BEN

Last night after Mia went to bed, we watched Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” with the boys. Daniel is a big Hitchcock fan and since I was a teenager I’ve loved old movies so this was one of the things we had in common when we met. We’ve been showing the kids stuff like Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, “The Sound of Music” and of course the great “Singing in the Rain”. This is to try and expunge utter garbage like Transformers 2 from their brains.

In their film education we’ve included movies from all eras and genres. Of course we still get current films like the brilliant “Where the Wild Things Are” (watch this if you haven’t already) and “Bridge to Terabithia”. But we’ve also shown them “The Karate Kid”, “The Goonies”, “Ghostbusters”, “The Thing”, “Young Sherlock Holmes”, “Oliver!”, “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Jaws”.

Every time we come home from the library with a selection, they complain about our choices.

“Back to the Future? What kind of weird movie is that? Who is that creepy kid with the car?”
“Spirited Away? That looks really weird. Why couldn’t you just borrow “Over the Hedge”?”
“The Good the Bad and the Ugly? That’s a weird title. Do we have to see this?”
“Empire of the Sun? What are you talking about? That kid doesn’t look anything like the guy in Dark Night.”

It’s almost a game we play, a ritual, for them to complain and pretend they aren’t interested in our selection, and then to grudgingly sit and watch. In the end we’ve never borrowed anything they haven’t enjoyed. And last night was no different. Happily they have not been jaded by special effects and CGI and 3D and were awed by the film. 9 year old Alec’s verdict? “Did you think we wouldn’t like this? That was EXCELLENT!”