Hanna is 4 years old and has been brought up watching virtually no commercial TV. And when she does its probably SBS. Instead she has watched the offerings of Australia’s Aunty: The Wiggles, Brum, Bob the Builder and the like. Her idea of a treat is watching animal documentaries or Strictly Dancing with Mum. Or Barbie movies *rolls eyes* if we rent something. This is the kid who I love to watch while she watches Tom and Jerry cartoons on the DVD because she absolutely delights in their antics and laughs uproariously. This is the kid who LOVED The Sound of Music.
But every now and then she would like to go to the movies. I have to be reasonably selective as she is not yet inured to the level of violence that the rest of us take for granted. When I took her to the Deckchair Cinema to watch “The Never Ending Story” she got quite scared. I had forgotten all about 1) the big scary ferocious dog/monster waiting to pounce on our hero 2) Storms with thunder and lightning 3) A horse that gets trapped in, and disappears in a swamp. It may have had a G rating but that was quite scary for the girl and I had to constantly reassure her. I haven’t dared to expose her to Snow White because I remember being scared through some of the dark forest sequences.
But I remember going to the flicks on a regular basis. Films like Paper Moon, Escape from Witch Mountain, Snow white, Peter Pan, Storm Boy were just some of the offerings I remember.
Now we missed the latest Wallace & Grommit movie thanks to me becoming literally becalmed so I owe Hanna one. That was almost a month ago. School holidays start next week so I hope that means that more will be on offer. Or should I say, something will be on offer. We have a huge number of little kids in this town as we have one of the highest fertility rates in Australia. If you haven’t got a market here, then you haven’t got a market anywhere. Between 3 movie theatres that have at least 6 theatres each, you would think that somebody could cater for preschoolers.
