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Monday, July 8, 2013

And the biggest kids in the audience are...

I spent part of my anniversary weekend in a dark theatre... with a gazillion giggling kids and their parents. The previous weekend, BIL, SIL, dh & I were at FIL's and "Despicable Me" was on TV.

"You haven't seen it??" BIL & SIL gasped. (I think they saw it with their kids -- albeit both boys are now in their 20s...!!) And so we watched together, and howled with laughter.

So when we started discussing what movie we wanted to see this weekend past, both dh & I sheepishly admitted to a preference: "Despicable Me 2."  It didn't hit us until we were standing in line for tickets with hordes of excited children and their parents that this was opening weekend, & of course it would be busy on a Sunday afternoon. Oh well. 

This was not, by far, the first kiddie movie that we've seen, sans children in tow. When you hear people rave -- and justly so -- about movies like Toy Story (1, 2 & 3), Up, The Incredibles, why wouldn't you want to see them too? After all, many of us are still kids at heart ourselves. ; ) And why should parents have all the fun, just because they have a kid with them? 

And it WAS fun. In fact, I daresay that we probably had the most fun of anyone there. ; )

There was one slight "ouch" moment, where the little orphan girl flatly recites a Mother's Day poem and then talks about how funny she feels doing so, because she doesn't have a mother. (I can relate, kid... not my favourite holiday either...)

But the antics of the merry Minions -- the little scene-stealing creatures who do the bidding of the villain-turned-softhearted adoptive dad (there's one on the poster above)  -- more than made up for it. By the last 10 minutes of the movie, dh & I were reduced to clutching our stomachs in helpless fits of laughter while tears of hilarity rolled down our cheeks (and we were both still giggling hours later). Apparently the Minions are getting their own movie next, and we'll probably be in line on opening weekend for that one too. They are hilarious.

So I was amused to find this article from Entertainment Weekly (one of my absolute favourite magazines) in my Facebook feed tonight -- "Despicable Me 2: Would you go to see it in theatres solo?"  -- in which a single, childless woman talks about going to see family films by herself. (At least I have dh, who is probably even keener than I am about cartoons.)  This line in particular cracked me up -- probably because I felt pretty much the same way: 
Despicable Me,” I grumbled to the box office cashier, like I was a teenager asking for condoms from behind a 7-11 counter.


Nevertheless, the majority of respondents to the attached poll question "Do you mind going to kids movies alone and without a child in tow?" responded "Not at all."

How do you feel about going to a kiddie flick -- alone or with another adult?

7 comments:

  1. I have no problem going to any movie alone! I'll go out to eat on my own with a book too!

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  2. I'm pretty sure I went to see Toy Story in the theater. As an adult, with no kid in tow. For the most part, we wait for video these days, so it's kind of a moot point.

    However, because I am a kid at heart, I have seen both Monsters University and Despicable Me 2. I went with my daughter (and sister, niece, and nephew for MU, and husband for Despicable Me 2), but I would have gone myself. The kid would have preferred to see Epic or waited for Turbo. But we went to see what I wanted to see. :)

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  3. DH and I watch kidult movies, but usually on DVD from the local rental store. Have never seen Despicable Me, but will look for it now.

    I do avoid seeing these movies at the theatre though.

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  4. Ha! Because of our long-distance relationship, I always felt like being "single" in a way when I still lived in Indo. With busy friends all around me (married and having kids), I sometimes resorted to chilling out at the movies on my own. One time I was queueing alone and there was a young couple behind me. The girl asked if I was on my own and I said yes. She probably thought it was weird ha ha ha ha ha...but hey, you do what you have to do. :-)

    However, here in Sodankylä there's only one theatre (one studio) and we never go there, so we watch movies at home.

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  5. I go to movies or eat out by myself (with a good book) now and then, thro not with kiddie movies (not my thing). :) I like science fiction, fantasy, comedy and horror movies. It also depends on whether there's captioning- otherwise I wait for the movie to come out in DVD with subtitles/captioning.

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  6. Can't even remember when, where or why we went to see Up, but the infertility moment hit me both hard and gently. But-part of life-part of movie.(So not completely taboo then) And it got me in touch with another blogger who had seen it too. Which back then I thought was amazing.
    Which in a way it was, because I/we rarely go to see a movie. Now, I have not even *heard* of Despicable Me. And i wouldn't think we are that far behind in NL ;-)

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