I met my old lover
On the street last night
She seemed so glad to see me
I just smiled......
Still crazy after all these years

   I did. I was with the boy, and we'd just finished getting tanked up on warm cocoa and lewd triple chocolate cake at the Bean. We'd walked the half mile from my place into town, (no small feat for a 4 year old), to test our new "Crocs", those great, light, soft flexible clogs. His are bright orange, his favorite color. Mine are beige, simply because I didn't have the balls, no matter how much he implored me, to get mine to match. Me. In plastic orange clogs. The mental image alone makes me laugh. And incredible negotiator that he is, he made me promise that the next ones we get, he'll get beige and I orange. So we'll have two matching pairs. Hope his memory's not as good as his bargaining skills....

   But I digress. So, we ran into her. The one I still have massive feelings for after nearly a year. What a rush of mixed emotions. I do nothing half-assed anymore, that's for damned sure. Since I never really knew how to fall in love before her, I certainly can't figure how to fall out. Strange and bizarre. It's great and horrible seeing her, at once. Her smile, the thing that hooked me and "did it" for me from the beginning, still does, and she always wears the biggest one when she sees me. Go figure. I can't. But I get to the point pretty often where I think I'm moving forward, and wham. Not exactly a setback, but a sidetracking. And the woman I'm seeing, who I like a lot and clearly think warmly of a good deal of the time, vanishes from the braincells. What is the matter with me? Don't answer, I know.......

   Still crazy......

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   We saw the brilliant "CARS" Friday, and that adjective couldn't be more appropos. In sound, color, script, execution, production, voicing, every aspect of this movie was just that - brilliant. His mom and I are getting along pretty well, as separate parents go, so we took him together, and it's a real tossup who enjoyed it more; Cole, mom or me. 

   If you'd heard Paul Newman, Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Tony Shaloub, Michael Keaton, Bob Costas, hell, even Larry "The Cable Guy", were doing a film together, you'd go, right? Well, GO!! You don't need a kid for this animated film, either, it's that good. And it's no cartoon. It is a film in every sense of the word. The voicing is fantastic, the tale an old fashioned finding-yourself-and-finding-love story. But the real star is the animation. I have simply never seen rendering so pure and real that I lost all sense of the unreality of it so early into it. Just stunning. This will easily be Pixar/Disney's highest grosser long range. I couldn't recommend it more highly!! (And the added treat of a phenomenal musical short before the main feature, digitally rendered and mastered so purely you have to see it in a new theater that has the 16-track surround sound, was a terrific bonus. So go early).
 
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   After CARS on Friday, Saturday night I floundered for something for the boy and I to watch. We've run through my large personal collection (most more than twice) already so we made the short jaunt to Blockbuster, a trip which wasn't pretty. He wanted The Incredibles yet again, which is great, but after 12 viewings I just couldn't bring myself to watch, even for him. Which produced a major meltdown. He ranted, yelled, and finally cried, and everyone else there must've thought me the worst Dad ever. But there, next to what he wanted, was a film my other 2 kids just adored. And ranks in my top ten of all time. So I proceeded to try and talk him into it, which made the meltdown worse. I am dad, though, and I prevailed, rented it, and carried the boy, kicking and screaming, to the car for the short drive home.

   He calmed down enough to go into Whole Foods for treats to have while watching the movie, and the turnaround began. I ran into a few friends and asked each to tell him what they thought of a movie that has candy at it's core. And each told him it was their favorite and he'd love it, and gave him different, but perfect, reasons. By the time we bought our own Reese's Pieces, and left the store, he was happy, and truly anxious.

   Of course, by now you know it's ET:The ExtraTerrestrial. I rented the 20th Anniversary Edition, which is digitally remastered beautifully, and included about 12 minutes of added scenes. I don't know how the original did without them, but this version is an even better film than I remembered. And he was awed, and sublimely happy. And that's the best recommendation you can get, 'cause this kid's a movie freak. So whether you have young kids to share it with or not, I highly recommend you see this film again. Because it has everything a film should, and then some, and is simply one of the finest stories ever told. And really holds up.

        

 

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