movie night

A few weeks ago we (ok, Nick) decided we should have movie night on Friday nights. That's right, we would all sit down together and watch a movie. It's not easy satisfying two parents in their 40s, a 15-year-old girl, and a 7-year-old boy, but we thought we'd try. "Waking Ned Devine" worked, one weekend. The next weekend Mariah was at a friend's house and the three of us watched "Toy Story" for the first time in a long time, and I've got to say, it held up just fine. (I particularly enjoyed the video of Randy Newman and Lyle Lovett at the end...)

This weekend we did it on Saturday afternoon instead of Friday night. Mark and I went to an art opening (oh, yes, we know all the swells) on Friday, but Saturday it was icy out and we hunkered down with a video. An oldie from our vast "collection": "Midnight Run." Yes, the DeNiro/Grodin buddy movie from, what, the early nineties? Dated in many ways--no internet, no cellphones, smoking everywhere--it still made us laugh in all the ways it used to.

So, ok, it's rated "R." Mark had a little talk with Nick before the movie began. He said, "Nick, there are lots of words in this movie that you probably shouldn't use at school, because you would get in trouble." That was about it. Yes, the adjective of choice in the movie is f-ing. It comes up repeatedly, sometimes modified with "mother" (only the really bad guys say that, though--it's kind of cute.) But otherwise, really, it's a Road Runner/Coyote movie, writ large. So if you think car chases and explosions and repeated failures on the part of the pursuer are amusing--as Nick definitely does--it's really a winner. Of course it's not all car chases and explosions--there's also Charles Grodin offering life advice to Robert DeNiro, which is just funny on the face of it, you know? I don't think Nick got that part of it, but that's ok with me.

In fact, in some ways it was more fun to watch it with Nick. There's the great moment when DeNiro says to Grodin, "I got two words for you: Shut the f- up." And Nick goes, "Ha! That's really funny, because it was really four words!" See, when a seven-year-old explains the joke, it's definitely funnier.

What made me think of this was Becca's post about movies with kids. I'm not sure our choices would work for everyone--ok, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't--but I was pleasantly surprised to see how well they worked for us.