King Kong & Matt

Way back before Christmas I'd promised my favorite little friend, Matt, a trip to the movies. One morning last week sweet little Matt awoke with these as his first words of the day "Amy's never going to take me to the movies." His mother told him not to worry about that and being the very good mother that she is, she called me right away.

On Saturday afternoon, Rich and I took our little friend Matt to see King Kong. Did you realize that King Kong is a three hour movie? Did you know that you don't see King Kong at all until the second half of the movie? Matt was just as excited as he could be but I do think some of the excitement waned as he watched the very slow first half (which could have been a feature length movie in itself).

But all that excitement came back when the ship reached Skull Island and when everyone in the theater (except those who fell asleep) knew that we'd see some scary things and soon.

Boys love gore. They cheer it on and their eyes light up when they see it. It's built into them, saved from the caveman days I'm sure. There is plenty of gore in the second half of King Kong. Dinosaurs trampling people. (Don't ask me how dinosaurs made it into the King Kong flick but they were there and as real as Jurassic Park, for sure) Dinosaurs eating each other. King Kong flinging people around like rag dolls. Skulls and bones of people who were flung years ago. Worms and roaches as big as people sucking up whole people.

So in the middle of all of this gore and general scariness, I looked over at my sweet friend who was covering his eyes with his hand but still peeking through his fingers. I remembered that at this fancy new theater the arm rests can be raised to make more of a loveseat of two chairs. I decided my little friend might need some comforting and reassurance. More than anything, I wanted to scoop my scared little friend up and hold him in my arms. So I do think this need was more selfish than anything else.

With the arm between us raised, I motioned to Matt that he could move in closer to me if he'd like. The look he gave me made me realize how ridiculous the offer was. Next thing I knew, the arm was back down (I didn't put it down).