I walked out on my first movie ever yesterday.

I do not walk out on movies. First of all, being intrinsically skinflinty, I don't see many of them in the theater or otherwise. It is my fully unsubstantiated opinion that at least 90% of mainstream Hollywood films are crap, and $9 can buy me a used book or two, a huge platter of Ethiopian food, or two more betta fish (though not their bowls). Secondly, being even more skinflinty than you were imagining, I hate not getting the full value of what I paid for and especially hate admitting that I made a mistake.

There were two mitigating circumstances that enabled me to walk out of the atrociously bad Where the Wild Things Are film yesterday. Kevin bought the tickets. And by about the 90th skeptical glance I had directed at him, he was also bored and ready to leave. I admit it, I wasn't gracious about not liking it.

Don't see this movie unless you want to witness the de-mythologizing of a wonderfully strange, creepy, and imaginative children's book. The producers effectively strip it of all magic and replace it with 80 minutes of leaden dialogue, mindnumbing literalness, and noisy, pointless action. The most genuinely exciting thing that happened during the 60 minutes I sat through was that my left contact lens went off center (while I was shooting my 23rd skeptical glance at Kevin) and I spent a few minutes of semi-blurriness and mild pain trying to get it back into place. Halfway through, I rummaged through my purse and found several sticks of cinnamon gum. Sadly, two pieces later, I discovered that it was not suitable for blowing bubbles. Damn.

So, exactly what was so bad about Where the Wild Things Are?

1. It's not scary. The monsters look like Sendak's, but haven't got half the wildness or scare-power. Sendak's monsters are scary because you just don't know much about them except that they have sharp teeth and claws. The monsters in the film are whiny, dysfunctional people in mundane (dysfunctional) relationships, dressed in giant monster costumes. Excuse me, did I wander on to the set of Muppets Gone Wrong or something? The book wisely leaves things -- a lot of them -- to overactive imaginations, which these producers clearly do not have.
2. It is WAY too long. The book is a full 9 sentences long. The film stretches over 80 minutes, part of which is spent establishing Max as bratty, out of control kid from a Troubled Single Family Home, the rest of which is spent in wild rumpus with Giant Deformed Muppets trying to fix their problems. It's one cheesy emotional cliche after another with all the subtlety of a stick in your eye.
3. The best line came in the preview for Christmas Carol. When Scrooge is warned that he will be haunted by three ghosts that evening, he says tersely, "I'd rather not."

The point is, the producers have managed to ruin a singularly imaginative children's book that they ought to have left well enough alone. I can't remember the last time I was so bored with a movie that trying to blow bubbles with non-bubble gum seemed like a good alternative. And this is coming from someone who is totally fine staring at floaters for hours at a time.

It seems very strange to me that so many parents are so totally unsuited for the children they have, and vice versa. If my parents and I had met on a date to see if we were compatible, we would have nodded politely, smiled, and cut the evening short with a feigned excuse or two.

It's not that my parents were bad. In many ways they were very good parents. My father worked hard so that my mother could stay home with my sister and me for the first ten or eleven years of my life. My mother was a terrific homemaker. There were homemade Halloween costumes, nutritious dinners, daily story times, and adventures at the park. I was never abused or neglected.

And yet, I don't think I got what I really needed from them. I don't think they even realized I needed anything beyond what they provided, which, granted, was beyond what many parents provide their children.

I was a sensitive child, and I got the impression (erroneous or not) very early on that I couldn't quite trust them. When my sister needed glasses, they told me sternly to protect my eyesight so I wouldn't end up like my sister. I needed glasses soon after, but rather than telling them, I hid my worsening myopia from them for the next three years, by the end of which I was pretty damn blind. They didn't seem to notice. I didn't ask for much from them; they might have given it if I had, but I always felt too guilty to ask. Even a ride to a friend's house was made out to be a favor granted at considerable inconvenience to them.

In high school, my parents were busy with their own pursuits and seemed to think that as long as I was a good kid and got fantastic grades, I was doing fine. And to some extent, I was. I had my cat, who has probably always been closer to me than my parents have. I had my friend Tracey's family, who taught me how to drive, gave me rides everywhere, fed me, and all but adopted me. More recently, when I got my first flat tire on my way to a tutoring appointment and was stranded by myself on the side of a freeway with a dying cell phone, my parents were oblivious to my panicky phone call. It was my student's father who came to wait with me for the hour it took the tow truck to show up. And of course, there was that whole heartbreaking month in which Naomi died, the worst time of my life up to this point. Not much from them then, either, although they were there for all of it. Being stubborn, proud, and standoffish, I never asked for help. And they never thought to offer. That's our relationship in a nutshell.

Before meeting Kevin, I never realized I had any emotional baggage. I didn't have any prior relationships; my relationship with the cat was uncomplicated but totally functional; I knew I wouldn't have to worry about codependency or biological clocks. I have since discovered that I have major trust issues and find it hard to believe that even a husband would go very far out of his way for me, even though past precedent should have persuaded me otherwise by now.

Inevitably, I'd make a pretty poor parent, impatient, unaffectionate, and far more interested in cats than toddlers. I'm not sure it would even be a matter of poor fit; I think I'd be bad for any child. (Although I think I'd make a great eccentric aunt to visit from time to time.) I don't want to mess anyone up for life. Just call me Ms. Biological Dead-End. I'll take it as a compliment.