5 minute read

OBSCENE ONSCREEN

Movie-going is becoming increasingly awkward

I enjoy going to the movie theater. Watching shows at home is OK, too, but there’s something about a movie on the big screen that makes even a bad story seem better.

I’ll watch just about any genre, although foreign flicks with subtitles and horror movies are at the bottom of the list.

Maybe my love for movies says something about my psyche; maybe I love to watch stories on film because I’m more interested in the lives of others rather than my day-to-day routine. Or maybe I like watching stories told on a screen because I make a living reading and writing stories myself. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to read books.

Anyway, my usual movie companion is my wife, who has far more limited movie tastes. She absolutely refuses to see a movie if there’s too much drama or blood, although she’s always willing to make what I invariably point out are hypocritical exceptions for movies with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Harrison Ford.

She loves Westerns, which is a pretty limiting characteristic of movies these days. And she refuses to see provocative or sexually suggestive shows, although that prerogative is starting to severely limit what she can watch these days.

So I was surprised when she volunteered to see the latest Chris Rock movie, Top Five. Rock is a funny guy, but he has a sharp edge to his comedy and he’s no stranger to an obscenity-laced monologue. But the previews she saw on David Letterman looked harmless and funny.

So off we went, settling in with two strangers as the only people in the theater. And then it began: Top Five has everything in a movie she hates, except for blood and death. It was crude, obscene, sexually provocative and downright disgusting. It literally made my wife cringe, and I was right there with her.

It’s the kind of movie that, had any of you or worse, either of our sons — been sitting next to us, I’m not sure there would have been a hole deep enough to crawl into.

I wondered why Rock felt the need to go as far as he did when he could have made his point and told his story just as well in a lessdisgusting way.

In fact, why do so many entertainers feel the need to push boundaries in such a way that a viewer like me is almost embarrassed to be seen in the theater?

This movie featured a tampon soaked in generic hot sauce (I guess Tabasco refused to pay product promo fees) rammed up a naked guy’s kiester; I guess it was meant to show that the guy was being a jerk to his girlfriend.

In addition, one of the coming-attractions previews shown prior to the movie showed a naked guy stretched out face down in front of a naked woman, with her holding his legs in wheelbarrow fashion (this is a Vince Vaughan movie, so it’s probably only going to be rated PG-13).

I hate to sound like a prude or someone who can’t take “edgy.” And from a business standpoint, I understand the need to push the envelope a bit to ensure that an idea doesn’t become lost among the millions of other entertainment ideas out there today.

Of course, I have the option to stay home and not spend money supporting “trash” and “filth,” as some describe movies these days.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive. Maybe I’m asking too much. It’s just becoming harder and harder for me to separate things that “sort of” cross the line from those that obliterate it completely.

I don’t ever want to be someone who thinks that, in the middle of a movie purporting to address serious racial issues, a hot sauce-soaked tampon jammed somewhere it shouldn’t be is laugh-out-loud hilarious.

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Kid lit

Neighborhood librarian reimagines popular folk tales for children

Children’s book author Patricia Vermillion spends most mornings on the sun porch of her Preston Center-area high-rise. Her eyes look toward the Downtown skyline, but her mind goes elsewhere.

“Dallas is busy for me,” she says. “I just sit in my writing space and pretend I’m in the country. It’s quiet, and the sun shines in. It’s a good place.”

Other happy places for the Mississippi native include the University Park Library across the street — she has checked out Eudora Welty’s “One Writer’s Beginnings” so many times, she figures she should just buy it — and The Lamplighter School, where she serves as the librarian.

“I enjoy putting the right book in the hands of the right student,” she says. “That’s the most rewarding thing.”

Vermillion published her first children’s book, “Texas Chili? Oh My!” in 2013, retelling “The Three Little Pigs” with a Texas twist. Three armadillos must dig their dens using native materials — such as pecan tree branches and a prickly pear cactus — while evading the coyote that wants to huff and puff and turn them into Texas chili.

The book recently received an award from the San Antonio Conservation Society, which annually recognizes the best books on Texas history. The back pages include a glossary of terms for children to learn about their home state.

The idea for the book came while her students were learning about Texas history.

“They didn’t know much at all, so I decided to retell the story,” she says.

She was inspired by the late Robert San Souci, an author whose work, including his macabre “Cinderella Skeleton,” is based on popular children’s stories. Her next book, due out this year, is “Hound Dawg,” a Southern version of “The Little Red Hen.”

Vermillion spent 13 years as a first-grade teacher in Mississippi and Louisiana before earning her master’s degree in library science and moving to Dallas for her husband’s work. Once here, she sought out a writing community but found there was no Dallas critique group for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, one of the largest such organizations in the country. So, she started her own. A small group meets monthly at her home to share and critique work.

While she has pursued other types of writing — fictional short stories based on people in her life — children’s books seem to resonate well. Almost everyone remembers the books they read as a kid. For Vermillion, it was a lot of Nancy Drew and Madeleine L’Engle, to name a few.

“There is something special about writing for children,” Vermillion says. “I’m a part of their lives right now.” —Emily Toman

LEARN MORE: at patriciavermillion.com. To find details about the Dallas chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, visit scbwi.org.

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