This weekend, the family and I did some Thanksgiving prep then barricaded ourselves inside the house huddling in front of a fire and getting nostalgic. One of the best things about having young children is exposing them to the things you loved growing up. Our double feature on Saturday night was a double whammy of Dances With Wolves and Dirty Dancing; the original not that dreck on Lifetime or the abysmal remake. (Why remake a classic?!) Our daughter seemed to enjoy both movies, but my wife and her were both equally traumatized when the wolf Two Socks gets shot. (Sorry, spoiler alert!) BTW, the wolf gets killed in Dances With Wolves...the wolf lives in Dirty Dancing.
It was great to rewatch these movies, and let me tell you, they both hold up tremendously. While watching the epic buffalo hunt in Dances, I realized they do not make movies like that anymore. Sweeping stories and grandiose set pieces without CGI where the characters and the story were the best parts. By the end, when Wind In His Hair is atop the cliff declaring his friendship for Costner's character, you don't have a heart if you're not pretending you're sniffling because of a sudden case of the flu. And as for Dirty Dancing, I couldn't watch Patrick Swayze's electric and alive performance as Johnny Castle without a sense of disbelief that something so alive could no longer be with us. Do we have any movie stars that fill the screen like that today? I'm not gay, but even if I was just Bi, there'd be no contest between Jennifer Grey and him.