“I don’t have to think. I’m Catholic.” — UPDATED

“I don’t have to think. I’m Catholic.” — UPDATED May 2, 2012

That’s the side-splitting punchline Kathleen Turner delivers in the new movie “The Perfect Family.”

Are you laughing yet?

[Crickets chirping.]

Judging from the trailer, the movie traffics in stereotypical insults and anti-Catholic bigotry that would be offensive if they weren’t so predictable, cliched and obvious. But don’t take my word for it.  See the clip below.  It opens Friday. (Awaiting Bill Donohue’s press release on this in 3, 2, 1…)

UPDATE: Variety has a review, with more details:

Although peppered with too-infrequent but unforgettable one-liners delivered by Turner (“I don’t have to think, I’m Catholic!”), the script by Paula Goldberg and Claire V. Riley more often derives mild physical comedy from innocuous jokes on ritual piety: Mrs. Cleary hastily kicks some spilled communion wafers under a pew, then gobbles them up to hide the evidence…

…As a woman who slowly comes to realize she is destroying what she loves most, Turner’s tour-de-force perf meshes the absurdity of her actions with the desperation of her cause. But Deschanel’s lesbian-daughter role, in particular, is diminished by the pic’s graceless lurching from genteel “Sister Act”-type humor to impassioned, melodramatic gay-rights advocacy.

The pic’s main agenda, preaching religious tolerance toward gays, is rarely presented as even remotely humorous (turkey-baster gags notwithstanding) and often clashes with the pic’s comic setups.


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