I probably have mentioned the fact that my wife and I usually watch a movie on Saturday night. Carolyn is good about letting me choose the film. I suppose it’s a responsibility that has just naturally fallen upon my shoulders because I’ve always loved the movies, just like it has fallen upon her to tell me what day I have to rake the leaves in the back yard every fall. We all have our strengths and one of hers has always been an instinct for letting me know the appropriate time to do things, even if she never fails to note that the ideal time was two weeks earlier.
I have tried to instill my appreciation for film in both my children. I remember asking Luke if he’d like to watch Mr.
The Birds: Inappropriate
Hitchcock’s movie about birdies when he was very young and my wife’s reminder that there were social service agencies specifically designed to deal with parents like me. I countered by saying that National Velvet didn’t traumatize him as far as horses were concerned, but the look I got dissuaded me of pursuing the matter further. Luke graduated from Emerson College in Boston, a school that specializes in different aspects of film art and technology and he is in California now utilizing his talents, so I guess I succeeded to some extent. The giant chasm that opened up between us when he didn’t like Fargo has never completely closed, of course, but we still maintain a friendly dialog and I really like his new wife.
Eat Pray Love Skip
My daughter enjoys the movies, too, but I don’t think that it really developed into a passion like it did with my son. Emily often goes to the movies with her mother when she is home, which has gotten me off the hook as far as sitting through a number of films that were the celluloid equivalent, to me, of fingernails on a blackboard. (I meant to send Em a thank you card for e-mailing Carolyn that Eat Pray Love was a disappointment.)
As much as I fancy myself a confirmed isolationist (Carolyn finally gave up on my ever using the cell phone she got for me), it is occasionally interesting to watch movies with someone else. I can, more or less, judge how much my wife is enjoying a particular movie by her vocal interaction with it. She seemed to expect an unwavering adherence to
Die Hard 4: Police car hits helicopter. Highly implausible.
logic through all four Die Hard movies that progressed from irritating to eye-rolling to endearing and even — God help me — to sensible after a while. I still shudder to think of the degree of skepticism that Lost Horizon is going to provoke.
If the back and forth with Bruce Willis was a good sign, the stony silence that greeted my choice last Saturday night was as ominous as it was surprising. (Silence is generally reserved for weekdays when I have committed some hazy transgression.) The movie was Howard Hawks’ peerless 1934 comedy, Twentieth Century. There were only three mumbled exchanges — with me, not the picture: “Is the whole movie going to be like this?” and “Who is that woman?” (Carole Lombard) and “When does this start being funny?” All were, needless to say, disheartening.
But, I’m determined not to let it be another Fargo by placing Carolyn in the uncomfortable position of pretending that she doesn’t really care if I disagree with her.
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