Can't Judge a Movie By It's Poster

Friday night is movie night.

It always has been. I've kept the tradition even since Steve moved out, figuring it could be a fun night we all kind of crash out and have screen time together.

It's not exactly the same. I don't have Steve's skill at finding exactly the movie we want, so we need to know what we have before choosing. We still take turns, but we often forget whose turn it is as we don't have turns each weekend anymore.

Last time we had a movie night, it was Nate's turn, and it was Valentine's Day. It was more than 2 weeks ago, because of February vacation. He chose and old Godzilla film, and I had to grit my teeth as the dubbed film went on and on and the boys stared openmouthed at the screen, waiting for monsters.

Tonight was Andy's night.

I showed him what we had available on my Amazon account, and he chose My Dog Skip, because there is a picture of a tiny dog staring at a toilet, and I said "Maybe the dog learns how to use the toilet?" And Bingo, Andy made a choice.

Have you seen this movie? It came out in 2000. The little boy in the movie is almost 30 now. In fact, all the actors are incredibly young. It's a sweet movie with a sweet story. But the boys are a bit cynical. Almost as soon as it started they were talking about how the dog was probably going to get hit by a car. "That always happens in these movies."

As the movie went on, the boys laughed and talked about relationships between the characters in the film. The kids are pretty intuitive about some things. The next door neighbor comes home from the war and is different. "Who do you think might understand him?" I asked. Nate was the one who said the boy's father, who had lost his leg in the war. And it all seemed good.

Until the end.

OK, so, flashback and subject change (kind of.)  When we were kids, my mother got the movie Turner and Hooch. Do you know this one? It had Tom Hanks in it, back before he was Big Tom Hanks and was just Medium Tom Hanks? Anyway, it was about Tom Hanks and a dog. One of them was Turner and the other was Hooch. I don't remember actually watching this movie, so I can't tell you who was who. And SPOILER ALERT! At the end of this movie, I'm pretty sure the dog dies. I think he gets shot. My mother watched this movie with us, and at the end of the movie, she was a gibbering mess. And so was my brother Jamie, who must have been around 8 years old. They cried and cried together, Mom and Jamie, all over this dog from this movie.

So.... My Dog Skip.

I'm about the spoil the movie for you. The dog dies.

But not when you think he's going to die. They make it so you think he's going to die, but then he doesn't. During the time when the little movie boy was crying and we all thought the dog was going to die, Nathan started sniveling. And then Andy started tearing up. And then the movie dog got better, and it looked like it was going to be OK, but then the dog got old and the narrator (Harry Connick Jr.) told us that he died at the old age of eleven.

And then the movie was over.

I went over to give Nate a hug, because he'd started crying. Only when I hugged him he started right out bawling. Nick made a comment and I replied, "It's OK that Nate's crying. It shows that he has feelings and that he's empathetic."

At this, Nate started crying harder.

He cried and cried. Andy was crying, too, at some point. But then he lost interest in crying and decided he was just sleepy. Nathan kept going. After ten minutes I was coated in snot and Nate was making odd wailing noises.

The thing is, I was serious about him being empathetic. Nate gets so wrapped up in his own story and is so easily frustrated that it's easy to forget that stories affect him this way.

One week, he wants Godzilla. The next he's sobbing about a dog. My baby boy. My baby bear.