Last night I tried watching "Bridget Jones' Diary" with my mom.
Note to self: Do not try that again!
Isn't that what Bridget Jones always wrote to herself, "Note to self"? I never read the book but I looked into it in the library once, just read a couple of pages. It looked hysterical. But it did not strike me as the kind of thing I wanted to read page after page after page and so I did not borrow it.
Did I see the movie? I could not remember. Not that I thought about it much last night. I had not slept much the night before and I think my judgment was deserting me. Last night all I thought was, it had Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, two actors my mom loves.
If Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are in a movie how bad can it be, you know?
Answer: Pretty bad!
There were "F" words in every sentence! There were unbelievable bawdy jokes. There was tons of sex. That whole movie, it was like this big mud puddle. I mean, maybe with your friends it would be funny but with your mom, au contraire.
Into my mind flashed this quote from "Downton Abbey" that was floating around Facebook. My friend Bing from church posted it.
But this, ahem, vulgarity. How do you get away from it?
A few months ago or whenever, I looked up "Fifty Shades of Grey" to see what it was about. I honestly had no idea, I just kept hearing mention of this book and I was wondering. And when I found out, I just thought, oh, of course. Couldn't I have figured that out? You can pretty much assume, you know?
Either things are about sex or they are about vampires! Or both. And that makes finding movies for your mom all the more difficult. This is funny, I remember discussing this situation with Leonard Pennario, this situation about my mom and movies. It is a problem I have had forever!
Anyway, back to last night. It ended badly, is all I will say.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I am putting a new rule in place when it comes to movies with my mom.
No movies after 1960!
6 comments:
I'm not going to pretend I don't cuss.. on occasion of course. But I agree with the use of the f-bomb as it is called. There is no need for such language used to the extreme it is today.
Perhaps that is why I love the older comedians like Bob Hope, Lucille Ball and Jack Benny so much.. they had to use actual humor instead of vulgarity to get laughs. They had no choice but to actually be creative.
I agree, Bing! Once I got to interview someone in movies, I forget who, and he told me that the reason you hear the F bomb so much in movies is that actors are asked to ad-lib and that is the only thing they can come up with. Mystery explained! I guess we could have guessed that ...
One (if not THE) last movie appearance of Katharine Hepburn had her saying the line "F**K a duck." - Her biographer mentioned she had issues with this - and Miss. Hepburn was no prude. When you watch the clip (I don't even recall the name of the movie), she whispers the line and you can tell she's not all that enthused with its importance.
Bing, that is a terrible story! She should not have agreed to say that line. There was something like that involving John Gielgud, too. I remember one of his last movie roles had him uttering vulgarities. It is terrible how vulgarity is accepted as wit, you know?
I went to see Gabe Kaplan at Melody Fair with my parents once. I was never sure how hard to laugh while I was sitting next to them during the slightly "adult" parts. Never did that again.
Oh, Budd, that sounds excruciating. Thank you for sharing your Mom Entertainment Disaster!
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