Newer Movies for Older Viewers

by James Wallace Harris, 8/30/23

It seems the older we get, the pickier we get.

This weekend our friend Janis came to stay with Susan and me. We always watch movies together but picking them has always been problematic. Getting three people to agree on anything takes a bit of time. To make matters worse, Susan hates picking out movies for group watching. It’s one of her pet peeves to have to sit and watch movie previews and then discuss which ones to see. The older we all get, the more set in our ways we’ve become.

It usually falls to me to go through all the streaming services and find a selection for the three of us to choose from. I enjoy the challenge. I think I’m getting good at knowing what Susan and Janis will like.

Susan likes feel-good movies and comedies. Janis likes thrillers and trendy films reviewed on NPR. I like old movies which Susan sometimes will watch, but Janis’s dislikes. I’ve gotten sick of thrillers which Janis loves. Susan loves romantic comedies which I sometimes enjoy but Janis seldom picks. I love westerns but they both dislike that genre. Susan and I dislike mysteries, but Janis seems partial to them. We all hate franchise films, especially ones from Marvel and DC. We all like Pixar films. Susan likes Disney animation, and I do sometimes, but not Janis. I love good accurate historical dramas which appeal to Susan and Janis rarely. We all three like little feel-good films from England and Australia. We emphatically don’t want to watch horny teenager flicks. Janis likes sophisticated horror films if they’re well-reviewed. Janis has a new guideline she uses for herself that helps me. She wants films to have an IMDB rating of > 7.00. That has worked out well for all of us.

Even with all these conflicting tastes we did find two pictures that we all enjoyed enough to consider both movie nights a success. They were: Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret and Where the Crawdads Sing. Both movies were coming of age stories about young girls. Both were based on successful books. I think I’ll remember for the future to look for films based on well-regarded novels. Both books were set around the same time, 1969 and 1970, which the three of us remember well.

I think both films appealed to the three of us because of characterization rather than plot, although I admired the plot of Where the Crawdads Sing. That might be another clue for picking movies next time. Where the Crawdads Sing is a murder mystery that involves violence and rape, subjects that normally would have kept us from watching. Kya is a girl that must raise herself from an incredibly early age. That was a more compelling story than the murder mystery aspect. Margaret’s story is sweet and universal.

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret is also about religion, and I found that particularly intriguing. Margaret’s father is Jewish and her mother a former Christian, and they decide to Margaret decide about religion when she grows up. But after the family moves to a new home causing Margaret to face several stressful changes in her life starting the sixth grade, she begins talking to God. The movie brings up a lot of philosophical questions about religion but doesn’t answer them. That didn’t dissatisfy me, but I wanted to talk about that with Susan and Janis. But they didn’t want to, and I assume most movie viewers don’t want to go there either. But didn’t Margaret become happier once she gave up on God? Was that the message?

Kya in Where the Crawdads Sing is a retelling of the Tarzan myth. What happens is hard to believe, but I accepted the various rationales the story gave. It’s an incredibly positive story. However, I thought it interesting that this was another story where a white male of a certain stereotype was used for the villain. Now this stereotype is based on plenty of real-world statistics, and I found him believable. Too believable. However, it makes me wonder about things I read in the news about problems that boys and young men are having. And if I were a young girl watching these kinds of films, I’d grow up terrified of boys and men.

Where the Crawdads Sing (Rotten Tomatoes: 35% Critics, 96% Audience, IMDB: 7.2)

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (Rotten Tomatoes: 99% Critics, 95% Audience, IMDB: 7.4)

Susan and Janis have no problem finding movies on their own, but it’s getting exceedingly difficult for me to find movies I’ll sit and watch by myself. I really enjoy watching television and movies with other people, and that’s partly because if I’m watching with someone else, I don’t get restless and turn off the TV. But I think Susan and Janis, both find it easier to watch what they want by themselves. Is that a gender thing?

I know the older I get the more intolerant I feel towards movies and TV shows. When I was young, I’d watch shows that my parents would tell me were stupid. That hurt my feelings, but I know what they meant now.

I did find one movie on my own that captivated me — Dial 1119, a low-budget black-and-white film from 1950. It dealt with a crazed killer that seems too familiar to what we see on the news today. The host Eddie Muller of TCM’s Noir Alley said in the intro that America was just starting to take notice of men going on rampage shootings when this film was made.

So that was three good movies for me this weekend.

JWH