Movie magic on Mother’s Day

THIS COLUMN WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN WRITER’S BLOCK IN THE MAY 16, 2018 EDITION OF THE CHRONOTYPE, RICE LAKE, WISCONSIN.

From a young age my family has fostered in me a love for the movies. I was lucky enough to attend many blockbusters with my family in the theater and learned to love and appreciate the art of the cinema almost as much as books. Almost.

Dad got into the LaserDisc era in the 1990s and he and my mom hosted a movie night once a month for their fellow film buffs. They would play the director’s cut of classics like “Gone With the Wind,”  “High Noon,” “Cinema Paradiso” and “Schindler’s List.” We kids weren’t allowed downstairs on those nights, but we’d sit in the stairwell and listen. It was usually beyond boring, some guy’s voice dubbed over the movie itself, explaining why certain cinematic decisions were made, etc. Yawn. There was usually wine involved for the adults.

Living and socializing in the height of the old Hollywood era, my grandpa rubbed elbows with a few stars and loves to tell and retell those stories. To this day, I love watching the Oscars ceremony and vet many movie picks from that standard. I now appreciate the subtleties those director cuts were trying to illustrate in good movies.

The cinema love has not waned over time, but it has been honed. Dropping $40 at the theater for a family of four means the movie better be worth its salted popcorn. And nowadays it is few and far between that a movie earns that. But it is still an experience I cherish, especially with my kids.

On Mother’s Day, a perfectly beautiful day in northwest Wisconsin, the girls announced that there was a new movie they wanted to see. I was conflicted. After 7 months of winter, one of the first really idyllic days this spring was ours for the taking—outside. And my kids wanted to sit indoors and watch a flick? After hearing the description of the movie, the sucker in me for inspirational sports stories won out.

To be fair, we spent the first part of the day playing outside and, heeding my own mother’s warning in my head, spent the hottest part of the day away from dangerous UVA rays. So we went and we three sat all alone in the theater. It felt special, but also like I missed a memo from Mother Nature herself, one that would come back to haunt me come October, but oh well. The buttered popcorn soothed my ruffled conscious.

A star athlete’s untimely death, community unites, comeback season, perfect soundtrack—the movie had all the ingredients for a good flick. Based on a true story, it delivered inspiration and I cried—through the entire thing. It’s a risk you take watching movies with me, hell, watching commercials with me.

Puffy eyed, I emerged from the theater a little better person than I was going in. That’s the making of a good movie for me. If watching it makes me change, forces me to look at things just a little differently, I’ll give it a thumbs up.

For this film, I mentally took notes on the coach’s character, comparing it to my own now in the midst of the spring soccer season. Do I inspire like she did? Can I, if it comes down to a return trip to state like the team in the film? I don’t know the answers to that yet. One day, one game at a time for now.

The movie was worth it. The girls were singing their praises for the sport of volleyball and dreaming about playing in high school. It was a grown-up version of the many times we have emerged from the theater singing the newest Disney theme song and reliving our favorite parts during the ride home—talking over each other in our excitement or asking for clarification for a part we missed after finishing the giant cola too early after showtime. We’d declare our favorite characters and change our minds at least twice on the way home, not wanting to lose the magic too quickly.

Like when I was kid, the movie brought me a little bit closer to those with me and with a story—the three of us alone in the theater on Mother’s Day.