Matthew Dicks

Star Wars and parenting make for a complicated mix

There are many decisions to make when it comes to your children and the Star Wars franchise.

When should a child first watch Star Wars?

In what order should a child view the movies?

Should existence of the three prequels be concealed as long as humanly possible?

Which versions of the movies should be shown? The digitally re-mastered versions or the original?

In other words, who do you want your child to think shot first? Geedo or Han Solo?

Okay, that might be an easy one. 

Still, so many decisions to make as my daughter gets older. 

But this is one I can get firmly behind.

Gratitude journal: Just the right movie for a workout

Most of the elliptical machines that I use at the gym are equipped with televisions. I often spend my 30-45 minutes of cardio listening to podcasts, audiobooks and music, but occasionally, AMC, Spike, FX, or even ABC Family will run just the right movie to watch while working out.

And sometimes that movie will be in just the right spot when I start working out.

Today the movie was Coach Carter, the true story of coach Ken Carter (played by Samuel Jackson) and his decision to bench his undefeated high school basketball team for academic reasons. 

I’d never seen the film, but I’ve seen enough sports movies to understand the formula. 

Sports movies make for an excellent workout.

Even better, I began working out during the last 45 minutes of the film, which features the Dead Poet’s Society moment when the team stands up for their coach, followed by the final game of the team’s season.

Well choreographed, well scored, nail-biting hoops with more dunks, alley-oops and three pointers than in a week of NBA games.   

It could not have been a better moment to step on that elliptical.

Movie crusade update

In regards to my crusade to ban infants from all movie theaters comes this small update:

It would appear that AMC Loews closest to my home (Plainville, CT) has policy that bans children under six from R-rated movies shown after 6:00 PM.

I am checking to see if this policy is company wide or theater specific.

While I am not completely satisfied with this policy, it’s a start. And this theater will most definitely receive my business over all Rave Motion Pictures theaters, which have no policy regarding infants. 

Ideally, I would like to see all children under two years of age banned from all non-G rated movies except those theaters that show movies specifically designed for mothers and infants.

National Amusements, for example, has a program called Baby Pictures. During these specific movie times, the theater offers “dim lighting to allow for easy child care in the auditorium; lowered movie volume for babies' sensitive hearing; baby changing stations and stroller area.”

In my humble opinion, this should be the only time that an infant should be permitted into a non G-rated film.

But again, I’m willing to compromise. Slightly.

If you attend a movie in the near future and would be kind enough to inquire about their policies regarding infants, I would appreciate any information you could provide me. I have inquiries pending at the corporate offices of four major theater chains and will update you when and if I receive a response.  

Weeping, I tell you. WEEPING.

One more note on my Valentines Day movie experience:

The trailer for the new 3-D release of Titanic preceded our film. Halfway through the trailer, I heard a sudden weeping to my right.

It was Elysha. Weeping. Crying hysterically. Balling her eyes out. Doing that odd flutter-her-hands-in-front-of-her-face gesture that she does when she cries, as if she is attempting to brush away the paralyzing emotions with her hands. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked, thinking she was feeling ill. Thinking there might be something wrong with the baby. After all, how could anyone weep over the trailer to a movie that she has already seen more than once? 

But no, it was the trailer.

“Is it pregnancy hormones?” I asked. “Is that the problem?” 

“No,” she repeated. “It’s the movie. It’s just so sad.” 

I could barely understand what she was saying between the gut-wrenching sobs. 

“I don’t think I can ever watch that movie again,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

I can’t imagine what it must have been like the first time she saw the movie.

Baby-in-the-movie follow-up and the start of a new crusade

I contacted the manager of the theater where my wife and I saw The Descendants on Valentines Day. I explained our experience in detail and spoke for quite a while about it.

In summary:

1. Rave, the company that owns the theater, does not have a policy prohibiting infants in any movies, regardless of time or subject matter.

2. Children under three do not pay for seats in the theater.

3. If a patron reports that a baby is disturbing the film, a manager will request that the parent remove the baby from the theater until he or she has quieted down. When I explained to the manager that all babies make some noise, even if it’s a cooing or a babbling, he said that some noises are more disturbing to patrons than others. 

4. He also admitted that requesting that a baby be removed from the theater is a potentially volatile encounter. Just in the past week, he had been accused of racism and sexism in two separate incidents when asking a customer to remove a baby. 

5. He rejected the idea of a policy against babies in the theater under any circumstances, claiming that the theater would receive too many complaints to make the policy sustainable. When I suggested that the fifty people who shared a theater with me on Tuesday night also had a complaint about the policy of allowing babies in the theater, he said, “But no one actually complained.” 

Yes, I admitted, but only because people who leave their babies at home with babysitters are more civilized and rationale than those who bring their babies into movies. We sit in our seats, not wanting to miss a second of the film, hoping that a fellow audience member will compromise their viewing experience in order to complain. We pray that the baby will remain silent throughout the film. We rationalize our inaction by assuming that this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, thereby making any complaint after the fact irrelevant. We rush out of the theater with no time to seek out a manager because we have a babysitter at home and the clock is ticking.  

We do not complain, but when we find out that this happens with regularity (as it apparently does based upon the manager’s comments), we don’t come back.

6. The manager offered me free passes, popcorn and soda to our next film. I asked if he would also reimburse the cost of babysitting. He declined.

In general, the manager handled the phone call well. The only time I became irate was when he rejected the notion that a no-baby policy would make his job easier.

Paraphrasing, he said that I am fortunate because I have the means to hire a babysitter and know people responsible enough to watch my child.  But not everyone has the means to hire a babysitter or knows a capable babysitter who they trust, but they still have the right to attend a movie.   

“Yes,” I said. “I have the means and access to a babysitter, but attending a movie is not a Constitutional right. If you cannot afford a babysitter or cannot find a babysitter, then you rent a movie at home. You don’t make fifty people suffer so that you can see The Descendants on the big screen.”

After hanging up the phone, I told my wife that this is not the end.

It’s only the beginning of my new crusade to expunge infants from movie theaters. 

My first step is to contact the other movie theaters in the area and determine if they have policies regarding babies in the theater. 

Next, I plan to contact the corporate headquarters of these companies and speak to someone in a position to change policy. I will argue my case and attempt to affect change.

I will also transform this blog post and the previous blog post into a piece that I will attempt to get published in print.

Yes, I have enough to do already, but this is a cause that is just and right. Excluding infants from movie theaters, even if the ban is predicated on the show time or rating of the film, will not only benefit moviegoers but will also help these infants, who do not need to be bouncing on parents laps at 9:00 PM, watching and listening to a rated R film. 

The movie lover in me wants this policy changed.

The parent in me wants this policy changed.

The teacher in me wants this policy changed.

And I suspect that a great majority of moviegoers want this policy changed, too.

I went to see The Descendants like night and found myself sitting beside two morons and their baby.

Elysha and I went to the movie last night for Valentines Day.  We saw a 7:35 PM showing of The Descendants, which we liked a lot.

We arrived to the theater at 7:15 PM and were the first people to enter the theater.  We had the luxury of choosing our favorite seats.  It’s so nice when you and your spouse agree on the optimal view location in a movie theater. 

Slowly the theater began to fill up.  At 7:35 PM the movie began. 

At 7:50 PM a couple walked in and sat one seat to my left.  The woman, who was sitting closest to me, leaned over and asked how much they had missed.

“Not much,” I said, and it was true.  They had missed the movie trailers and about five or ten minutes of the actual film. Still, don’t walk in late and disturb someone who managed to arrive on time. 

Then she extracted her six-month old baby from the baby carrier strapped to her chest and placed it on her knee.

Yes. A baby.

The baby began making baby sounds almost immediately.  Coos and whines and the occasional whimper.  Once or twice the baby began to fuss and actually cry.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman, with the baby still sitting on her lap, learned over and asked me to clarify a plot point.

Two minutes later she asked for another clarification.   

Five minutes after that, she began changing the baby’s diaper with the help of the husband/boyfriend/lunatic moron sitting beside her. Then she began to nurse the baby.  

Five minutes later, Elysha and I finally ceded our optimal seating and moved to the back, away from the baby. 

Twice during the film, the baby began seriously crying and had to be removed from the theater. Both times the woman returned with the baby after a few minutes.

My wife and I debated saying something during or after the film. I have frequently confronted people in theaters who are talking on phones, texting or talking to their companions.  Once I forced a band of wandering teenagers to leave the theater and find another movie under threat of violence.

So I am not averse to confrontation. Nor is my wife.

Had these selfish, stupid, criminally negligent parents entered the theater on time, I would have told them to leave. Had they refused, I would have insisted that management remove them.  

Had they entered the theater during the trailers or even one minute into the film, I would have done the same thing.

But they entered ten minutes into the film, which left me with few options.

If you are willing to bring a six month old baby into a 7:35 PM showing of a rated R film on Valentines Day, you are clearly beyond reason. Arguing with them, debating with them or telling them how incredibly selfish and stupid they were would have been pointless. 

Satisfying, but pointless.

Most important, it might have resulted in a full blown altercation, thus compromising the viewing of the movie for myself and those around me. 

It’s different than telling a jackass to get off his phone. He can be easily be shamed into turning off his phone and watching the film.  But you can’t turn off a baby.  The only solution is to leave the theater, and convincing selfish, stupid people to do this is considerably more difficult. 

I could have exited the theater, found a manager, explained the situation and had the parents removed, but doing so would have also compromised my viewing of the film. There is no pause button in the movie theater. I would have missed significant portions of the movie in an effort to have these selfish morons and their baby tossed from the theater, and even then, there was no guarantee that management would have sided with me.  

There is a solution to this problem, and it is a simple one:

Movie theaters should not allow babies into films like The Descendants.

In fact, movie theaters should not allow babies into any film that are not rated G and made specifically for children.

Actually, I don’t think that infants belong in a movie theater at all.  If your child is not old enough to sit up in his or her own seat, then your child does not belong in a movie theater.

But I’m willing to let this rule slide for rate G films.   

Seems like an obvious solution, and yet these two selfish morons were allowed to purchase tickets and enter the theater with a baby, thus diminishing the movie-going experience for the fifty people around them.  

And before you try to tell me that this is a once-in-a-lifetime problem, it’s not. My wife and I once found ourselves sitting next to a couple and their infant while watching Cloverfield, a PG-13 monster movie that was so violent that Elysha was worried about our daughter being exposed to the film from inside the womb. In that instance, the movie was so loud and so terrifying that the morons sitting next to us managed to activate enough brain cells to realize that bringing their baby to a monster movie was not a good idea and left.

Last night’s couple not only failed to come to this realization, but they also had the audacity to ask me questions during the movie, change a diaper and breast feed.

Best of all, when I arrived home that night, I handed $50 over to our babysitter, because we decided to leave our three-year old at home on Valentines Day rather than drag her into the movie theater. These jackasses compromised the enjoyment of everyone around them and avoided the expense of a babysitter as well. 

I have decided in the course of writing this post to call the theater this afternoon and speak to a manager. I will explain what happened last night and ask for the company policy on bringing babies into films like The Descendants.

Basically, I want to know if this couple snuck their baby into the film or were allowed to enter with it.    

If the couple snuck their baby into the film, so be it. There is nothing that the movie theater could do absent frisking every person who enters, but even that would be fine by me. I am frisked every time I enter Gillette Stadium to watch the Patriots play and would be more than willing to submit to a search at the movie theater as well.

But if there is no company policy regarding bringing babies into a film like The Descendants, then I don’t know what I am going to say. 

But it should be interesting. 

I’ll keep you updated.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A great movie tragically marred by Steven Spielberg's failure to engage in unprotected sex:

I’ve been watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind again, a little bit at a time, as I respond to email and complete other similarly mindless tasks in the evening. 

I have always thought of this film as flawless.

Slate’s Bill Wyman recently watched all of Spielberg's films and rated Close Encounters of the Third Kind as one of Spielberg’s best.

While I still agree that the film is excellent, fatherhood has unexpectedly changed one component of the movie for me, and unfortunately, it’s a big one.

Richard Dreyfuss’ character, Roy, in case you don’t remember, is the protagonist whose brief encounter with alien spaceships leaves an image implanted in his mind of the location where the aliens intend to land and make contact with representatives of the US and world government (an unnamed mountain in Wyoming).  There are hundreds of people who are implanted with the same vision throughout the world, but Roy is one of only two people who actual make it to the mountain and manage to dodge the military in order to witness the arrival of the aliens.

It turns out there is a reason why the aliens want Roy at the landing site:

They want to take him with them.  Although there is a team of jumpsuit-clad, government-trained soldiers ready to go with the aliens, these military bozos are rejected by the aliens. 

Instead, Roy is the only one permitted to go. 

He does.  He boards the ship and the film ends with it lifting off into outer space.

One problem:  Roy is married with kids. 

Even though the marriage seems to have been going well until Roy becomes fixated on his vision of the mountain, I’ll give him a pass on abandoning his wife, since she leaves with the kids when Roy’s obsession causes him to build a ten foot tall dirt model of the mountain in his living room.

It’s not much of a pass, but I’ll give him a pass. 

But Roy also has two kids. Sons. Boys who will not only never see their father again but will never know where he went. 

Prior to being a father, this detail washed over me without notice.  But with a daughter of my own, this bit of plot now looms large in the film for me, and it causes a character who is supposed to be likable, honorable and revered to be considerably less so in my eyes.

As Roy prepares to board the ship, the lead scientist turns to him and says, “I envy you.”

Sitting alone in my living room, I actually said aloud, “Don’t envy the bastard. He’s abandoning his children.  Probably forever.”

It’s an example how how parenthood can change your perspective on life forever.   

Spielberg was not married did not have children in 1977 when Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released.  He would not have children for another decade, so it’s likely that the prospect of children had not even entered his consciousness yet.

I can’t help but wonder if things might have been different for Dreyfuss’ character if Spielberg had children at the time he made the film.  Roy’s sons could have easily been removed from the film entirely with nothing substantial lost in terms of the story. 

I suspect that Spielberg had a blind spot in 1977, and that allowed him to send his protagonist to space while his protagonist’s family remained behind, utterly forgotten. 

There isn’t a single moment in the film when Roy even thinks about the prospect of leaving his family.  

In a 2007 interview, Spielberg confessed that if he had a chance to make this movie today, Dreyfuss’ character would never have abandoned his family to go to outer space. 

Was Spielberg blind to this flaw in his film because he did not have children of his own?

I suspect so.  I suspect that I might have done the same thing. 

If asked if I would abandon my wife and daughter today in order to be one of the first human beings to visit an alien world, I would say no without having to think twice.

But if asked ten years ago, prior to  my marriage and the birth of my daughter, if I would have considered abandoning a hypothetical family in order to make a historic visit to an alien world, I might have said yes.  I can envision myself making arguments about the magnitude and scope of such a journey in comparison to the commonality and frequency of fatherhood and marriage.

And I would have been foolish and naïve and wrong.

Just as I suspect Spielberg was in 1977 when he sent his protagonist into space, leaving a family behind.

Perfect descriptor

My wife is very funny, but she gets little credit for her sense of humor and scoffs at any attempt to assert that she is funny. 

But she is. 

This is a perfect example:

We drove by a billboard advertising this movie a couple weeks ago, and she said, “That sounds like a movie about my family.”

Very funny.  Very true.

The Emperor might have been better off with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker foiling his plans

Star Wars fans, I have a question:

What exactly was the Emperor's endgame?

Let’s say that he managed to crush the rebel alliance and turn Luke to the dark side.

Then what? 

So he rules the galaxy?  Was his ultimate goal to be the boss of everyone?

It seems a little anticlimactic to me.

Did he really want to be the one to determine marginal tax rates, the legal drinking age and sentencing guidelines for white collar criminals?

Because once the rebels are gone, aren’t these the only kinds of decision left to make?

Or did the Emperor have a grander vision?  Perhaps a Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street view in terms of the direction that the galaxy’s economy should be headed?

Even then, should this really be the concern of a Sith Lord?

It seems to me that the worst thing for the Emperor would have been the complete elimination of the rebel alliance. 

Eliminate the opposition and what are you left with?

Determining the import tariffs on bantha meat?  Assigning patents on droid technology?  Christening Death Stars?   

There’s something to be said for having enemies.  

Boy learns that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father for the first time

This is hilarious, and I will certainly make a point of doing the same someday for Clara when she discovers the secret of Darth Vader.   

Better still, it makes me wonder what other reactions might I want to record. 

Thoughts?