This past Christmas movie season woefully lacked family fare

• As is common in children’s movies today, bodily function gags are crass and frequent, as when Artie gets a baseball bat to the crotch and vomits on a child, when his grandson urinates in public, and with an extended public toilet sequence (with an added punch line from that sequence after the film’s end credits), etc.

• There are occasional innuendos alluding to sex, which will go over the heads of most children, but which prompt the question: Why are they here at all?

• Diane teaches a pole-dancing class in her living room, and in conversation with her granddaughter refers inappropriately to having enjoyed drinking and smoking in the past, then quickly backpeddles.

One bright note is that the film contains no profanity, although there are vulgar words and phrases, and many of these jokes play as if they are Crystal’s ad libs, as if he thinks he’s in a “Saturday Night Live” skit where creating a believable character is unimportant and lame one-liner shtick saves the day.

Ironically, calling this movie “Parental Guidance” and then having it receive a PG rating despite all the content listed above points to a lot that is wrong with the movie-rating system — and also with Hollywood, since this represents its sole effort at December family fare.

We can only hope this was an anomaly and not the beginning of a trend.

E-MAIL: hicks@desnews.com