Freakier Than Ever

This weekend we rented the movie “Freaky Friday” to watch with  the kids (the 1976 original version.) Man, it is hokey. Movies sure have come a long way in 30 years. I don’t mean to disrespect the movie, Natalie watched it three times. But the whole story line of the kid brother and the chase scene where she’s driving on the sidewalk and nearly hits a dude carrying a cello is a bit much. Have you EVER seen anyone walking down the street just holding a cello? (When I mentioned these concerns to Kara, she gently reminded me that the entire premise of the movie is fictional.)

Watching it with my kids, I was more sensitive to things that might seem foreign to them. In one scene, the mother answers the phone, but because of noise she tells the caller that she needs to take the call in another room. She puts the phone down and runs off. My kids don’t get this. We haven’t had a corded phone for at least ten years. Also, there is a bit about the mother (in the daughter’s body) not realizing that the typewriter in typing class was electric. That is funny for reasons that the script writers could not have envisioned.

Natalie commented several times that “Annabelle” sounded like a boy. I couldn’t disagree with her but pointed out that tomboyish actress became quite a famous movie star. She asked what she was in. I could only think of Contact, Sommersby, and Maverick, none of which she has seen. Maybe she wasn’t so famous. (I did think of some other movies, but I haven’t even seen those.) Then Kara told her she is the woman in Nim’s Island. Aha.