Last night when we took her to a French friend's party, she skipped learning to walk and started dancing a jig. She said "woof!" upon meeting her first dog, and after playing with him for a few minutes, she looked up and said "Mademoiselle, votre chien est tres gentil. Merci pour avoir m'inviter."
But even her spontaneous mastery of folkdancing and past pronomials couldn't bring us out of the deep, depressing funk that we'd been thrown into that morning, when we saw Million Dollar Baby at Reel Moms.
Imagine watching the first half of Shawshank Redemption, and the last half of Old Yeller, with a five minute cameo by the evil hillbillies from The Goonies thrown in for comic relief. Then lay down several coats of Ralph Lauren Poverty Collection paint (Seriously, Hilary and Clint, if you want to climb out of the gutter, just take 10% of your artfully distressed hardwood furniture and vintage hand-painted billboards to the Pasadena flea market one weekend.) and barely light each scene for Deep Emotional Impact.
The whole thing was so manipulative and cliche'd and brazen, the movie sucker punches you to the mat, and then kicks you in the 'nads a few times for good measure. Afterwards, the parents who stayed in the theater envied the ones who left with the screaming kids.
The only thing that cheered me up was watching the video of Johnny Cash singing the Nine Inch Nails' Hurt a few times before bed. What a way to kill a weekend. Even the URL taunts me as I type it:
Are there no good movies anymore? Hillary Swank looks like Matt Damon.
So, you didn't like the movie?
Finally!!! Someone else who can admit that the Shawshank Redemption was crap! Thank you... I feel vindicated!!
Now if only I can have those two hours back.
I want the 15.6 hours I have spent watching the LOTR movies back!! Puuuulease?