One of my family's traditions is to watch movies at Thanksgiving and Christmas. You'd think this would be a simple thing to do, but you'd be wrong. Finding a movie we can agree on is a struggle and my holidays are just my parents and me.
We start out with one big strike--my folks don't enjoy action/adventure movies and these happen to be my favorite. I don't like "heartwarming" stories about animals, particularly if there's a chance the animal will die or suffer some other hardship. These are my mom's favorite movies. I'm not sure what my dad prefers because he'll go along wit anything, but my guess would be comedy, particularly older comedies where he won't feel uncomfortable about the language or situations.
Last year was a big fail. I tried a Jane Austen movie. I don't remember the name of it, but it starred Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Both my parents slept through it. I wished I could be lucky enough to drop unconscious. Talk about boring with a capital B.
The year before that we tried a Dean Martin celebrity roast. No one fell asleep, but the humor was very dated and some of it was like OMG, did someone really say that?
I could go back for years with similar stories. We just can't find something that we all are interested in watching that is actually good. So with this in mind, on Sunday I picked out this year's Thanksgiving Day movie. I figured the family section on Netflix was a good choice and from there selected comedies. Most of the movies were from the 60s and 70s which really says something about how many good family films are coming out of Hollywood now, but I digress.
I clicked through page after page of live-action Disney movies, many of which I'd already seen. I finally decided on The Boatniks even though I've seen that one, too, and I think my folks have as well. It's Disney, I remember it being funny, and my mom and dad should get a kick out of it. I hope. I'll find out later.
Happy American Thanksgiving!
