Don't Rain on My Parade

Every so often I just happen to catch some classic movie on TV--and then the party is pretty much over for the rest of the family.

Take for example "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". If that bad boy is on--somewhere on TV--I've got this extra-sensory perception and I just know that it's on....and I find it.  And then it's all downhill from there--the rest of the night is all "Sobbin' Women", "Goin' Courtin'" and "Spring, Spring, Spring" in full voice--mine, of course.  I get all excited and then I drag whoever is home to come watch it with me. I mean, who doesn't love a good barn raisin' scene with all that dancin' and fightin' over the gals??

Oh, there are other non-musical required watching too, like "The Way We Were", ""Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", "Dr. Zhivago", "This is Spinal Tap","Kelly's Heroes", and  "Das Boot"--amongst a long list of other classic films. At least I'm a well-rounded kinda cinematic bully, right?  I'm convinced the kids should be exposed to the classics (and some not-so classic) and I make them drop what they are doing to sit and watch with me.  They still thank me for doing that one Christmas vacation morning when the three of us laid in my bed watching "Ferris Bueller" for the first time. There are just some movies I think those kids should see.

The Sunday paper lead me to the TCM listings for their 31 Days of Oscar.  They are showing all sorts of Oscar-winning movies for the month and I'm hooked. I find myself searching the nightly listing to see what I can catch--and Sunday night was no different.  I hit the jackpot when one of my very favoritist movies of all time was on....."Funny Girl", starring Barbra Streisand and Omar Shariff.  Sigh. It doesn't get much better than that.

Poor Em really didn't believe me when I told her the house was shutting down at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday night for one of my favorite movies.  And silly her, she invited her boyfriend over too.  Nothing like dinner-theater at the Kautz house. I told her Ivan could come over, but if they wanted to be here, there was required watching....and no smooching or talking or other rude behavior in the family room theater. You have to sit and watch....and enjoy.

And there we sat--the three of us on the couch (me singing the part of Fanny Brice), Joe on the floor, Hobbes (playing the part of Nicky Arnstein) in his basket, and Grace---well, she got sick of my singing and left for the bedroom. (She is a party pooper.)  And it was lovely. Sigh. We enjoyed 3 hours of the love story of Fanny Brice and Nicky Arnstein--along with some great showstoppers.  And I only really sang like 3 numbers--I didn't want to scare Ivan too badly, you know.

Gees, it was a great night and the kids ended up really liking the movie. Em mentioned that Ivan had a fun night with us and she was just really glad that she finally figured out who Barbra Streisand is.  Really??

When I hear stuff like that coming out of my kid, I know I'm doing my job. Sheesh.