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Blue Like Jazz | 2012 | PG-13 | - 4.3.4

A young man raised as a Southern Baptist is preparing to leave home and go to a religious college to study writing. When he becomes disillusioned by the people he trusted most in his life, he takes a different turn and learns about life outside religion at a non-religious college. With Marshall Allman, Jason Marsden, Tania Raymonde, Claire Holt, Justin Welborn and William McKinney. Directed by Steve Taylor. [1:46]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A young woman comes out of a trailer wearing a T-shirt (her bare legs to the hip are shown) and it is implied that she and an older man have had sex (a professor/student relationship). A young man sits on another young man's lap and kisses him (it's not implied to be sexual).
 We see a man doing landscaping outside a woman's home and he removes his shirt (we see his bare chest). A young man takes off his clothes for a young woman to wash and we see him bare-chested and wearing boxer shorts. A young woman at a party is shown wrapped in a sheet (presumably nude underneath and we see her bare shoulders). A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage. An animated sequence shows a female carrot with cleavage. Three young men march through a college campus area wearing only diapers (bare chests, backs and legs are seen). A young man is shown wearing only jockey shorts (his bare chest and abdomen are visible). A young woman wears a short top that reveals her tattooed bare abdomen.
 A young man dressed in a rabbit costume tackles a young woman dressed in a carrot costume. An animated sequence shows a voluptuous female carrot being ogled by a presumably male rabbit.
 A man talks about a boy telling him that a priest raped him. A young man walks a young woman to her dorm room, she says goodnight and he tries to go into the room, she tells him to leave and he does. A man enters a young man's dorm room, wakes the young man and tells him "There's a Lesbian in your bed." A young woman enters a young man's dorm room and climbs into bed with him (she is troubled because the young woman that she likes is not gay); she asks if she can stay the night and he asks jokingly if they can have sex (in crude terms), she says no, they talk and he holds her. A young woman cries and says of another young woman, "She's straight and she doesn't even experiment," and then "I love her." A young woman talks about another young woman in romantic terms. A man dressed in a Pope outfit stands near a structure in the shape of a penis and distributes condoms while saying "Herpes is forever." A woman tells her adult son that she is pregnant with a married man's child. We hear a phone message left for a woman and it sounds romantic; her adult son overhears the message and becomes alarmed that his mother might be having a relationship with a man. A young woman warns a young man that he needs to closet his religion if he ever wants to have sex without paying for it. A young man asks another young man if he's "getting any action." A young man talks about another young man's mother having sex with a landscape maintenance person and describes how he would "take off his shirt all slow..." Two young women talk about a woman breastfeeding a pig.
 We see a large, phallic shaped cover placed over a church steeple and a sign at the doorway that reads, "Don't let these people reproduce." A bumper sticker reads, "Abstinence makes the church grow toddlers."
 A young woman ogles other young women in a few scenes. " A young man realizes that his mother is having an affair with the youth pastor of his church.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A young man with a tire iron pounds on the back window of a car (it does not break) and then kicks the bumper (it falls off). A young man and a young woman deface a billboard with spray paint; they are arrested and we see them in a prison cell. A man burns books in a few scenes. We see a manger scene outside a church with an empty bed where the baby Jesus should be and a sign that reads "Put Christ back in Christmas." A young man uses a plastic sword to break open a piñata in the shape of a cross and small cups of wine are strewn on the floor around several children.
 We see a tent set up on a campus and people are taken in for treatment after drinking too much; a young woman talks about someone being dehydrated. A young man vomits after getting drunk (we see him heaving). A young man vomits after drinking too much (we see the goo). A pre-teen girl vomits a white liquid (we see the spray) and a man asks, "Who wants more sugar." A young man chews tobacco and spits the juice and some of the tobacco in a cup that he then places back on an assembly line. We hear that a nun drank from the cup that a young man had spit his tobacco juice in and that she became very sick from it.
 A young man wakes up in a port-o-potty and cannot get out; he pounds on the walls and screams for help until someone on the outside rolls the unit over and the young man crawls out (he is smeared with dirt or feces). A young man urinates in a urinal (we hear the trickle), two young women enter the bathroom, and one enters a stall and the other urinates in the stall next to the young man (we hear the trickle).
 Someone dressed in a bear costume steals a young man's bike, and he chases the bear on the bike until the bear throws the bike off a bridge and into water below. A young man jumps off a stage and into the arms of people below (no one is harmed).
 Several young men and women disguised as robots invade a large bookstore and try to convince customers that they shouldn't buy books there. A man talks about a boy telling him that a priest raped him. We hear about an earthquake in India killing 16,000 people. A young woman asks if a young man participated in burning flags at a gay soldier's funeral. A man performs a marionette skit for several children in church and says that the puppet is sad because he "heard about what happened on the cross." Several people tell a young man not to "get brainwashed." A man makes a snide remark about a young man getting a "preaching degree." A man asks a young man "How did God mess you up?" A man dressed in a Pope costume tells a young man to "Go with dog." A man talks about Christianity being the Taliban in training. A young woman talks about conditions in India and poverty. A man tells his adult son that college is cheaper than having him kidnapped and deprogrammed. A young woman talks about her mother getting sick and that she hears and sees things.
 A young man throws a ball for a dog and the second time the ball bounces over a cliff (the dog goes to the edge and whimpers).

LANGUAGE 4 - 1 not fully enunciated F-word, 9 sexual references, 11 scatological terms, 6 anatomical terms, 14 mild obscenities, name-calling (sucker, nerd babes, chicks, pot head, cook, fat, wacko, hateful bullying tribe, freak, coward, hypocrite, racist, inbred, retards, "gashole" is painted on a car), exclamations (shut up), 4 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man and a young man eat brownies laced with something (they do not specify), and a man talks about being under the influence of PCP. A young man vomits after getting drunk, a man drinks a beer and offers one to a young man (he declines), a man and a young man drink shots of something and scream, two young men are shown playing "cocktail tennis" where they each drink cocktails while playing tennis, two young men drink beer, a young man holds a bottle of alcohol and drinks from it, a young man talks about having a "beer buzz" and a "holiday hangover," three empty beverage cans fall out of a young man's car and one is a Red Bull (the others are not clear), and a bumper sticker has something about Jesus and being drunk written on it. A young man chews tobacco in a few scenes, and a young woman puts a cigarette in her mouth (we do not see her light it).

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Piety, betrayal, religion, faith, being free, confession, angels, jazz, resolution, individuality, hate, homosexuality, bi-sexuality, civil disobedience, consumerism, corporate greed, bi-curiosity, fate, people are flawed, does God exist, existential crises, loneliness, Christianity, forgiveness, superiority, hope, being bad, culture war, the human dilemma, Mormonism, archetype vs. stereotype.

MESSAGE - Finding your way is a challenge. Make what you will out of your religion.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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