Real people please!

Movies for children with real people in them. Is this a thing of the past? TinTin, The Lorax, Brave, Madagascar, Ice Age.

Though I appreciate the story lines and messages conveyed, and the technical skills displayed in all these movies, I realized that something was not quite right when the most enjoyable part of Ice Age for me was when the credits appeared. The end of the movie? Yes! I realized that I would not be able to sit through another of these animation films, 3D or otherwise, in the near future, when the highlight of Ice Age was the credits … where one gets to see the voices behind the characters. You get to see real people! 

So when my boys said that they’d like to watch Finding Nemo, I scanned the newspaper for other options. Siddharth, my 11-year old told me to look out for “U” or “PG” movies because he and his 10-year old brother Gautam are still too young for “A” films.

Looking back at my childhood, we could count, on one hand, the movie theatres showing English films… Rex, Galaxy, Plaza, Lido, Imperial. “Cartoon” movies were a rarity. The number of prints of each movie was limited, passing through cities in sequence. Movies came to Bangalore several months after the rest of the world and the Indian metros saw them. So it was finally the “good” movies that Bangalore cinemas got to show. And we Bangaloreans were usually the lucky ones, with multiple reviews to help us choose the movies we wanted to spend our Rs 5/- for Balcony seats.Now things are much different with movies available in Bangalore on release day and multiplexes running different movies simultaneously.

I looked for something on the lines of the movies I enjoyed in my childhood… The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz, Run for the Roses, The Gods must be crazy, Born Free…. Maybe something Western or more adventurous… a bit of violence my boys will be able to endure… Django, The Magnificent Seven, Enter the Dragon….

Ultimately, Finding Nemo it was, but only for my boys. After booking the tickets online, my husband and I dropped them off at the theatre. The boys were thrilled with their independence. They were confident of what they needed to do because we’d done it together before… collect the tickets from the counter, show the tickets to the usher, collect the 3D glasses, and find your seats. Not to forget, the free Sunday snack given with Citibank online booking! When we picked them up after the movie, a couple of hours later, they were a satisfied pair – they had enjoyed the movie, the popcorn and the brothers-only movie experience.

While we now have a working solution (that also saves us the money of two accompanying tickets) my original problem remains. Movies for children with real people in them!