads. Really, even going back to my youth, would "Smokey and the Bandit" would have been any worse without all the cussin?

Don't get me wrong: I'm no puritan. And I've seen my share of movies with vulgarity, nudity and graphic violence. I'm not against them. I don't think some of my favorite movies, such as "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Sideways," would be as funny with G-rated words. And it wouldn't have been in line with the characters. But 10-year-olds weren't their target audience.

Which brings me to the movie "Hoot," which my 7-year-old son has wanted to see ever since we saw the trailers a year or so ago and he noticed Jimmy Buffett was in it (he also produced it), and Saylor knows I'm a huge Parrothead (which is another word for Buffett fans for those of you without advanced vocabularies).

So we got the movie through the cable's "on demand" service, and it turned out to be what a kids' movie ought to be. Kids standing up for a good cause. Good guys win. Bad guys lose. Silly jokes. Cute animals. Cute kids. Positive message. And not a single dirty word or even the slightest sexual innuendo.

For an adult, it was predictable, but tolerable. I enjoyed it just for the mix of music (provided mainly by Buffett and friends, including a reggae-style revamping of his mid-1980s song "Floridays") and the Florida scenery. It's based on Carl Hiaasen's book of the same name, and when nonconformists like Hiaasen and Buffett team up, good things usually happen.

There's some stuff Hiaasen has written that I wouldn't want Saylor to read. And there are plenty of Buffett songs I won't let him hear. But it's nice to know some folks know that there's a time and a place for everything. If only everyone else were as reasonable.

Anyway, if you've got kids in the 5-13 age range, check out this movie. And when the kids go to bed, watch "Harold and Kumar" for the umpteenth time. It's get funnier every time.