The Classics

I was chatting away on the train the other day with two moms and their teen daughters. They were headed to the big city from New Jersey to see a Broadway show, which they did several times a year, and yet they were totally lost. Keep in mind they did this trip often, and it's a three-track system that has twelve total stops. Mass transitly speaking, not complicated.

They were going to see The Little Mermaid before it went the way of a lot of shows these days -- bust.

The last show we saw was Mary Poppins. Totally brilliant, think it's the best show we've ever seen, and that was before we met one of the Marys who lives in our building. Catherine, she's adorable.

One of the teens says she's never seen Mary Poppins the movie and never will, as it's, like, five hours long. The mom assures her it's about an hour and a half. The girl says, no, on TV it's like five hours. We assure her that's because of the commercials.

The other teen says, I want to buy, like, all the Disney movies on DVD. The other teen says, yeah, like, the classics: Lion King, Aladdin.

Were I the type of person who enjoys pages of literary masterfulness, I'd make some tidy metaphor about the train, its track, my "train" of thought of what the classics are and things screeching, derailing and what not. But I skip those bits when reading and go directly to the dialogue mainly because I've read too many books and no longer care. In fact, the last book that actually made me read the descriptive bits was The God of Small Things. Feel free to judge.

But if you think about it, how do you define a classic movie? Off the top of my head, it would be something award-winning, seen by millions, instantly recognizable either by character, actor, song...made before you were born.

Lion King won two Oscars and 22 other awards. Two words: Hakuna Matada. It's a wildly successful show. It was made in 1994. These girls were born between then and 1996, I'd guess.

Dear god.

I felt really old. Old like their mothers, who were in their mid-40s, when in my mind, I see myself as being closer in age to, like, the teens. A great lady in her 60s I used to know said the best 10 minutes of her day was between waking up and looking in the mirror. In bed she saw herself in her prime. Twenty, thirty. And in the 10 steps to the mirror she aged forty years. Now if that's not incentive to stay in bed.

I've started reminiscing about my classic self. The one that not only entered but won dance offs and volleyball tournaments. Instantly recognized and remembered by many by Pink's song Get The Party Started. One word: Mafibicka. More words: what country am I in?

The thing with classics though, is that while we think fondly of them, years on you take a closer look and the special effects aren't that great (think Star Wars). The jokes and dialogue don't seem as funny as you remembered (think Coming to America). The scenes seem a bit choppy and the Definition isn’t so High.

Don't get me wrong, I'd watch The Princess Bride several hundred more times, but in the end I'm more interested in the coming attractions than something I’ve seen before.