Classics

Barbara blogged about rediscovering Felinni films. She wonders what she would think of them now - would she see them in the same way? Or how will her life journey change how she views them - will she enjoy them? I'll have to check back and see.

But it did get me thinking . . .

There have been movies and books that I've viewed or read once a year, faithfully, for years at at a time. One example of this is The Dark is Rising series, which is now going to be made into a movie. These that I've re-read or re-viewed in this manner I have continued to enjoy, pretty much enjoying them the same way. But last fall I started to read abook that I haven't read in probably a decade. I didn't get very far - I know that I enjoyed it then, because I bought other books in the series. But, boy, it sure didn't strike me as worth reading again now.

Kiddies A and B have been reading American novels at school - what I would call classics: The Old Man and The Sea and The Red Pony, for example. They just don't see these as books that they would ever pick up on their own to read. I'm guessing that most middle schoolers feel the same way. So what would the New Classics be? I'll be curious to see what their reactions are to other books as they go into high school. In fact, I'm curious about what the teachers are using these days.

My SO and I will occasionally bring home a movie that we really enjoyed years ago, excited to share this with our teenage daughters. More often than not, we are disappointed - and so are they! Clearly, what we view as good material doesn't measure up to their standards. They roll their eyes, start making more and more trips to the kitchen for a drink, and finally fade away to their rooms.

An aside: in truth, sometimes the SO and I look at each other and say "we LIKED this?? The last time we tried this, it was 2001: A Space Odyssey. What a disaster! I had forgotten the loooong "artistic" shots. Before that, it was the MacGyver series. SO and I never missed that show when it was on tv! But we watched the recently released DVDs and now those shows seem so silly!

I must say that I am quite pleased that I was able to successfully introduce Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing to them. Kiddie B's class read Twelfth Night and she enjoyed it and I used that as the catalyst. In fact, she asked me to buy the DVD, which I promptly did.