Monday, October 8, 2012

Winnie the Pooh


Last week, I put Winnie the Pooh (the new one) on our Netflix queue. And I told the kids it was coming after the DVD was in the mail. (My queue has been known to alter mysteriously when the kids aren’t interested in what is up next, especially when it’s a documentary.) At any rate, my announcement was greeted with horrified faces all around.

When the kids were younger, Friday night was movie night. I make homemade pizza and the kids would take turns picking a movie—the boys got a good exposure to chick flicks when it was Ariel’s turn. I assured them it would make them more sensitive husbands. Yeah, they didn’t buy it either.

But now that the kids are older, if they’re not interested in a movie, they do homework. They don’t want to use precious study breaks for “lame” movies. And I get that. So I figured that Cal would be the only one who’d watch Winnie the Pooh with me. And I figured he’d sleep through part of it. (He did.)

But I was wrong about the kids. I don’t know if it was nostalgia, boredom, or the indescribable charm of Pooh, but they watched it and enjoyed it. They laughed out-loud. It was a charming movie. It didn’t have quite the animation of the old classics, but the storyline and textual playfulness were all there. I loved how Pooh took letters from the text to build a ladder so he, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, et al. could climb out of a pit. If you’re a Pooh fan and haven’t seen it, I’d suggest adding it to your queue.

Which reminds me a friend recently shared a Russian version of Winnie the Pooh. After watching it, I think I understand Russian culture much better. No wonder Russians write depressing novels--Pooh the existentialist...

Here’s the Russian Pooh.



BTW, tomorrow I’ll be releasing the cover art for my YA novel Screwing Up Babylon. You can see it here.

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