At the Dietrich by Hildy Morgan
Great movie for you this weekend. Honest – I wouldn’t kid you about that. And before I talk about it I want to ask you if you aren’t a little bit sick of sequels about now? ( Snore) Maybe a little weary seeing movies that are remakes of other movies? (Ho-hum) Tired of films about comic book characters that can fly through the air and leap to the top of buildings and save the world? (Really????) Me, too.
So that’s why I want you to give thought to bringing the family (yes, you really can bring the family) to the latest Disney film. Tomorrowland stars George Clooney and it’s everything most movies are not today – it’s original and it’s charming. Written at the Disney studios, it is clever and original and upbeat. Nobody tells a story as well as the Disney folks, and this one is a charmer from beginning to end. And to further convince you – Jeffrey loved it! Yes, he really, really did. And he is soooo hard to please. Movies have to pass a high bar to pass muster with him. And it more than passed – he gave it an A++++++!
Here is the plot. Brought together by fate (or something) a whiz-kid teenager who loves science – eats, breathes, lives it – and an aging scientist who is cynical and discouraged, come together and find that they have a shared memory of a place they lived once – beyond space and time as we know it, and it was called Tomorrowland. And because of that shared memory they decide they need to find a way to go there. They need to find Tomorrowland.
Now, how is that for a whimsical and lovely premise? I love films where older people and young people work together to fulfill a dream, and I love the idea of shared memories and another place, a place we cannot see, but that exists. It seems to me it’s a perfect film to see on this Memorial Day weekend, a time we spend with our families. So come on, give it a try. There’s nothing as good as a movie at allowing generations to talk to each other (as opposed to at each other) and it’s a shared memory you and your kids will always have. A little soda, a little popcorn and a great movie, seen with your family. It just doesn’t get better than that!
And while we are going to movies, or going shopping, or going to a picnic, or whatever we are going to do on this holiday weekend, let us remember the reason for the holiday. After the Civil War, the country decided to honor the dead from both the north and the south by decorating the graves of the soldiers fallen in the war. It was called Decoration Day. But in the Twentieth Century, as wars continued and the young kept dying, the name was changed to Memorial Day and is meant to honor all who have fallen in wars.
I believe in honoring the fallen. I believe in putting a flag on their graves. I believe in their goodness and their sacrifice. But isn’t there a more meaningful way, perhaps, that we could honor these fallen heroes?
Maybe just thanking Veterans for their service isn’t enough. Maybe we need to see that our government houses and educates and gives medical care to all these folks, and maybe we need to see that there are no homeless veterans, because they deserve better than that. Not everyone comes home from war whole. Not everyone can just pick up where they left off. And we MUST take care of those men and women. If we don’t force our politicians to provide money for veterans in all walks of life, then thanking a vet for his service is simply hypocrisy.
And another way we can show that we honor them, is not to be so quick to send them off to foolish wars. We can’t help everyone in the world. It’s a fact. And we can’t force others to believe what we believe. But we can refuse to send our darling young people to die on foreign soil for no good reason.
My husband was disabled by a land mine in Vietnam. Now many of his shirts are made there. Almost 60,000 died there, so very many wounded, and it was all for naught. And recent wars have been the same. For what? Perhaps what we need to remember on Memorial Day, is not to send our children to war. Now that’s a very good thing to memorialize. The end of war. Yeah, I know. Only in the movies….sigh.
See you at the Dietrich.
