Where the Nauseous Moms Are

Remember when I said I don’t do movie reviews?  Right.  I don’t.  However, I saw Where the Wild Things Are last Friday, and all week I’ve sat on my hands to keep from “reviewing” it here.  But, the silence must be broken.  I HATED IT!!!  I really loathed it.  Holy mangy-haired muppets, I detested the movie from beginning to end.  Sincerely.  I would have preferred dueling tv’s to my left and right blasting Atonement and The Notebook at my profile.

Now, before you wander off thinking I’m a heartless bastard, I did get weepy at the end of Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story.  See.  I’m human.  Heck, I even cried every time I saw the preview for Where the Wild Things Are thinking of the hundreds of times I read that book to Gav as a wee sprocket.  So, where did it all go wrong?

I have a family membership at our local science center, and they were advertising a Wild Rumpus party on opening night of Where the Wild Things Are.  I thought we’d watch the movie in the neighboring  dom-dom-dom dome theater and then head straight into the party.  Much fun, yes?  Upon tossing the idea at Gav, the kid who always took this book to story time at school, the kid who drew the monsters for school projects, the kid who turned those pages countless numbers of times, he sunk my pleasure cruise ship with his doom-to-gloom teenager response, “The movie looks stupid.  The kid actor is stupid.   It’s stupid.  No way.”  “What?  You loved that book.  You seriously don’t want to see the movie?”  “It looks stupid.  So, yeah no.”  Yeah no.  That’s an unequivocal negative in teenage-speak.  So much for all those wasted tears during the previews reminiscing on Gav’s younger years.

Moving on to Gab, I knew she would enjoy the movie.  She’s become quite the movie-going buff who cheers anytime I ask if she wants to see a movie at the theater.  If I propose the idea of going to the movies, she’ll pump her fists in the air in perfect cheerleader V formation, “Yeah!  Movies!  Yeah!”  My mini-me.  (the enthusiasm for movies, not the cheerleading bit…when she does a jazz run across the floor and drops down into the splits, now that’s a bona fide mini-me) (do you think i do the splits in real life anymore?) (yeah no)

No way would I dare attempt a movie-going feat with the twins yet.  So, Gab was the only kid of interest.

Now, where I went wrong.  Sure, the movie sucked donkey balls in my eyes.  But, the venue also did not help the testicular suckfest.  The dome theater.  Ohgod, the dome theater.  Looking to torture me for information on anybody/anything?  Stick me in a dome theater and I’ll squeal like a starved piglet at the trough.

Have I told you the ease with which I become nauseous with the slightest bit of motion?  So very easy.  Airplanes, boats, backseats of cars, roller coasters designed for preschoolers, hell even those swinging bridges…all lead to a daylong festival of cookie-tossing.  And, increasingly prone to acts of idiocy, I forgot all about my prior experience with the nauseating dome theater.  Gav and I took in some arctic exploration movie there once and we both exited the building begging the Earth to halt rotation long enough for us to catch our bearings.  (yeh, i spawned a motion-sensitive puker just like myself)

I walk in the theater last Friday night and, whoa, unhappy trippy times commenced.  I’ve never dropped acid or nibbled shrooms, but I bet the experience is comparable.  I had the sensation that the dome screen was pressing down on me.  It didn’t matter where we parked our butts.  The screen was breathing down my neck and gnashing its teeth at me.

What pill-popping bozo thought it would be a grand idea to project movies wherein you have to follow characters and a storyline with the movie screen wrapped around your face?  I’ve entered a packed theater before where the only seats available were on the front row.  Pfft, and I thought that sucked being so close to a flat screen, watching the back and forth tennis match of a movie in my face.  No, no, no.  Press the screen to your nose, wrap the sides around your cheeks, stretch the screen above and below your mug, and then tell me how well you can see.  I fucking wore Where the Wild Things Are on my face.

Oh, no wonder you didn’t enjoy the movie. Perhaps.  Children in the theater were completely mesmerized by the funky screen.  I watched kids with their mouths gaped open throughout the movie.  (no, not gaped open with vomit emerging as my mouth wanted to do)  Kids seemed to love the movie.  I didn’t notice any children frightened by the monsters as I had been warned by some movie reviewers.  Halfway through, I started seeing dads whip out their cellphone either checking game scores or e-filing for divorce from their wife for convincing them to take the kids to see Where the Wild Things Are.  The women in the theater?  Well, we kept accidentally making eye contact with one another.

See how I worked this.  I didn’t review the movie for you.  I just told you it sucked and then ranted about the dome theater.  The actual movie?  Umm, I spent the first twenty minutes wondering if I had ghostwritten the script in my sleep.  Without saying too-too much, I’ve lived some of those scenes and, bluck, didn’t want to see them played out wrapped around my face like that.  Also, the giant muppets were just ridiculous.  The voices paired with the muppets were not working at all for me.  Just did not mesh.  On top of that, they were boring and monotonous in their back-and-forth brooding/destroying crap.  Geez, I really hated it.  I’ll stop there.

Now, the party afterward was much much better.  Gab enjoyed face-painting, crown-making, howling at the moon, and general milling about the science center.  Movie = BOO!  Party = RAWR!  And, the party wasn’t wrapped around my face which made it even more awesome.