Let the dog in!

I’ve written before of my thrill at taking the Kid to her first movie. Now, we’ve come full circle from seeing Flushed Away, about a rat in a sewer, to seeing Ratatouille, about a rat fixing dinner. Next, they’ll have Colon Flushed, about a middle-aged rat having a camera tube inserted….no, never mind.

Should you and your unruly bunch go? Well, Kid sat about half the time, and then took off running. As this was a special kids morning feature, I was not concerned. Others were stalking the entire length of the aisles, yelling, and flinging their panties at the stage. No, that was the Police concert. Anyway, there were only ten or fifteen minutes when I had no idea where my child was. I assume she stayed in the theater. At one point, I believe I saw her and another kid straightening their clothes while crawling out from under the black curtain at the base of the screen. Whatever. She had her “friendly cap” on that day. She even brought another preschooler over to sit with us for three seconds. Until they ran off. So I was not the only one with a free range kid.

Movie Review: I liked it. Chef in a rat’s body idea, very cute, natural conflict, funny grossness factor. Paris looked great (the CITY, remember that place??). Pixar has the entertainment formula down. Problem: this and every other kid movie I’ve seen with Kid don’t seem to appeal to kids. These cartoon movies are pretty grownup movies colorized by Crayola. The younger kid set is not going to be entertained for long, unless you have one of those stay-put, Elmer’s butt kids who’ll sit through anything (in which case you are not really getting to experience full parenthood and all the shrieking, chasing and caffeinization we parents of busybodies do).

BTW, it hasn’t been all rats. In between rats, we saw the penguin movie about surfers. Kid’s comment at the interview style of characters speaking to the camera: When are they going to stop talking, mommy? When?? So, that movie went well, as you might imagine.

P.S., we saw a real rat running across a parking lot a few days after the rat movie (yes, here in our little island paradise!). Kid wanted to follow it and get close. Once again, more great lessons learned at the movies…..

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