Skip to main content

Banning Dreamworks and its Animated Attitude

Oh you know what I'm talking about. The hand goes on the hip, the head tilts, and then the eyes, in tandem, are rolled back in the head ending with a sneer that sends the blood spurting northward into your brain like an oil spurt.

My daughter, the 5-year-old, has mastered it.

Do you know where she's discovered this delightful tick? From all the cute furry animals in all the lovely Dreamworks/Pixar flicks where they toss off one-liners so that the parents shuttling their tots don't get bored.

Guess what - I'm not bored. I'm fed up. Yes, that was the sound of my rolling MY eyes.

Last week I took The Rabbit instead to Kit Kittridge. Sure, it sounded like an advertorial for the American Girl brand. But guess what -- it wasn't. No dolls in the movie. Just a really great script, stellar acting (Stanley Tucci, Wallace Shawn, Julia Ormand, a FEMALE director), a wonderful timely story about a little girl and her family during the depression, and not an eye roll in sight.

I fully recommend this flick to anyone. The Rabbit asked to see it again before the credits stopped, and I loved it enough to possibly indulge her. And just think, I don't have to spend the next month fielding jokes about body parts or odors, nor snarky sasses that emanate from the mouth of a hippo to a lion.

Shrek? Bleck.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Grim Reaper

Firstborn is obsessed with death. It started with the odd comment, such as; "Mummy, what happens when you die?" OK, I thought, I was expecting this at some point, what a cute little curious brain she has. So I trotted out all the cosy Heaven stuff and left out all the things that could worry her, such as worms and bones and holes in the ground. This went down pretty well, although somehow Firstborn made the jump from my view of Heaven (filled with love, joy, always warm, never rains, has a huge discount designer shoe outlet and I never have to pay my Visa bill) to her own view of Heaven; a wonderous place where small girls don't have to eat their vegetables before they're allowed pudding, and where Barbie dolls grow on trees. Anyway, I digress. Last week Firstborn started shouting "Kill! Kill!" in a bloodthirsty tone while bashing her hithero-beloved teddy against the wall. This was topped by her purposely flushing her favourite My Little Pony down the loo. ...

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...