Saturday, February 6, 2021

Our weekend began with a bit of a splash

A few months ago our younger son, who has since turned seven, landed on a storytelling device that was as cute in its delightful misuse of the language as it was clever in its attempted application of it.

As with most cute things kids do, it lasted only a week or two. Once we couldn't help but draw attention to it, so smitten were we with it, he dropped it like a bad habit.

He would start telling a story about something that had happened in his life and would begin with the phrase "Well my day began with a bit of a splash." He'd then proceed to tell us about some very minor mishap that had started his day, the very innocuousness of the mishap making it all the cuter.

I'm not sure exactly how he thought to use "splash" this way. I've been trying to think of an obvious single word that he meant instead of "splash," as he was clearly trying to mimic something he'd heard, probably something my wife or I said. "Things got off to a rocky start" or "We started with a bit of a misstep" is the closest I can come to it as I sit here and write this. When my wife and I were discussing the delightfulness of the malapropism, I think we had a more exact replacement at the time, but it has since escaped me.

Well, this weekend literally did begin with a bit of a splash, as in, Ron Howard's Splash.

I'm away in the town of Warragul, about 115 kilometers from our house in North Melbourne, getting ready to take my kids to a water park called Gumbuya World a couple hours from now. (Remember, it's summer here, and we are also doing well with COVID.) It'll be their first water park, and I'm a little worried about their level of confidence on the waterslides, especially the seven-year-old. But in the upper end of the range of possible outcomes, it could be an absolute blast.

The place isn't really far enough to warrant two nights out of town. In fact, most people would just do it as a day trip. But my wife and I make efforts to give each other time alone without our kids, as you would know from my previous posts about my motel movie marathons on our projector. She hasn't been off to a hotel herself in quite a while, so I think the last time I managed this for her was when I took the kids for a snow weekend back in July of 2019. (Again, remember the reverse seasons.)

So we're staying at a cute little motor inn here, minimal but decorated nicely enough, and after our pizza dinner last night we returned for another hour or so of gaming before bed. I was planning just to be on my computer, but instead flicked on the TV as I sometimes like to watch random TV when I'm in a hotel. 

I was enjoying a few minutes of a women's soccer match, but decided to hop around just to see what else was on. Which was when I landed on Splash, near its beginning, in the scene when a hungover, tuxedoed Allen Bauer is first trying to locate someone with a boat, who turns out to be Mr. Fat Jack. 

Now, I've written before on this blog how I don't like coming in to a movie partway through, due to the resulting confusion about whether to add the movie as an "official viewing" or "official rewatch" on my various lists. You can see my ruminations on that subject way back in 2009, which, as it turns out, was within a month of the last time I watched Splash

But I like to think there's room for growth in any person, and in fact, it was a similar scenario around this time last year -- when my wife and I turned on and watched (and enjoyed watching) part of Bridesmaids on a trip out of town -- that encouraged me to leave Splash on. After all, it was a childhood favorite of mine, and I could instantly feel it filling me up like the best comfort food does.

The kids were fully involved in their own screens, so I expected Splash -- which is pretty innocent outside of a couple bare butts and a lot of sexual innuendo -- to just go in one ear and out the other. (Speaking of bare butts, the initial reason I determined to keep it on was that I wanted to see if this random Melbourne TV station was using the original version of Splash, or the stupid Disney one that made headlines last year for editing digital fur on to Daryl Hannah's backside. Thankfully, it was the former.)

For my older son, it did go in one ear and out the other -- or rather, didn't even have the chance to do that, because his headphones left no ears exposed to it. The younger one, though, started getting distracted from his game pretty early on, and after I'd had it on for about 15 minutes, was basically fully committed to the movie.

Another 30 minutes after that, he told me it was his favorite movie ever. I think that was a joke. But the point was, even having not seen the beginning and having not paid much attention at the point we did start watching, its obvious charm had made an immediate connection with him. I didn't ask him what the source of his attraction to the movie was, but I suspect it had to do with the infinite benevolence of Hannah's character, and the fact that she was also a mythological creature.

During commercial breaks -- of which there were many, unfortunately -- I hustled them into pajamas and got teeth brushed. I was a little surprised they endured so successfully given how late it was getting. My ten-year-old could probably play Brawl Stars all night if I let him, but the seven-year-old is usually asleep by 9. That was about when we started watching the movie. It looks like they were fitting this 111-minute movie into a 150-minute time slot -- I might have even thought the time slot was three hours, except not enough of the movie had elapsed for it to have been going on for a full hour when we started watching, even with commercial breaks that sometimes felt like they were four minutes long.

Anyway, it was probably a pretty bad dad move to keep the kids up to 11 on the night before we were supposed to spend all day at a water park, but I didn't want to deny the seven-year-old the pleasures of a movie he was really enjoying, which I had loved at about the same age his older brother is now. And of course, if I finished watching it, I'd get to count it as an "official rewatch," even having missed the first 15 minutes. That wasn't something I did with Bridesmaids, as we watched only a chunk in the middle. But even my strict rules aren't so strict as to disallow an "official rewatch" of a film I've seen ten times before, just because I missed its opening three or four scenes.

Fortunately, they both got to sleep almost immediately, which was a good thing, as the older one had just lost a tooth (yes, he's still losing teeth at age ten) and I had to put money under his pillow before I went to sleep myself. He doesn't believe in the tooth fairy anymore, but we have to keep the myth going for his younger brother, who may believe in both tooth fairies and mermaids.

As I was writing up this post, it occurred to me that I don't already have a label for Splash, meaning I haven't yet written about it in the 12-year history of this blog. That seems quite the oversight, as this was one of a dozen or so movies I had on VHS that I watched regularly in the mid- to late-1980s. There's a reason I haven't written about it, which I'm glad to say that this most recent viewing has set right.

When I last watched Splash in 2009, before either of my kids were born, it was to expose my wife to it. She grew up skeptical of Tom Hanks, but when her opinion on that changed, it changed in a big way. Or, I should say, a Big way. Big had been a particular hit with her, and I'm pretty sure we watched a few others in the first few years of our courtship. (Big also does not have a label on this blog, and it's in my top 30 on Flickchart, so I guess there's no accounting for what I write about and what I don't.) 

Splash was not a hit with her. I can't even remember why at this point. But I didn't like Splash as much as I had on previous viewings when I watched it in 2009 either. I don't think her perspective of it biased me. It was just a bad viewing, which can happen with our favorite movies. Empire Strikes Back recently spent five years in my doghouse after a bad viewing, as you may remember from this post

Well I'm glad to say that Splash is fully back in my good graces. I was steadily warmed by it throughout the viewing, remembering more than half the dialogue ("Mr. Mango on my shoulder ...") and also living vicariously through my son's first viewing. In Splash's 12 years in my personal doghouse, it dropped from in the 200s on my Flickchart to where it sits now at #528. Something tells me it will be rising again soon. 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the older one will get to have the same experience with Splash as his younger brother. Emerging from his headphones during the climactic scene, he suddenly became interested in it, and after we turned the lights out, harassed me into giving him a full plot synopsis of the movie. I rushed one out in about 20 seconds and we all went to bed.

At which point, there was a bit of a splash. 

I'm not sure if it was awakening to an alarm at 11:30 to place four dollars under my son's pillow, because I was able to get back to sleep after that, but something disrupted my sleep and left me wide awake at about 1 a.m. I stayed in this condition until about 3 a.m. I never sleep well in hotels, and in this instance I was sleeping in a single bed while my kids shared a queen, probably making it worse.

Part of the problem, I think, was that I'd burned the roof of my mouth on the pizza we had for dinner and it was still bothering me. I don't think a burnt roof alone can keep you awake at night, but if you are trying to get back to sleep it certainly provides a distraction.

It got so bad that I even moved to a little half couch that would only fit half of my body, to see if changing up my circumstances would lead to the much desired sleep. This also cooled me off a bit as it put me directly under the air conditioner, though the temperature wouldn't fairly be described as a reason for my insomnia either. I didn't get to sleep there, but the experience did make me a bit sleepier so that I gave the bed another shot, and finally attained oblivion.

Now, off to have a real splash at the water park. I just hope my poor sleep doesn't start off our splash with a bit of a splash.

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