I went to see The Descendants and found myself sitting beside two morons and their baby.

Elysha and I went to the movie last night for Valentines Day.  We saw a 7:35 PM showing of The Descendants, which we liked a lot. We arrived to the theater at 7:15 PM and were the first people to enter the theater.  We had the luxury of choosing our favorite seats.  It’s so nice when you and your spouse agree on the optimal view location in a movie theater.

Slowly the theater began to fill up.  At 7:35 PM the movie began.

At 7:50 PM a couple walked in and sat one seat to my left.  The woman, who was sitting closest to me, leaned over and asked how much they had missed.

“Not much,” I said, and it was true.  They had missed the movie trailers and about five or ten minutes of the actual film. Still, don’t walk in late and disturb someone who managed to arrive on time.

Then she extracted her six-month old baby from the baby carrier strapped to her chest and placed it on her knee.

Yes. A baby.

The baby began making baby sounds almost immediately.  Coos and whines and the occasional whimper.  Once or twice the baby began to fuss and actually cry.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman, with the baby still sitting on her lap, learned over and asked me to clarify a plot point.

Two minutes later she asked for another clarification.

Five minutes after that, she began changing the baby’s diaper with the help of the husband/boyfriend/lunatic moron sitting beside her. Then she began to nurse the baby.

Five minutes later, Elysha and I finally ceded our optimal seating and moved to the back, away from the baby.

Twice during the film, the baby began seriously crying and had to be removed from the theater. Both times the woman returned with the baby after a few minutes.

My wife and I debated saying something during or after the film. I have frequently confronted people in theaters who are talking on phones, texting or talking to their companions.  Once I forced a band of wandering teenagers to leave the theater and find another movie under threat of violence.

So I am not averse to confrontation. Nor is my wife.

Had these selfish, stupid, negligent parents entered the theater on time, I would have told them to leave. Had they refused, I would have insisted that management remove them.

Had they entered the theater during the trailers or even one minute into the film, I would have done the same thing.

But they entered ten minutes into the film, which left me with few options.

If you are willing to bring a six month old baby into a 7:35 PM showing of a rated R film on Valentines Day, you are clearly beyond reason. Arguing with them, debating with them or telling them how incredibly selfish and stupid they were would have been pointless.

Satisfying, but pointless.

Most important, it might have resulted in a full blown altercation, thus compromising the viewing of the movie for myself and those around me.

It’s different than telling a jackass to get off his phone. He can be easily be shamed into turning off his phone and watching the film.  But you can’t turn off a baby.  The only solution is to leave the theater, and convincing selfish, stupid people to do this is considerably more difficult.

I could have exited the theater, found a manager, explained the situation and had the parents removed, but doing so would have also compromised my viewing of the film. There is no pause button in the movie theater. I would have missed significant portions of the movie in an effort to have these selfish morons and their baby tossed from the theater, and even then, there was no guarantee that management would have sided with me.

There is a solution to this problem, and it is a simple one:

Movie theaters should not allow babies into films like The Descendants.

In fact, movie theaters should not allow babies into any film that are not rated G and made specifically for children.

Actually, I don’t think that infants belong in a movie theater at all.  If your child is not old enough to sit up in his or her own seat, then your child does not belong in a movie theater.

But I’m willing to let this rule slide for rated G films.

Seems like an obvious solution, and yet these two selfish morons were allowed to purchase tickets and enter the theater with a baby, thus diminishing the movie-going experience for the fifty people around them.

And before you try to tell me that this is a once-in-a-lifetime problem, it’s not. My wife and I once found ourselves sitting next to a couple and their infant while watching Cloverfield, a PG-13 monster movie that was so violent that Elysha was worried about our daughter being exposed to the film from inside the womb. In that instance, the movie was so loud and so terrifying that the morons sitting next to us managed to activate enough brain cells to realize that bringing their baby to a monster movie was not a good idea and left.

Last night’s couple not only failed to come to this realization, but they also had the audacity to ask me questions during the movie, change a diaper and breast feed.

Best of all, when I arrived home that night, I handed $50 over to our babysitter, because we decided to leave our three-year old at home on Valentines Day rather than drag her into the movie theater. These jackasses compromised the enjoyment of everyone around them and avoided the expense of a babysitter as well.

I have decided in the course of writing this post to call the theater this afternoon and speak to a manager. I will explain what happened last night and ask for the company policy on bringing babies into films like The Descendants.

Basically, I want to know if this couple snuck their baby into the film or were allowed to enter with it.

If the couple snuck their baby into the film, so be it. There is nothing that the movie theater could do absent frisking every person who enters, but even that would be fine by me. I am frisked every time I enter Gillette Stadium to watch the Patriots play and would be more than willing to submit to a search at the movie theater as well.

But if there is no company policy regarding bringing babies into a film like The Descendants, then I don’t know what I am going to say.

But it should be interesting.

I’ll keep you updated.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A great movie tragically marred by Steven Spielberg's failure to engage in unprotected sex.

I’ve been watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind again.

I have always thought of this film as flawless.

Slate’s Bill Wyman recently watched all of Spielberg's films and rated Close Encounters of the Third Kind as one of Spielberg’s best.

While I still agree that the film is excellent, fatherhood has unexpectedly changed one component of the movie for me, and unfortunately, it’s a big one.

Richard Dreyfuss’ character, Roy, in case you don’t remember, is the protagonist whose brief encounter with alien spaceships leaves an image implanted in his mind of the location where the aliens intend to land and make contact with representatives of the US and world government (an unnamed mountain in Wyoming). There are hundreds of people who are implanted with the same vision throughout the world, but Roy is one of only two people who actual make it to the mountain and manage to dodge the military in order to witness the arrival of the aliens.

It turns out there is a reason why the aliens want Roy at the landing site:

They want to take him with them. Although there is a team of jumpsuit-clad, government-trained soldiers ready to go with the aliens, these military bozos are rejected by the aliens.

Instead, Roy is the only one permitted to go.

He does. He boards the ship and the film ends with it lifting off into outer space.

One problem: Roy is married with kids.

Even though the marriage seems to have been going well until Roy becomes fixated on his vision of the mountain, I’ll give him a pass on abandoning his wife, since she leaves with the kids when Roy’s obsession causes him to build a ten foot tall dirt model of the mountain in his living room.

It’s not much of a pass, but I’ll give him a pass.

But Roy also has two kids. Sons. Boys who will not only never see their father again but will never know where he went.

Prior to being a father, this detail washed over me without notice. But with children of my own, this plot point now looms large in the film, and it causes a character who is supposed to be likable, honorable and revered to be considerably less so in my eyes.

As Roy prepares to board the ship, the lead scientist turns to him and says, “I envy you.”

Sitting alone in my living room, I actually said aloud, “Don’t envy the bastard. He’s abandoning his children. Probably forever.”

It’s an example how how parenthood can change your perspective on life forever.

Spielberg was not married and did not have children in 1977 when Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released. He would not have children for another decade, so it’s likely that the prospect of children had not even entered his consciousness yet.

I can’t help but wonder if things might have been different for Dreyfuss’ character if Spielberg had children at the time he made the film. Roy’s sons could have easily been removed from the film entirely with nothing substantial lost in terms of the story.

I suspect that Spielberg had a blind spot in 1977, and that allowed him to send his protagonist to space while his protagonist’s family remained behind, utterly forgotten.

There isn’t a single moment in the film when Roy even thinks about the prospect of leaving his family.

In a 2007 interview, Spielberg confessed that if he had a chance to make this movie today, Dreyfuss’ character would never have abandoned his family to go to outer space.

Was Spielberg blind to this flaw in his film because he did not have children of his own?

I suspect so. I suspect that I might have done the same thing.

If asked if I would abandon my wife and daughter today in order to be one of the first human beings to visit an alien world, I would say no without having to think twice.

But if asked ten years ago, prior to my marriage and the birth of my daughter, if I would have considered abandoning a hypothetical family in order to make a historic visit to an alien world, I might have said yes. I can envision myself making arguments about the magnitude and scope of such a journey in comparison to the commonality and frequency of fatherhood and marriage.

And I would have been foolish and naive and wrong.

Just as I suspect Spielberg was in 1977 when he sent his protagonist into space, leaving a family behind.

Perfect descriptor

My wife is very funny, but she gets little credit for her sense of humor and scoffs at any attempt to assert that she is funny. 

But she is. 

This is a perfect example:

We drove by a billboard advertising this movie a couple weeks ago, and she said, “That sounds like a movie about my family.”

Very funny.  Very true.

The Emperor might have been better off with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker foiling his plans

Star Wars fans, I have a question: What exactly was the Emperor's endgame?

Let’s say that he managed to crush the rebel alliance and turn Luke to the dark side.

Then what?

So he rules the galaxy? Was his ultimate goal to be the boss of everyone?

It seems a little anticlimactic to me.

Did he really want to be the one to determine marginal tax rates, the legal drinking age, and sentencing guidelines for white collar criminals?

Because once the rebels are gone, aren’t these the only kinds of decision left to make?

Or did the Emperor have a grander vision? Perhaps a Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street view in terms of the direction that the galaxy’s economy should be headed?

Even then, should this really be the concern of a Sith Lord?

It seems to me that the worst thing for the Emperor would have been the complete elimination of the rebel alliance.

Eliminate the opposition and what are you left with?

Determining the import tariffs on bantha meat? Assigning patents on droid technology? Christening unnecessary Death Stars?

There’s something to be said for having enemies.

Boy learns that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father for the first time

This is hilarious, and I will certainly make a point of doing the same someday when my children discover the secret of Darth Vader.

Better still, it makes me wonder what other reactions might I want to record.

Thoughts?

Elmo

I would’ve never given this film or its trailer a moment of my time prior to the birth of my daughter. After witnessing the insanity of the Tickle Me Elmo craze, I had nothing but negative feelings for the stupid orange puppet. But now that I’ve seen him in action, I love the little guy. I want to be his friend. He makes me wish that I could live on Sesame Street.

There’s something so innocent and kind and joyous about Elmo that I am forced to stop and watch every time he is on the screen.

I can’t wait to see this film.

The lesson: You can kill mothers, fathers, and children galore. But don’t ever kill the dog.

I Am Legend is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film loosely based upon Richard Matheson’s novel of the same name. It stars Will Smith as one of the few survivors of a plague that has killed most of humankind and left many in a zombie/vampire-like state. It opened to the largest ever box office for a non-Christmas film released in December and was the seventh highest grossing film of 2007.

The film also sold 7 million DVD's, making it the sixth best selling DVD in 2008. However Warner Bros. was reportedly “a little disappointed” by the film’s performance in the DVD market.

And I’ll tell you why sales were disappointing.

The dog.

While helping to save Will Smith’s character from certain death, his dog becomes infected with the virus, and after much consternation, Smith’s character is forced to put the animal down.

It is the scene that prevents me from ever watching this film again, and I suspect it’s the scene that has suppressed DVD sales and has kept the film from being plastered all over the basic cable channels like so many other of Will Smith’s blockbuster movies.

It’s not the violence or gore of the scene, because there is none.

It’s because no one wants to see a dog die.

It’s that simple.

Kill mothers and fathers and children galore, and people will be more than happy to watch the movie again and again.

Smith’s blockbuster Independence Day is a perfect example. Millions of people are killed in that movie, including the President’s wife, who dies tragically under the watchful eyes of her husband and daughter.

A father gives up his life while his son listens on and a best friend dies while Smith’s character looks on and can do nothing.

And like I Am Legend, there is a dog in that movie, too. Once again, it’s a dog owned by Smith’s character. In fact, the two dogs look so much alike that they could be the same dog.

Perhaps they are.

And guess what?

The dog in Independence Day survives.

It appears in the final scene of the film.

And Independence Day airs on basic cable all the time.

Warner Bros. left a lot of money on the table when they decided to kill that dog in I Am Legend.

For a great many people, including me, that film became unwatchable the second time around.

Wikipedia: I could read this stuff all day long

I love Wikipedia. I think it is one of the single greatest creations in human history. Reading Wikipedia has become a bit of a passion for me. Though there is always a reason I find myself plowing through a passage, I am never disappointed with what I find.

A couple days ago I read the entry for "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", one of my favorite Beatles’ songs, looking for the origin behind the phrase Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

It turns out that Paul stole it from an African conga player and was later sued for royalties.

I also learned that Paul wrote the song but John hated it, eventually forcing a more up-tempo beat after a heated exchange.

Also, the line, "Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face" was a mistake. Paul sung the line incorrectly during a recording session (Molly was supposed to be at home, doing her pretty face), but the rest of the band liked the mistake so much that it stuck.

Yesterday I read the entry for Dirty Dancing, learning among other things that Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze did not get along during much of the filming of the movie, something you might have never guessed based upon the final product.

Also, Dirty Dancing is in large part based on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood. She is the younger daughter of a Jewish doctor from New York, spent summers with her family in the Catskills, participated in "Dirty Dancing" competitions, and was herself called "Baby" as a girl.

Bergstein was apparently talking about herself when she wrote, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.”

See what I mean? Every entry is a fascinating story waiting to be discovered.

For all it’s greatness, however, Wikipedia does have it's problems. The most glaring (other than a lack of an entry for me) is its frequent need for a professional editor.

This morning I was researching New Jersey Turnpike rest stops for the book I am writing. The Turnpike names each of its rest stops after famous people from New Jersey, and I needed the name of a northbound rest stop close to New York.

Naturally I found it on Wikipedia.

But the list (pasted below) needs an editor badly. The blinding repetition and unnecessary redundancy contained made me want to pull my hair out.

Clara Barton Service Area named after Clara Barton. Molly Pitcher Service Area named after Molly Pitcher. Thomas Edison Service Area named after… you guessed it. Thomas Edison.

And yes, I know that I could edit the list myself and thus contribute a small part to the greatness of Wikipedia, but I am in the midst of writing at least three books (not to mention this blog, a children’s book, a short story, and a dozen other smaller pieces), so my time and energy are best directed elsewhere.

And besides, I try to avoid writing for free at all costs.

Also, there are people in the world who actually enjoy writing, editing and otherwise maintaining Wikipedia.

I enjoy benefiting from their efforts.

“Nobody puts baby in the corner” changes ever-so-slightly with fatherhood

Things change when you have a child. You begin to feel differently about a multitude of life’s experiences.

The entire world takes on new meaning and nuance.

Take Dirty Dancing.

Pre-fatherhood, I watched Patrick Swayze tell Jerry Orbach that “Nobody puts baby in the corner” and thought, “Hell yeah, Johnny Castle! You let that patronizing old fool have a piece of your mind! He doesn’t deserve Baby for a daughter! Damn straight nobody puts Baby in a corner!”

Now that I’m a father, things have changed slightly.

Now I watch Patrick Swayze tell Jerry Orbach that “Nobody puts baby in the corner” and think, “If I were Jerry Orbach’s character, I would jam my steak knife into that greaser’s gut and twist it until he was dead at my feet. No one, and I mean no one, is going to tell me how to raise my daughter, let alone take her out from under my wing with a stupid line like that. Especially not some summer camp male slut dance instructor. Over my dead body, Johnny Castle.  Over my dead body, you pathetic piece of dance hall trash.”

See the difference?

Fatherhood changes everything.

A convergence of fabulousness

Written by Jason Segel. Directed by James Bobin, the creator of Flight of the Conchords.

Starring Segel and Amy Adams, and featuring, among others, Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms.

Sounds like a damn good movie. Right?

It’s The Muppet Movie.

Yes, I think I’m going to have to see it. Even if Clara will not.

My simple but effective solution to the idiots who text in the movie theater

The Star Telegram reports that 250-pound Dale Fout, who describes himself as “a pretty big guy, broad, not fat,” is suing 132-pound Brenda Godwin after she assaulted him for texting during a movie in a local theater. Mr. Fout states::

"I got a text, and I responded to it because it was something important. It was something that was on a deadline situation, OK. I held it against my chest purposely where I could barely see it. ... I could text but hide the majority of the light coming from the phone.

She said something. I couldn't make it out. That's why I turned. She was probably saying something like, 'Get off your phone.' I turned, and she pushed. She just happened to push my neck at the time my neck was in an awkward position. Kinda like having a little fender bender, and you get a little whiplash in your neck, you know."

According to Godwin, she reached over and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

The police stated that they remain neutral in these situations but added that "assault by contact is usually not something like this. It's usually a shove."

There are lots of things wrong here.

First, Fout’s first two sentences:

"I got a text, and I responded to it because it was something important. It was something that was on a deadline situation, OK.”

No Dale, not okay.  If you are on a deadline, don’t go to the theater.

YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO TEXT DURING A MOVIE.

You are told so prior to the movie. I don’t care how close you held the phone to your chest.

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TEXT DURING A MOVIE.

If you’re on a deadline, stay home or set your goddamn phone to vibrate.  When you feel the vibration, get up and leave the theater. Then text.

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TEXT DURING A MOVIE.

I also have a problem with a grown man suing a woman half his size for an assault which took place from a sitting position when, by his own admission, it did not include the punch or slap that he most certainly deserved.

A shove, Dale? From one bolted-down theater seat to another?

Have you forgotten what it is to be a man?

Texting in movie theaters has become an conundrum for me as well. When people choose to talk in theaters, either on the phone or to one another, I always go on the offensive to stop them. Standing up, I point myself in the direction of the offenders and let them have it, secure in the knowledge that the voices that I am hearing are surely being heard by others, and therefore I am doing everyone a favor by silencing them despite my temporary disruption.

I received a round of applause once for letting two women in the back row have it.

I once frightened an entire group of teenagers from a theater for talking during the show.

But texting is new and challenging for me. Yes, the glow of the goddamn cellphone is disturbing me, but it might only be disturbing me. The phone might be angled in such a way that only I can see it. If I were to rise and verbally assault the offender, as I have done in the past, I might be creating an even larger disruption that the rest of the theater does not need or want.

And the glow of a cellphone can reach far and wide, so in order to stop these idiots like Dale from disturbing the movie, I might have to talk over two or three rows of people just to get the offenders attention.

It’s a real problem. I’m still not sure what to do in these case.

But I have a proposal:

I would like movie theaters to run a new “No texting” request prior to the movie. It would require the assistance of a well-known, well-respected, utterly unimpeachable actor.

I choose Matt Damon, but others will do as well.

Damon comes on the screen and says the following (in his original Boston accent):

Hi, I’m Matt Damon. Thanks for coming to the movies today. Listen folks, don’t turn on your cellphone until the movie is over. No talking, no texting, no checking IMDB halfway through the film to see what other movie you saw that guy in. None of that nonsense. Okay?

And listen, if you do turn on your cellphone to talk or text, I am charging the rest of the theater audience, all of you decent, sane, reasonable people who would never be so stupid as to start texting or talking during a movie, to immediately put a stop to it. Call that idiot out. Tell them to put the damn phone away. Shame the jackass into doing the right thing. And feel secure in the knowledge that you will be supported by the rest of your theater going brethren. And me.  

Right everybody?

The people who make these movies have worked too hard to have their labors spoiled by some dumbass who can’t wait to text, and you have spent too much money to see this movie to let some dumbass spoil your enjoyment with his or her cellphone. 

Sometimes it’s easier to take a stand when you are given permission to and when you are guaranteed support. I hereby give you permission, and your fellow audience members are now charged with instantly supporting you.

Go ahead dimwit.  I dare you to text or talk now.   

Enjoy the movie, folks.

My friends think I’m crazy, but I honestly believe that a message like this, delivered by an actor like Damon, would solve almost all our talking and texting problems.

Admittedly, it probably would not have deterred Dale, but no solution is ever 100% effective.

Any man who is willing to sue a woman for a tap or even a shove in a movie theater after being stupid enough to text is beyond help.

In Dale’s case, the woman should have clobbered him.

And I think Matt Damon would agree.

Most improbable moment in Hollywood history comes from the classic film The Goonies

There have been many improbable moments in movie history, but I would argue that there is nothing more improbable than the final scene from The Goonies, in which Chunk invites Sloth to live with him.

Let’s put all custody issues aside, though they would be considerable.

Is the movie-goer really expected to believe that Chunk’s parents are going to assume responsibility for this inarticulate, mentally challenged, rage-prone man simply because their son loves him?

Presuming that this lower-middle class family has the space in their home for this seven-foot monster, the dental expenses alone would be astronomical.

Add to this the speech therapy, plastic surgery, job training and years of counseling that will be required in order to overcome the fact that he was physically and mentally abused by his siblings, rejected by his mother, forced to live in chains in the basement for most of his adult life, and is ultimately responsible for his family's incarceration.

sloth

Is this even within the means of Chunk’s parents?

Remember that this is a family who was about to lose their home to a wealthy land developer. Sure, they have the profit from the sale of some pirate jewels, but are we expected to believe that will be enough money after paying off the mortgages of half a dozen families to fund Sloth’s life of constant, continuous  care?

Or that Mikey, the owner of the jewels, would even be willing to provide such funding?

And what happens to Sloth when Chunk goes off to college?

His parents are stuck living with and caring for an enormous, mentally deficient man thanks to a spur-of-the-moment offer made by their son while in the throes of post-traumatic stress?

I don’t think so.

As a writer, the decision was simple:

Sloth should have died while saving the Goonies from certain death back in the cave or he should have been seen in the final frame of the movie, wearing an eye-patch and a pirate hat, steering One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship on its final voyage.

Sloth might be the hero of the film, but let’s face it:

No one wants to live with him.

Even his mother kept him chained in the basement.

And while we’re on the subject of The Goonies, how the hell did director Richard Donner (and writers Stephen Spielberg and Chris Columbus) get away with naming his pirate One-Eyed Willy in a kid’s movie?

And please don’t tell me that any phallic allusions associated with that name did not exist in 1985, because they did. I was thirteen at the time and I remember cracking up every time someone said One-Eyed Willy’s name, and I still giggle sometimes when hearing it today.

What could Donner have been thinking?

Winnie the Pooh aborted. Too damn frightening.

My wife and I attempted to take our daughter to her first movie yesterday. In truth, Clara has been to many movies as an infant but has no recollection as she was asleep for all of them.

She attended two movies designed for mothers of little babies. Scheduled for the afternoon, the volume is turned down on these films, the lights are kept up, and a baby changing station is positioned in the front of the theater. Babies are able to sleep or nurse while moms (and this dad) are able to take in a movie.

The only problem is that the choice of films is sometimes questionable. My wife saw My Sister’s Keeper (which is supposedly heart-wrenching), and we saw The Time Traveler’s Wife together (which also ends badly).

Not the best choices for a bunch of hormonal, post-partum mothers.

Clara also went to several drive-in movies with us, sleeping in the back seat while we caught a double feature.

Why the parents of infants don’t do this more often is beyond me.

Unfortunately, we had to abort our movie-going attempt yesterday when my daughter became semi-hysterical, screaming, “I want to go somewhere else! I want to go somewhere else!”

It was all a little overwhelming for her. The volume of the trailers was exceedingly loud and the theater was very dark.

Even on Mommy’s lap, it was a no-go.

But I learned a few interesting tidbits from our failed attempt:

1. Because my daughter has only watched programming on our local PBS station, she has never been exposed to a commercial before, and so the commercials shown prior to the movie were the first she had ever seen.  And they were loud, fast paced, and fairly frightening as a result.

2. Because my daughter has only watched programming on our local PBS station (and two animated films on the couch), she has not been exposed to the slapstick comedy and the danger and violence inherent in even the most benign of children’s movies. The preview for Puss in Boots scared the hell out of her, even while it was making my wife and me laugh out loud.

Red-eyed boars.

Guns firing off.

Puss crashing through a wooden box and being struck in the head by a boot.

Swordplay.

It’s all innocent enough, I think, for a kid exposed to this kind of entertainment before, but for Clara, it was overwhelming and terrifying.

3.  Even the animated short, The Ballad of Nessie, which opens the film, was too much for her. It told the story of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, and how she is forced to leave her pond when golf course developers take over the land. No matter where Nessie goes, she cannot find a new home.  Eventually, she cries the tears that so many have told her to suppress, and in doing so, she creates a loch of her very own.

It was one of those stories that is 95% tragedy and 5% happiness, and that percentage was evident in my daughter’s reaction to the piece. As we left the theater, all Clara could talk about was how sad Nessie had been, and how she had cried and cried and cried. It took all of our efforts to convince her that Nessie was fine, now, and happily swimming in her own pond.

Unfortunately, Clara has an outstanding long term memory, so I suspect that it will be a long time before we can attempt another trip to the movies.

She will remember this harrowing experience for a very long time.

Perhaps we should’ve waited until she was older.

Maybe we could have entered the theater after the previews had finished.

It’s possible that a steady diet of PBS is not conducive to the viewing of mainstream Hollywood moviemaking.

Oh well. At least I won’t have to sit through a bunch of bad children’s movies for a while.

I also was left wondering about the two separate groups of adults (a foursome and a twosome)  who were also in the theater to watch this one hour Winnie the Pooh film without any children in tow.

These people exist? And if so, who the hell are they?

Harry Potter wants my wife

I don’t like the advertising slogan for the new Harry Potter film one bit.   

IT ALL ENDS.
     7.15

My wedding anniversary is July 15. 

I keep expecting Daniel Radcliff to knock down my front door, flourishing a magical wand and a flying broom, and steal my somewhat willing wife away.  

Desperately seeing an Ocean’s 11 answer

Ocean’s 11 aficionados, I have a question that I desperately want answered.

Here’s the scene:

Danny and Linus have knocked out the guards outside the vault with a smoke grenade. They bang on the vault door. Yen is in the vault, and he bangs as well, indicating that he is ready to go. Yen applies a single explosive charge on his side of the vault and Danny applies a circle of charges on his side. There is a brief moment of tension when Yen’s bandaged hand gets stuck in the vault and the detonator in Danny’s hand thankfully fails due to dead batteries, but eventually the door is blown off off and everyone is safe.

Here is what I am missing:

There are floor sensors in the vault. This is the reason Yen has been hired in the first place. He can leap from the cash cart to the vault door because he is an acrobat. But when they blow open the vault door, wouldn’t these floor sensors fire off, indicating the intruders?

How could they not?

Right?

So what am I missing?

This has been bothering me a lot.

Not quite as much as the notion that an EMP would temporarily disable power to the Vegas strip (an EMP permanently destroys any electronic device that it operating at the time of the pulse is released), but it’s a close second.

The EMP annoys me because it could have been easily fixed. There are any number of amusing ways in which Basher could have knocked out power to the casinos, so why would the writers specifically choose exceptionally faulty science to get the job done?

But at least I know that this is a mistake.

I keep feeling like there is an explanation to the floor sensor issue.

Someone ease my mind and explain what I am missing. Please?

This movie poster might be better than the book and the film. And the movie is great.

Best movie poster ever.

If you can’t tell why, tilt your screen down.

Then say, “Whoa.”

If you haven’t seen the movie, stop reading immediately and go do so. You will be the better for it, and this poster will make a lot more sense to you.

And though I rarely say this, I’d advise you see the movie before reading the book. This is one of those exceptionally rare instances in which the film is much better than the book.

Three movies in three days

In  the past week, I saw three movies. One with my wife and two with friends. Here are my thoughts, minus any spoilers:

Bridesmaids: Extremely funny movie. My only issue with the film is one I often have with films like this:

Am I really expected to believe that the best looking, smartest and funniest woman in the film can’t find a decent guy to date?

I have the same problem with the television comedy 30 Rock. Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, is supposed to be unattractive, but Tina Fey is actually the best looking woman in the cast. So every joke or sight gag made to further exploit Liz Lemon’s supposed unattractiveness falls flat for me.

I don’t buy it.

If you want your female characters to be unattractive, and you want the audience to believe that  they are having difficulty finding good men, stop choosing beautiful, funny, smart women to play the parts.

I actually had a couple other issues with the film, but as we were walking from the theater to the car, my wife said, “I don’t want to hear what you thought was wrong with that movie. Don’t ruin it for me.”

I’ve been known to do this from time to time, so I’ll abide by her request and remain silent.

The Hangover II: I saw the first Hangover at the drive-in with my wife while my infant daughter was sleeping in the backseat, so perhaps this influenced my opinion of the movie, but I thought the first film was funny but not as incredibly funny as so many others thought.

By contrast, I saw The Hangover II with three friends, two of whom were drunk, at a midnight showing and thought the movie was absolutely hilarious.

It was clear that a story line involving the bride’s brother was cut out during the editing process, which left a gaping hole in the center of the film, but it was still funny as hell and more than made up for the dangling story line.

X Men: First Class: I saw the first two X-Men films and thought that were good. I have never been a comic book guy, but I thought the movies were entertaining enough.

Not entertaining enough, mind you, to see the third and fourth installments of the franchise. But good enough to not hate myself for seeing them.

X-Men: First Class was also good, but it read more like a documentary than an actual film. Seeking to fill in the back story of more than a half a dozen characters, there was no central character in the film, and so there was no one to whom audiences could attach their loyalties. As a result, scenes were especially short throughout the movie and there was little depth to any specific story line.

I also thought there were elements of the film, including a bad guy’s submarine, that reminded me more of something from an Austin Powers film. The story is set in the 1960’s, so this makes sense on one level, but I thought it was overdone and slightly outrageous. This works in a comedy like Austin Powers but less so in a serious superhero movie about the Cuban missile crisis.

It was weird.

Titanic under the big top

Am I the only one who thinks the Water for Elephants trailer makes the movie look like James Cameron’s Titanic restaged at the circus?

Han Solo still rules. Even if he is a murderer.

The Internet makes me happy.  It brings together people with tiny, insignificant, extremely relevant beliefs. 

It lets me know that I am not alone.

The real end to Dead Poet’s Society

We all know the ending of Dead Poet’s Society. Right? If you don’t, shame on you. Go watch the movie. I’m about to spoil it.

At the end of the film, a handful of boys who are compelled by the school's administration to falsely testify against their teacher take a stand (literally), demonstrating their allegiance to for him in a moving tribute to his teaching.

I'd embed the clip if I could, but Disney owns the film and doesn't allow it to exist on the Internet. How stupid of them.

But here’s my question:

What happens when these boys graduate from high school or perhaps college? What do they do once the shackles of the their restricted teenage existences are thrown off?

I always find it amusing to watch high school teachers and college professors, both in film and real life, treat students unjustly.

What are these educators thinking?

Do they fail to realize that these seventeen year old students will soon be eighteen, and soon after that twenty-one year old adults?

Do they forget that these young men and women, once powerless to fight the system, could soon return, seeking retribution and vengeance?

I like to think that the boys from the Dead Poet’s Society, Knox and Charlie and Meeks and Pitts, return to Welton Academy as young men three years after Mr. Keating's dismissal, demanding justice. I like to imagine them barging into the headmaster’s office, shoving his indignant ass back down into a chair, and telling him that they are not children anymore.

“You can’t bully us with threats of expulsion and the arm-twisting of our parents anymore, old man! Did you really think that we were going to forget the lies you forced us to tell? Did you really think you could bully boys who were about to become men and not pay a price?”

And then I like to imagine those boys-turned-men spending every waking hour of their lives for the next six months ensuring that the headmaster is fired and Mr. Keating’s reputation is restored.

And I’d like to see Charlie kick Cameron’s ass once more.

The symbolic standing-on-desks moment was nice, but I like to think that it's only the beginning of something much more satisfying.