I do remember watching 'The Land Before Time' (1988!) in that dingy cinema in Bedok (the most happening place in the east in the 1980s) with mum, her friends and their kids before primary school. Then came a vaccuum. Then came primary school where she trusted me enough to go for movies with my friends. Then came the 'boyfriends era' during which going to GV was a weekly pilgrimage. Then came 'sisterhood of the singles' where I started watching movies with my single girls and boys.
The bottom line is this: I've probably not been to the movies with my mum for over 20 years.
Being a huge fan of the book 'Marley & Me', I hyperventilated the first time I saw the movie poster in Novemeber 2008. I'd probably coerced a dozen people to read the book and to promise to watch it with me but I finally decided the best person to watch it with would be mum. She loves dogs. We have a dog. This movie is about a dog's journey with his owners from puppyhood to senior years. We will be able to relate to it perfectly.
I was secretly hoping that mum would cry watching it. Haha. In fact, I thought I saw her wiping tears away but she insisted she didn't cry. Naturally, I cried a lot towards the end of the movie and she was poking fun at me. Hmmph! But really, I think we can appreciate what the author said of Marley and dogs in general:
Was it possible for a dog - any dog, but especially a nutty, wildly uncontrollable one like ours - to point humans to the things that really mattered in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy. And the things that did not matter, too. A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A water-logged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his.
When we came home from the movie, we couldn't find Ricky at his usual spot in the living room. We eventually found him lying on the floor right in the middle of my room awake and waiting. He didn't hear our chattering and only noticed us when he turned his head towards the door. Ricky scrambled to his feet and greeted us. A classic example of how a dog will always welcome you home no matter how long you go away... <3
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