Today is my older son's tenth birthday.It is, of course, also a milestone for me: ten years of parenthood. Ten years of putting someone other than myself first. (I sometimes put my wife first, but you know what I mean.) Ten years of the pitter patter of little feet. It probably warrants its own post, but I'll save that for another day.
It is also the first quarantine birthday in our household. My younger son and my wife are in January and February, and I'm in October, so even though it feels like we've spent most of this year inside our home, the reality is that it hasn't even been half a year yet.
A quarantine birthday is, of course, not very special for a kid. As we were in America this time last year and ultimately decided not to have a birthday party for him at all -- we celebrated on his birthday, but it was only with extended family -- this makes two years in a row without a real birthday party for him. We're doing a little zoom thing on Saturday so he can see his friends, but it will only compensate so much.
So we're doing a number of things to shower him with the feels today. I've already started the day with Krispy Kreme donuts, and his favorite mango juice will follow, once he can come into the kitchen to drink it. (Donuts are fine on the couch in front of the TV; mango juice, not so much.) He'll only have to do half a day of school, and then it's his Fortnite and Clash of Clans for the rest of the day after lunch. We're ordering from his favorite hamburger restaurant tonight, and will eat during a family movie. And there will, of course, be presents sprinkled along the way.
The family movie is finally what I want to talk about, along with the introduction of today's other big surprise.
We have been hemming and hawing for a while now about ordering Disney+. The debut of Hamilton almost clinched it, but we also had a debate about whether to watch it in that form or wait until our opportunity to see it on the stage first. Well, as of yesterday morning, we purchased tickets to see Hamilton in Sydney next April, so that question has been definitively answered.
The other problem was that there was no way to watch Disney+ through our TV, since our smart TV does not have it as an option, and we don't do Chromecast or anything like that. Considering how much I expect our kids to use it, it needs to be something they can control directly through a remote control, and not need one of our computers to operate.
So the arrival of my son's birthday seemed like a good time to pull two triggers: To purchase AppleTV, another thing we'd been hemming and hawing about, and then to purchase Disney+.
I set it up last night so we could watch Captain Marvel tonight for his birthday. He's never been allowed to watch a Marvel movie before, but he saw Shazam a full year ago so I'm not really sure the difference. My wife has her trepidations about exposing our six-year-old to objectionable content that may haunt him, but I told her it can't be any worse than The Goonies, which we showed them earlier in quarantine. He was afraid of Sloth (and had to leave the room, even after Sloth had been revealed as a softie) but it didn't stay with him. Anyway, hopefully the viewing will happen.
But as I basked in the glow of the unwrapping of two shiny new objects last night, I couldn't just put the whole thing away until we unveiled it to him today, even though it was 10 o'clock and I was coming off a terrible night's sleep. I had to watch something to break it in, didn't I?
Enter Cool Runnings.
Although this is, in some strange way, a classic of 1990s cinema -- if not in quality, then as a zeitgeist representative of the era, in part because it recreates such a memorable moment in Olympic history -- I had never before seen it. As soon as it popped up on the menu I knew I had to rectify that. It would be short, and no one else in the house would care one way or another about seeing it ... right?
As I was watching, my wife came in and said "Oh, I wanted to see that film! I wanted to show it to the kids." My response: "It's 27 years old!" You can't lay claim on a 27-year-old movie, or at least, you can't be surprised if someone decides to watch it in your house without checking with you first.
Well, I'd watch it again. Over time I've gone from thinking this must be really silly and not worth anyone's time to figuring it probably had a ton of heart and would be very sweet. The latter is most assuredly the reality of the situation. In fact, though the execution is surely no better than totally competent, I gave the film four stars on heart and sweetness alone. (And it's funny. And it's got John Candy.)
I still think it's a bit of a funny way to celebrate subscribing to D+. In fact, my first instinct was to watch an episode of The Simpsons -- a primary driving force behind our subscription -- but I worried my son would wander out into the living room (he stays up late sometimes) and would deduce that we'd made the purchase. At the very least I should have watched 20 minutes of a Star Wars movie.
But no, Cool Runnings was and always shall be the first movie I watched on our Disney+ subscription.
And I am more than okay with that.
Happy birthday J. Here's to many future viewings together.
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