I don’t get to the movies with the kids as often as I’d like—heck, I don’t get to the movies without that kids as often as I’d like, either—but it seems like we’ve been seeing trailers for Penelope for forever. And every time we see it, my daughter turns to me with great urgency.
“I want to see that,” she says. Not the “oh that’s so cute” sort of “I want to see that” or the “all my friends will be seeing it” sort of “I want to see that,” but more of a “that movie is about a girl who isn’t perfect getting a happy ending, and I need to see that.”
My daughter is not unattractive, you understand. I happen to think she’s gorgeous, though it’s possible I’m slightly biased. But there’s certainly nothing wrong with her. Well, nothing other than the fact that she’s a hormonal tween and she has recently looked in the mirror and not seen Hannah Montana staring back at her… and has therefore found herself wanting.
My son is younger, and so I don’t yet know if boys go through a similar period of time where suddenly they are not smart enough, attractive enough, popular enough. I can remember experiencing this myself at around my daughter’s age, and watching her struggle through it is not what I would term one of the perks of parenting. Our society too often demands perfection and perfection is almost always impossible. That’s a tall order for anyone, much less a little kid.
And so I will take my daughter to see Penelope. I will cross my fingers that the movie’s tagline—”A fairy tale like no other”—is really true. I will hope that Penelope saves herself (rather than being saved by a love interest) and that her “flaw” becomes inconsequential. I would really, really like to share a story like that with my daughter right about now.
Over at Rotten Tomatoes, the reviews are currently mixed, but the scales are tipping in a favorable direction. Me, I’m clinging to the last words of Roger Moore’s review:
What Penelope offers is a terrific cast willing to emphasize the charming, a decent fake nose and a message that any parent would love to pass on to a child — love yourself and the world will love you back.
Sounds good to me.
No, no, no. Stop panicking! It’s not today. You didn’t lose part of the week—I’m just being all prepared and stuff, bringing this up a couple of days early, for a change. This year, Leap Day falls on Friday. That’s sort of nice, because it allows you to do something special with the kids without it being a Big Thing in the middle of the week. (Halloween, I am looking at you.)
Have you met the 
Prior to the 1985 release of 
I haven’t said anything about 
If I had to make a list of beloved animated children’s shows which I feel are ill-suited to become live-action movies, I couldn’t promise you that Dora the Explorer would be number 1, but it would definitely make the top 5.
The ‘net was buzzing, yesterday. The hotly anticipated Where the Wild Things Are movie isn’t slated to be released until 2009, and the studio has been very tight-lipped with any information that might give us an idea of what we’re in for once the big day arrives. But somehow… a video of a scene from the movie was leaked to the internet a few days ago.
When the 2007 
When I was young and single, Valentine’s Day was filled with angst over which boy I was involved with or not involved with or wishing I was involved with or just plain pretending I didn’t care about that stupid meaningless holiday, anyway. Once I was married, then it was a whole new level of what to do; do we make a big deal out of it? Do we forget about it because we’re married? What if I get him something and he doesn’t do anything for me? And so on.
I will never forget seeing the original Star Wars film in the theater. I was 6 years old (keep your “old” comments to yourself, please) and thrilled to be taking in a movie rated PG. I thought it was incredibly amazing and my brother and I argued all the way home about whose favorite movie was Star Wars, as he claimed it was his and couldn’t be mine, as well. I remember being quite put out by his insistence.