June 25, 2017 was the last Xuladad post. Wow, that’s been a minute! Well, much has changed in the life of Xuladad since then, but those are tales for another day (maybe for the follow up to Stereo Killer, my 2019 debut novel, available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook on Amazon!). But I still teach at Xavier, and I’m still a dad. Thus, the two essential qualities of the Xuladad origin story remain in place. If this is your first Xuladad read, I highly recommend you start from the beginning, as all of the tales are hilarious, and the writing is top notch.
With this post the blog takes a narrative turn, and this post serves as an introduction to that. The new direction centers on old movies, because if there’s one thing everyone definitely needs right at this historical moment, it’s another random white dude film critic wannabe’s blog about old Hollywood. I heard the clarion call and valiantly stepped forward to fill the need. It’s the least I can do during this time of tremendous heroic sacrifice.
My kids will still feature in it, and in a sense it’s still about parenting, only through this lens of old movies. I mean, we all do it, right?, aged-out hipster parents trying to hip their progeny to movies that shaped them growing up, trying to repeat the magic, wondering if those old flicks are still any good, trying and failing often, as for numerous reasons the films don’t click with the youngsters at all. But sometimes they click, and an old flick will resonate with the kids, the gags hold up, the dialogue isn’t too racist and misogynist, and we enjoy the films again as well, only in a different way now. It’s a great feeling, really, as it enriches your appreciation of the films.
I don’t plan to stay right there with the kids angle. I’ve been watching a ton of old Hollywood movies, and reading and listening to podcasts, so much so that if I don’t try to pull something productive from it at this point, it will amount to a unholy dereliction of basic principles of productive time use. But who knows, maybe the kid thing will be enough to write on, as these things tend to go in unexpected directions. At any rate, my first movie was a mixed bag. One kid loved it and I suspect it might stick with him, but the other kid didn’t like it at all, and spent much of it in the next room not watching. I know he’ll remember that, in part because it’s the only time on record that I didn’t turn a movie off on his request. He’s the oldest, and if he doesn’t like it for whatever reason, that’s usually it. But in this case I kept going, and I’m not sure why. The younger was enjoying it so much, as was I, and the older’s objections seemed centered on one particular scene, a hunting scene, which upset his seven-year-old vegetarian spirit. Once that past, he didn’t have any other reason for not liking it, and admitted as much when he said he just didn’t want to watch, but that we should. So we did. Maybe he just wanted something to hold over me, which he does at key moments, reviews of Xuladad’s track record in selections, as fodder for arguments for his own preferences. Quite wily, that one, a future litigator or politician perhaps.
Anyway, I’ll get into the film on the next post: The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 romantic adventure staring Errol Flynn.
XulaDad 