I feel like redecorating a room. I feel like painting a wall with whimsical characters. I feel like hand-sewing something. I want to open a toy store or a chocolate shop or a magical book store. I'm uplifted. Inspired. Creatively charged.
The last time, it was kind of an accident. A whim really. It was Monday, and Monday is fifty cent movie day. If you can take a boatload of kids to a theater and pay $3.50, you go if there's something worth seeing, you know?
And, while I had really, really, really wanted to see
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium the first time I saw the trailer in the movie theater, the whispering critics changed my fickle mind. I don't even remember how it seeped into my brain that this movie was a dud. I just, Idunno,
heard it somewhere. Probably like people had heard that
The Wizard of Oz was a dud. Or
The Princess Bride. I can't recall reading it anywhere, or even having a conversation about it, but I know I had a negative feeling about
Mr. Magorium's, so I steered clear.
Fortunately for me and my tight fist, I got a second chance when
Mr. Magorium's was on at the cheap theater that day. And, what was especially intriguing to me, that it was rated G. A cheap family date
and I wouldn't leave the theater regretting that I'd tainted my children for life with a host of innuendos and potty jokes.
So we gave it a shot.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, from my five-year-old up to my eighteen-year-old, adored the movie. And so did I! I was whisked away by the sparkling innocence and charming quixoticity of it all--the set, the characters, the story. It enchanted me, truly.
Tonight, for family night, we watched it again, and my feelings were the same. Here, at last, was a clean, phantasmagorical film with quirky, quick-witted, capricious dialog and light-hearted humor. Nothing embarrassing. Nothing risque. Just sweet, fun-loving innocence.
Have you seen it? Have you avoided it because you heard it was a Chocolate Factory rip-off, or that Dustin Hoffman presents an annoying Willie Wonka wannabe? Who told you that? Whoever it was, I'd venture to say that those are people who have handed over their innocence, ultimately losing their identities to too many Bourne movies or poisoning their imaginations with the harsh violence and overdone bathroom humor present in the majority of today's films.
Mr. Magorium's, while somewhat trite in places, and, admittedly, a bit weak in the ending, nevertheless shares with us the beauty of relationships, the transformation that comes from loving, the unabashed compassion that one human being can have for another, and the novel idea that death is not scary or undesirable, but should be accepted as another stop on our adventure--indeed, even something to celebrate. It shares with us that, in the depths of our souls, there is someone who was born there, someone we can't kick out, someone who is keeping a volume of books recording with meticulousness every moment of our lives. It teaches us that how we love matters, that intergenerational relationships are what make us grow, and that there is no end to the importance of a good pair of shoes.
There are timeless truths here, to be sure.
On Bard's eighteenth birthday, we had lunch at Chic-Fila, and I happened to hear someone at the next table talking about
Mr. Magorium's, giving it, as I have, a glowing review. I couldn't stop myself from interjecting and connecting with this kindred spirit.
"I loved it, too," I ventured tentatively. And we shared our favorite parts. She told me how she sat in the theater alone (she'd just turned 50, she said) after doing just what I had done; she'd had a spare afternoon, some loose change, and had found herself at the ticket window of the bargain movie theater.
"I even asked the ticket girl if it was a dumb movie, and she said she didn't know. I figured, 'What the heck? For a couple of quarters, what do I have to lose?' So I went it, and was mesmerized. Smitten! I pulled out my notebook and, there in the dark, tried to jot down all that stuff I wanted to remember. I had a full page by the time it was over!"
Like me, she wondered what had kept her away. "I don't know why I thought it was a flop. I just heard it somewhere. But now, it's one of my favorite movies.
"It really made me think about my life," she said, "and made me ask myself what I'm saving things for. I had a friend who died of cancer a couple of years ago, and before she died, we went through her closet, and she had all these great, fancy clothes. Clothes she'd rarely or never worn! Why? Because she was 'saving them for a special occasion,' she'd said. I thought of that during the movie, when Mr. Magorium says, 'Your
life is a an occasion. Rise to it!' That line! I decided that I'd wear my good clothes now, every day. What am I saving them for?"
If you're looking for a clean family film, a departure from the prosaic, something to sweep you away from the proletarian day-to-day, Mr. Magorium's just might be it.
No matter
what "they" say.
