On Fridays, I organize a regular faculty/staff happy hour at a local pub (“organize” should maybe get scare quotes, because the sum total of my contribution is one email reminding people that it’s happening), then come home and do Movie Night with the kids. This week, when I walked in and said “Hey, how about a movie?” SteelyKid handed me an index card with “The World’s End” and “Baby Driver” written on it. (Apparently, thanks to the “CinemaWins” YouTube channel videos on those…) And then was absolutely adamant that we had to watch one of those…
Baby Driver:
When I initially saw this in the theater, I came home and said to Kate “That was so much my kind of thing that I’m a little amazed it got made.” This remains true— the showy directing style, the great needle drops, the snappy dialogue. Just great stuff.
I was a little uneasy about showing this to the kids, because it gets a little dark toward the end, but it was less bad than I remembered. Maybe it’s just that knowing the ultimate ending lightened the Jon Hamm bits enough to make it seem less dark. Anyway, the kids were all over this, which I was happy to see.
The World’s End:
I really wasn’t sure whether this would work, for several reasons. It’s got a bit of a middle-aged regret theme that I wasn’t sure would click with the kids, and The Pip had a Thing about zombies a few years back that I was afraid might be triggered by the blanks. Also, Hot Fuzz wasn’t a resounding success a few months back.
SteelyKid was very insistent, though, and The Pip gamely agreed to try it, and then they both loved the movie. Just cackling with laughter the whole way through. (There was one brief moment where Gary says some anti-gay stuff, and SteelyKid said “Oh, why did he go there?” “Because he’s an asshole” I explained. “Oh, right!” and SK was back in…)
The one sour note to this was that I got a Covid booster shot yesterday afternoon, and so in the interests of proper immune boosting, couldn’t drink a dozen pints while watching this. Really fun movie.
So, this round of the films of Edgar Wright were a huge hit with the kids. Unfortunately, Shaun of the Dead is probably out (see zombie thing above), and SteelyKid is weirdly resistent to watching Scott Pilgrim (despite repeated requests from The Pip, who watched it with me last year sometime). I suspect Last Night in Soho is probably too intense, but will have to look into it more…
If all goes well, we’ll be traveling next weekend, which probably rules out Movie Nights. Or maybe we’ll watch a ton in hotel rooms, who knows. Anyway, here’s a button:
And if you have recommendations of things to follow up Edgar Wright, leave them in the comments:
Baby dri er is great!
I'm not sure how old your kids are, but... How about The Accountant? It is the best autism spectrum action love story.