Lions

Last night we watched the 2003 Robert Duvall/Michael Caine movie Secondhand Lions, set in Texas. It was a gentle movie about love, fantasy and truth, abandonment, lasting values and becoming a man. It was rated PG -- and even at that edited for television -- and I think it is a movie even Mama could watch. There may have been a passing swear word, but if so it didn't register.

What did register was the number of commercials. It seemed like every ten minutes there was a five minute commercial break. Tom got several phone calls while we were watching and if a call came during a break, he could have a fairly hefty conversation without missing a single thing.

I watch enough television to know that a half hour of programming these days includes about ten minutes of ads, but I guess I am so used to watching movies on DVDs that I have become accustomed to them being different. CBS (or whoever it was) announced this as a "Special Movie Presentation." Now this was no Oscar-winner and didn't make much of a splash back when, even though Duvall and Caine are both fine actors and Haley Joel Osment was a bit of a child star at the time. I think what made it a special presentation was that they squeezed in so many commercials. To be honest, had I been watching it alone, I would have turned it off after half an hour and read a book instead.

Besides the annoying commercials, there is a scene where the characters realize that the seed they bought for their garden is all corn -- not the variety of vegetables the salesman had promised. "Corn, corn, corn -- nothing but corn," Robert Duvall says in disgust. I am afraid one might say the same about the movie, but it was sweet in its way.

Then again, so is fresh Texas corn.

And that is my Texas Independence Day salute!