Friday, January 10, 2014

Improving On the Classics

Warning! The following post contains a big movie spoiler. Don't read any further if you're the type who likes sappy drama and you've never seen Little Women. You should only proceed if 1) you don't care about movies like that, or 2) you've already seen it. (I think that covers roughly 100% of the human race.) 

Cupcake (a.k.a. Celeste, my spousal unit, the wife-inator) and I don't have exactly the same taste in movies. It's not that I mind her movies so much; I just enjoy them in a different way. While she likes to sit quietly and concentrate on the dialog, characters, and social drama, I find it fun to add my own witty commentary. As you can imagine, this leads to some great conversations.

Recently, she and our daughters were engrossed in the screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. (The version with Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, and young Kirsten Dunst.) I've seen most of this movie before, so I knew what was coming in the part where the girl gets really sick.

We had the following fun discussion:

Me: Is this the part where she dies from AIDS?

Cupcake: She doesn't die from AIDS! It's cholera. She gets it from holding the neighbors' baby.

Me: Whatever. Same thing.

Cupcake: How can you defile a classic like that?! [From her tone of voice and facial expression, you'd think I'd just scrawled a mustache on the Mona Lisa.]

Me: I don't know, if by "defile" you mean make better, and by "classic" you mean boring chick flick, I guess I just have a talent for it.

Cupcake: Well, you'd better STOP!

Me: Okay, [whispered too quietly for her to hear] if by "stop" you mean think of some even better comments to bring out next time you're watching Pride and Prejudice or Steel Magnolias.

She's so lucky to have me, because movie nights would be very dull without my contributions.


Edit: True story. I published this post late last night, and this morning the girls watched Fried Green Tomatoes. I got to tell them, "Here comes the part where the guy gets killed by a train," and there was nothing anyone could say, because he does! Ditto the part where they chop up Mary-Louise Parker's husband, barbecue him, and feed him to the investigating officer. These chick flicks are great.

2 comments:

  1. Love your definition of defile a classic. I couldn't agree more! Bravo to you for being able to sit through it though!

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    1. Oh, did I say I sit through these movies? It's more like popping in once in a while to see what's on the screen and make a comment or two. Then I usually get yelled at and have to run and hide for a while.

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