Movies I Wouldn’t Suggest for Father/Daughter Night Out

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fathers and daughters, girl with a dragon tattoo, movies

Last night my husband and I saw Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. We had listened to most of the audio books and listened to reviews, so we knew it wasn’t a feel-good kind of movie.

Apparently the father/daughter combo sitting next to us had done none of those things. They lived under a rock the week that Daniel Craig did his media blitz. They thought a movie with a score written by Trent Reznor was going to be akin to We Bought a Zoo. That’s the movie they should have seen.

So the title sequence rolls and she’s like, “that’s weird.” And not in a good, interested way.

Lisbeth Salander comes on the screen and she whispers to her dad about her mohawk and piercings.

The f-bomb is dropped and she says, aloud, “okayyyyy.” How old is this girl? She certainly looks old enough to drive at the very least. She’s never heard an f-bomb before? It’s an f-ing r-rated movie, girlfriend. But, okayyyyy.

Then Lisbeth gets the new case worker and he explains sociability, after which Lisbeth spits into the toilet. She hid her face.

Uh-oh. This is going to get ugly.

Then the happy visit to the case worker’s home. She hid her face (so did I, in truth) and said “we need to leave.”

They didn’t.

Then Lisbeth gets hers. When she kicked the dildo, I thought the girl was going to puke, pass out or both. They still stayed.

Lots of breasts. Lesbian sex, so four breasts on screen at one time with no penis in sight. Lots of air sucked out of our airspace. Dad checked his phone. She squirmed. Interesting.

Breasts again, this time after Daniel Craig shows some asscrack. A woman as sexual aggressor. Serious discomfort in the seats next to me.

More breasts, torture photos, incest descriptions.

Their pronouncement on the way out: “Worst movie ever.” They forgot to add–for a father and teenage daughter to see together.

But you sat for three hours to watch it (even after your gigantic tub of popcorn was gone–diet, my ass) and I didn’t see a single phone light up to text (with the exception of the dad’s phone during the lesbian scene). And in today’s world, that’s saying something.

Guess I won’t recommend the Swedish version.

Wonder what their ride home was like?

For give ness

forgive, v., to give up resentment of or claim of requital; to renounce anger or resentment

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

“But I think it’s about forgiveness even if you don’t love me anymore”-the Eagles

“So I dub thee unforgiven”-Metallica

“Forgive many things in others, nothing in yourself”-Shakespeare

“Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast”-Marlene Dietrich

“Without forgiveness, there’s no future”-Desmond Tutu

But how?

Note to Self

Note to Self Winter 1994:

Your heart is not big enough. You cannot do this. I know you think that you can do anything through force of will and good hard work. You cannot. Even your God cannot help you with this one because you will not listen.
So give yourself permission to go 10% rather than 110. Sit on the sidelines. Be the observer, not the doer.
I know you won’t listen to me because you haven’t learned these lessons yet. You will dismiss me as faint-hearted and cowardly, maybe even lazy.
I admire you for being so stupidly courageous. I wish I could have your heart again. And your unwrinkled forehead.
I’d say wear sunscreen, but it’s already too late and someone has already used that line.
If you get this, write back and tell me why I’m wrong. Or thank me.
Me

Christmas Day +1

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modern liturgy, movies, new year's eve

What is it about the theater that is so magical? It’s the modern liturgy.
Ticket counter. Pass the plate.
Trailers. Opening hymns.
Feature presentation. Homily/sermon.
Popcorn. This is my body.
Diet Coke. This is my blood.
Closing credits. Recessional.

Sadly, most movies leave me thinking harder than many homilies.
Today’s movie was a second-rate holiday film, New Year’s Eve. Lots of cameos by recognizable stars. Lots of sermon about forgiveness and hope and making new starts. Lots of loose plot lines. Some spectacularly bad acting (Jon Bon Jovi).

So why did I walk out feeling calmer than I went in? More at peace?
Much like the liturgy, it’s a mystery and, most likely, a sum of all of the elements.
Mine is not to question why. (My apologies to Lord Tennyson)

Guess who’s going to church every day this week?

You may have a problem if……

Tags

Christmas Eve, family, whining

I woke this morning at 6am (yes, Christmas Eve and a day off for the whole household–awake at 6am) from a dream in which I was screaming the F-word at my young son because he refused to stop playing video games long enough to open Christmas presents. Fantastic parenting all the way around. In my own dream.

My husband thinks I may be projecting some anger from our oldest son to our youngest in my dream world. You think?

I was so angry, tight chest and all, that I couldn’t get back to sleep. When I told my husband about the dream, having conveniently awakened him with my tossing and turning, he said it was the ghost of bad Christmases past. I’m not sure how anyone who has shared custody of children that everybody loves avoids bad Christmases because we never figured it out. Instead, I have many to look back on and cringe at the insensitivity of all involved and, most particularly, of the self-absorption of the adults. I don’t know if two sets of presents and lots of extra grandparents and aunts and uncles with presents made up for all of this. And if I’m waking with nightmares, I wonder how my two oldest children feel. Happy thoughts to start off the two day Christmas extravaganza.

Then I was awake, reflecting on Christmas Eve. It’s a beautiful concept–the eve before the feast of Christ’s birthday (celebrated), waiting for the light in the dark of winter (there’s mud on the ground and the barest dusting of snow this morning in our northern climate). What does a person do on Christmas Eve? Wait. Americans are no longer good at waiting. I’m not very good at waiting.

It’s really just like any other day, but it feels like I should be doing something of great import. Making sweet treats with my children while Norman Rockwell sketches us. Snuggling up before a fireplace with my beloved while a jewelry store jingle plays in the background. Working at a soup kitchen.

Sitting in the kitchen this morning, watching me clean the cookbook shelves (that was my solution to how to wait, at least this morning) my husband looked at all of the Christmas cards hanging on our patio door and said, “Do we send Christmas cards?”
Ah, the royal We.
“We normally do. I normally send them the weekend of Thanksgiving, but this Thanksgiving was a little weird, as you might remember.”
Weird. No big family dinner following the deaths of my maternal grandfather and uncle. A family split into pieces, each celebrating with their smaller family units. A homespun memorial for my husband’s grandfather in a family that spawned a minister, but can’t bring themselves to sit in a church. And the news that our son had stolen a large sum of money from his uncle. Weird. Needless to say, no cards were mailed.

And then time slipped away (cue Bruce Springsteen) and still no cards.

He’s out on bail. We have no idea if he will show up to any Christmas celebrations. We’re divided about whether or not we want him to. And we’re not sleeping well.

So for diversion, I just checked out the Inappropriate Elf Contest. Which led me, in a roundabout way, to this. And now I’m laughing. Thank you, wonders of the Interwebs. Merry Christmas Eve to you, too.

SNL

Don’t Harsh My Mellow

Last night our oldest son was arrested. For larceny. The victim was a family member. A family member who was trying to help him. If you’ve read this blog from the beginning, you know where that gets you with this particular child.

This was not on my bucket list. But it’s now on my parental resume.

This morning I found myself thinking about how to approach my blog for 2012. What voice should I have? There are tons of blogs that feature sarcasm. I follow several that do it very well. There are tons of blogs that take a glass half full approach. Many are Christian blogs and, while that might be the right way to approach life, reading them generally makes me want to gag.

I guess the voice I’ll take is mine. Sometimes sarcastic. Sometimes pollyanna-ish.

For today I’m going with detached. Knowing that I should be more upset that our son is in jail and likely will be over the holiday, but coldly realistic when I remind myself that he absented himself from both of his homes for the holidays the last few years, so what’s the difference on our end? Sarcastic enough to be relieved that his being in jail takes away the awkwardness of pretending while I ask him to pass the gravy that he didn’t stab another family member in the back, again, and still fails to feel any real guilt. Pollyanna-ish enough to hope that this experience provokes a transformation into something better. Into the person I knew he could be when he was our silly little boy.

I wonder if they play Christmas carols over the PA in the county jail. And if the beds are hard.

Motherhood. A little like having a tapeworm.