The Ten Movies I Saw This Year in a Theater

Main Screen at the Coolidge Corner Moviehouse

In trying to put together a list of favorite movies I had gone to see this year, I had a hard time coming up with a list of ten. This does not reflect a pickiness on my part, but rather the limits of my schedule now that I have a child. For the sake of this column, I'm not going to mention the countless movies I have watched sitting on the couch at home while my family slept. The title of this column is Matineer, as in one that valiantly goes to matinees, which implies something about the movies I should be discussing.

As it turns out, after a quick scan of a list of movies that came out in 2007, I seem to have seen exactly ten movies in a theater this year. Therefore, my year-end wrap-up list is entitled:

Movies I Saw This Year in a Theater (in no particular order)

Date Night: Joe Strummer

When one finds oneself able to leave the house sans children for a night out, wasting the night on a crappy movie is pretty depressing. Ideally the date night movie should make you feel like edgy, hip single people, even if you never were before you had kids. With that in mind, I intend to make some recommendations in this column for movies that are smart without being very, very depressing, and evocative of clever youth. With any luck, it will also make you feel a little hot for your partner, which can't hurt.

I Loved Enchanted, Deal With It

Disney has a giant marketing machine set up to sell their Princesses to little girls. There, I’ve said it. Now, can we move on? Raising a kid in this country and keeping them from marketing is like raising a kid in India and shielding them from mangoes. It’s not just nearly impossible and foolish to attempt, but is detaching the child from a major part of the culture.