An Evening at the Theatre

Tonight we went to see "The Smurfs," and I discovered two valuable principles for planning to see a movie with children:

1. You should let them watch the trailer online, because that will give both you and them an immediate sense of the likelihood of their enjoying the film.

2. You shouldn't look online to see whether an adult critic enjoyed the movie; you should read a kindercentric account that relates, objectively, whether children laughed and seemed to be having fun while they were watching the film. If children have established a historical precedent, your own children stand a good chance of reinforcing that precedent in their own reactions.

In both cases, the "flying colors" of the previews matched the vast enthusiasm with which the children watched the movie.

Ian and I concurred, afterwards, that we were not really "Smurf People" before we saw the movie, but we really liked the movie itself.

Our little row practically filled up the entire theater with material for canned laughter and, in Madeleine's case, canned grief whenever the kitty-cat or the evil wizard were poised to eat or capture the Smurfs. The boys roared with laughter. Amy cried, because the themes of the movie were parent-and-child relationships (both among Smurfs and among the Manhattan yuppies who hosted them).

As usual, Daniel begged for, and received, a very expensive box of "Starbucks," which he shared with his siblings, although it went fast. Starbucks, for the uninitiated, is a candy - not a coffee shop - packaged in rows of individual, square pieces, each one flavored and colored to remind a child with a great imagination, of a fruit known to nature. Adults occasionally refer to this product by its more official name, of "Starbursts."

(August 14, 2011)