Videos, 50 cents each

My seven-year-old once came bounding down the stairs after deciding what to go to a fancy dress party as. She was holding a fox mask but she wasn't going as a fox; she was, in fact, going as Robin Hood.

I was proud as punch the day she managed to work the phrase “like Clara from David Copperfield,” into a conversation. What a wunderkind!

But then she went and told someone her favourite character in Beauty and the Beast is the stove. I mean, is the stove even a character?

Videos, 50 cents each

Imitations of reputable products often work just as well and/or look just as good as the originals. But is this applicable to art and entertainment as well? To think that a team of creative practitioners should go to the effort of scripting, designing, animating, voicing, and composing music for a movie just so it might be mistaken for another movie, or just to capitalise on the publicity for another movie, strikes me as a little despressing. Then again, my children haven't complained about the quality of The Secret of the Hunchback, so maybe I'll be buying copies of UAV Entrttainment's The Secret of Mulan and The Secret of Anastasia next.  

The Wire, Season 3, $15
 www.dixons.com.au 

My boyfriend and I are working our way through the DVDs of the HBO series The Wire, which passed us by when it was originally screened on television. At first we were very sensibly watching just one episode per night, but it wasn’t long before we started taking it in turns to play devil’s advocate and suggesting a second, a third, or even a fourth episode before turning in. We’re really too old to be watching DVDs all night. Our backs get sore, the housework builds up, the novels we’re reading go untouched and the children have to ask repeatedly for me to wake up in the mornings. Worst of all, though, is that I know that when we finally get to the end of the fifth and final season, I’ll be bereft.

Video, 20 cents

My daughter has quit ballet. Sometimes I worry that when she’s grown up she’ll blame me for ruining her chances of becoming a jobbing chorus girl, just like I did to my mum. So every now and then, I ask her if she misses ballet. “No,” she replied recently, “I prefer to rock, anyway.” Of course, as she is six years old, to “rock” means to bop along to Ruby Tuesday or a fast-paced Peter Combe number.

Watchmen, $10

When I first saw the trailer for Watchmen at the cinema, I was so enthralled I showed it to my boyfriend on YouTube as soon as I got home. “So are we gonna see this flick?” I said excitedly. “I’m not a kid like you,” he retorted. The next day, we happened to be at a bookshop and there was a Watchmen display. He read the first page of the graphic novel in the shop, got me to read the first page in the shop, sheepishly bought the book, then stayed up until 2am finishing it; so that trip to the flicks did end up being a family affair. Ex-rental DVDs of popular films like Watchmen are available for sale from video stores, usually about a month after first coming out on DVD and until sold out.