Movie Review: How to train your Dragon and Alice in Wonderland

I took my daughter and her BFF to the movies on this a rainy Monday.

We saw Alice in Wonderland.  I was nervous seeing this movie for a few reasons. First, I though I should take some LSD to appreciate it, but those days are over.  Second, the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp combination really icks me out.  Finally,. I though it would be a bit to scary.

I was wrong, wrong, and wrong.  I did not miss the LSD.  Second, the Tim Burton creepiness was on the back burner for this cartoon and anyway the move is called ALICE in Wonderland, not the Mad Hatter in Wonderland.  It was also not so scary.

But this was a great story to take girls to.  It show how a women can be strong, independent and heroic.  She can start out all dressed up in the costume of her parents and end on top of the world.  A world that she defined. This film is almost as good for as Title IX, when it comes to empowering American girls.

But I told the girls on the subway ride home then when they grow up they must marry the man person their parents choose they may not jump down any rabbit holes.  That an audible laugh out of a few people on the 4 train.  (I will probably end up in the Metropolitan Diary for that)

When my son is ready for James Bond, I will make sure my daughter gets to see Smilla's Sense of Snow.  We only named her after another Julia Ormond character.

Then we saw How to Train Your Dragon, an often repeated story of how a boy disappoints his Dad and in the end saves the day. If only the second part of this story was sometimes true in real life.

We saw these movies in Battery Park.  When we left the theater we saw the most wonderful thing.  The rain had stopped (temporary) and the fog had literally rolled in on the Hudson River.  Battery Park was in pale sunlight but the river covered by a tube of fog.  We could clearly see the tops of the buildings in Jersey City, but the land was gone.  For a moment the Statue of Liberty was just an arm bursting into the sky.

I told the girls to slow down and appreciate how lucky we were to see the fog like that.  I hope they do.

If I had brought my camera I would have taken a photo like this

Thank you Davedish at Flickr