Took F to a movie theater for the first time since the Before Times. It hasn’t been easy to get any gift or celebration ideas from the birthday girl; however, she really wanted to go to a movie. Specifically, she wanted to see “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Soul.” The latter is streaming only, but we could catch “Raya” in a theater.
It was an entirely manageable experience. I bought tickets and snacks online in advance; we picked up the snacks at the allotted time and found the seats (sanitized for our protection) flanking our reserved seats taped off. Aside from having to wear masks except when eating or drinking – and the very sparsely attended theater – it was fine.
“Raya” was a good movie for our return to an afternoon at the movies. It’s another well-done Disney feature that gets away further from the princess-without-a-male-love-interest trend among Disney movies. (I just learned that there’s speculation that there’s an LGBTQ bond between the protagonist and her frenemy.) I appreciated the Southeast Asian cultural smorgasbord it offers, despite understandable anger about the casting of non-Southeast Asian actors; still, I was delighted to realize that Awkwafina is the voice of the goofy dragon. Meanwhile, F was just there for the dragons.
Anyway, it was a nice afternoon with F. I’ve missed hanging out with her at a movie theater.