This week our kids were out of town on a church trip, so we planned to go out with some friends for dinner and a movie. The problem we found was that all of the movies that we wanted to see were kids’ movies. It’s not that we couldn’t have seen them without our children, but since our kids wanted to see these movies, too—well, it just seemed like a waste.
So we had our friends over for fajitas and a video. We ended up watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Still a kids’ movie. What’s with that?
Now I don’t consider any of the Transformers movies to be appropriate for small children, but if you take a step back from the screen just a little, it isn’t hard to imagine a young Michael Bay sitting on the floor of his bedroom, Transformer toys in hand, flying them through the air and making explosion sounds with his mouth. I have two sons, and I have witnessed this very thing.
Jump ahead thirty years, and now Bay directs his play-action on the big screen.
As we watched the movie, we felt like kids. Our comments to each other were things that kids might say. “Oh no! He broke that building. He should be more careful.”
All in all, it was a good night. The movie was cute enough. Good triumphed over evil. The cars were cool. Lots of things exploded. Sometimes it’s okay to act like a kid.
That’s what movies, good food, and good friends are for.
That’s a wrap for this Toast to Cinema. Thanks for reading.