I Love It When A Movie Comes Together!

The Man of the House, and I have an anniversary tomorrow (19 years!), and my folks are in town, so we were able to slip away to a matinee. Really, my oldest was the one doing the actual baby-sitting, but don't tell my mother. She likes the illusion, that she's still young enough to handle the whole crew.

Anyway, we went to a movie in the theater - a big event for us. We don't really keep up with what's playing at the theater for a few reasons:

1. Taking 6 children to see a movie is not a lot of fun.


2. Paying for 6 children to see a movie is really not a lot of fun.


3. Movie theaters in our part of Montana, are generally not a lot of fun. Not real clean, and full of people who are...well...not real clean.
   

But, on a sunny, summer day, most Montanans seek the outdoors, and it's a safe bet the theaters won't be crowded. So, off we went to the movies. And our movie of choice, for our anniversary date was The A-Team.

I know it doesn't sound real romantic, but both of us were big A-Team fans as children. My husband watched it for all the shoot 'em up action, I'm sure. And I watched it for the sense of relational brotherhood between the characters.

Alright, really I watched it because it had the guy who had played Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica (no offence to Kara Thrace - but come on!)

Sorry if I lost you, but that's really the point. My husband gets it, just like he gets me, which is part of what has made the last nineteen years so much fun. And, I'm pretty sure it was that shared "getting it" that made the movie so much fun, too - all the silly little inside jokes, that only fans of the '80's show would understand. But, beyond that, it was a pretty good movie on its own.

Please understand, when I say that, that we went to the movie with very low expectations. We've watched the show recently on Netflix, and it's pretty bad - still a lot of fun - but the writing, and acting, and special effects, and everything are just awful. So, we expected a pretty corny movie. Either that, or something like some of the recent remakes of our favorite childhood programs, which turned out to be dark, twisted, violent, grown-up versions of their old selves.

But the A-Team is still the A-Team. The story has been changed a little, the team served in Iraq, instead of Vietnam. And, of course, the actors are different. We were pleasantly surprised at how well they did, though. Instead of playing the original actors, they played the original characters, and it worked.

While there was a tiny more violence in the big screen version, or rather a lot more, it was, for the most part, still the crazy, impossible kind, where you know the characters should absolutely not survive, but somehow they do. And, according to Focus on the Family, the language was pretty severe. I confess, I was so caught up in the movie, I didn't notice.

The sex was turned up a bit more (but only a bit), the explosions rivaled 2012, and the villains were on the dark side, but Face was still grinning at the girls, while B.A. was pitying the fool, and bickering with Murdock, and Hannibal was grinning through his cigars. It's the same old guys, the same old fun, and the same silly plan, that all comes together in the end.

Oh, and by the way, the images above are not mine. I "borrowed" them from around the Web, and am hopefully not violating the spirit of the copyrights, or anything like that.

It's great to be a homeschooler.