Sunday, March 29, 2015

On My Mind: Picking for 5 & Links!


It's probably not a surprise that I generally pick the movies my family watches together. Once upon a time this was an easy task. I picked a kiddie flick for us all to watch and one for my wife and I to watch after they went to bed. Since I have a good handle on what Mrs. Dell likes, I never broke a sweat. The kids were pleased with anything animated or that featured smart kids and stupid adults. The wife loves rom-coms, dance movies, and PG-13 action flicks. She's just not into the blood and guts that comes with an R-rating. She didn't mind when I threw in the occasional romantic drama. Every now and again, I slipped in something to broaden her horizons a bit. She reluctantly watched and loved some, but hated others. Generally speaking, as long as the main characters in the movie we were watching ended up happy, she was happy. Well, there were a number of times when the ending wasn't quite happy enough for her, but that's for another post.

For years, this was a winning formula for Movie Night in the Dell household. I was the undisputed champ of movie-picking. As long as I was allowed complete autonomy things went smooth. Of course, this was before anyone had ever heard of Netflix and no one watched movies online. This means I had to either buy the movies we watched or go to Blockbuster to rent them. The problems happened whenever anyone wanted to join me on these excursions. They were never happy just tagging along. Noooo-oh, they had to pick their own movie. Way too many disagreements later and I would step in to make the final call so we could check out, rush home, and actually watch whatever it was that got selected.

Time passed, the kids grew older, and Disney or Pixar's latest was no longer guaranteed to be a big hit. You know, damn teenagers think they're too cool for everything. They started developing their own tastes and I'm left to try and figure out something we can all agree on. Basically, this is a fail waiting to happen. The wife likes what she likes. My son is where I was at his age, all action and raunchy comedies. My older daughter is into romantic thrillers, movies featuring girls in high school, and horror flicks. My youngest is into YA movies, tween comedies, and the occasional kiddie flick. Kinda hard to get all of this out of our normal quota of two movies. Every now and again, we can all agree on the big blockbusters, but that's not a given. What tends to happen is the wife and I will watch and some combination of our three kids will join us, but seldom will it be all three. Whoever excuses themselves from our little party either disappears into their room or recedes into a corner with their cell phone glued to their face. Teenagers suck.

Oh, before we move on, I mentioned that occasionally my wife doesn't think a happy ending is happy enough. I also said that this was a topic for another post. Well, I already wrote that post. Read it here.


LINKS!!!

In my travels around the blogosphere, I came across some really interesting posts. Here are some of my faves...

Jordan at Epileptic Moondancer gave us a two part series that has nothing to do with movies, but all about his stint in rehab called The Archway Chronicles. It's endlessly compelling stuff. Read Chapter I here and then click here for Chapter II.

Steven at Surrender to the Void watched and reviewed Alphaville as part of his Blind Spot Series.

Brittani at Rambling Film reviews Paradise: Hope.

Josh at The Cinematic Spectacle told us of all the directors who lost 3 Oscars in one night.

BJ Colangelo at Day of the Woman analyzes It Follows as an exercise in sexuality.

Ryan at The Matinee dives deep into a single shot from the Hitchcock classic Rear Window.

16 comments:

  1. LOL, I love this post so much! Yes, teenagers suck, and I'm so scared to have them in my house. Thankfully I have a few more years of being the best movie picker in the household!

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    1. Hate to break it to you, but those years will pass rather quickly. Enjoy them while you can!!!!

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    2. *Sigh* Wendell, that is so true.

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    3. Sounds like someone in the same boat.

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  2. Thanks for the link! My kid is three and he already thinks he's in charge of the TV and what movies we get to watch. His bedtime is my favorites somedays. lol

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  3. I feel bad for my 11 y/o, with 2 adults and 2 teens in the house. She will come right out and demand a FAMILY FRIENDLY movie so she doesn't have to leave the room during movie time. :-)

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  4. Thanks for the link-love my friend.

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  5. Hey Dell, hope you enjoyed Big Hero 6! Sounds like you had quite a marathon this weekend w/ the family.

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    1. True to form, my son started that marathon with me then abandoned me as his sisters took turns watching with me. It was fun, though. And I loved Big Hero 6. It was the beat of what we watched that day by a wide margin. Hopefully, it won't be too long before I get a review posted.

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  6. Thank you so much for the sout out and kind words mate!! It means a helluva a lot, I'm glad you are enjoying it. Chapter III is nearly finished being edited and polished! :D

    cheers man

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    1. You're absolutely welcome. Looking forward to chapter 3.

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  7. It has become an impossible task - I feel for you.

    What today's technology has done affects the family when it comes to watching movies. On the one hand, we can all pretty much watch whatever we want on a personal device. This is great for choice but not so great for the family unit. Even if you can gather everyone in the same room, you could quite easily have a one person on the iPad, another on the iPhone, and someone watching the TV, and it not be any less "social" that if everyone was in separate rooms.

    This post has got me all nostalgic - our kids will never know what it was like to drive to the video rental store in the hope the new release was still available and that the store hadn't already rented out their entire stock of videotapes.

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    1. You hit the nail right on the head, Dan. It's great for choice, but we don't come together around a movie quite as often as we used to. And don't get me started on video stores. I actually wrote a whole post about this...

      http://dellonmovies.blogspot.com/2013/12/on-my-mind-good-ol-days.html

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