Jason and the Argonauts

Today, my sons—who are 6 and 9—and I saw Cars at a local theatre and Jason and the Argonauts on TCM. They liked Cars more, of course, but I was a bit surprised at how they accepted Ray Harryhausen’s old-fashioned stop-motion animation. Between monsters, they wanted nothing to do with Jason, and just played around in the family room. But every time a special effect came on, they stopped and watched, from the giant statue of Talos to the swordfighting skeletons.

The real question, though, is not whether today’s kids would like yesterday’s special effects. The real question is what possessed me to sit through an entire showing of Jason and the Argonauts? Probably a spell from Medea.

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