Having grown up on Toy Story and Up, this generation has zero tolerance for slow pacing or only mild amusement
I was recently scrolling through Christmas films at the cinema opposite the kids’ school, picturing the happy scene where I arrive unexpectedly outside the gates, on 17 December or thereabouts, wearing flashing reindeer horns, and bear them off to see It’s a Wonderful Life, which they will then remember for the rest of their lives. Naturally, I am imagining a different family, as I am not allowed near the school because even the way I hold my phone is appalling. Also, they won’t watch any film made before 2005.
This is not only a source of genuine sorrow, but it was also arrived at painfully – years of bribing and guilt-tripping them into watching Heathers and Beavis and Butt-Head and There’s Something About Mary, going: “Wait, wait, the next bit’s really funny,” only to find that I have misremembered and there is one joke, 40 minutes in, and the rest, while quite explicit, might be funny to me, but isn’t humorous in the modern sense.