A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a local movie company about helping with a pre-screening promotion. This company has been on my blacklist for years due to some repeated screw-ups on their part. You know, little things like them giving me the wrong date for a pre-screening I had advertised and refusing to apologize because it should have been my responsibility to double-confirm the date that THEY had sent me.
I was done with them until they offered me 150 tickets to give away for the new Disney movie, “Cinderella.” That was my favorite Disney fairytale as a kid and I’ve been counting down the days until it is released. I was all-in (albeit with baited breath that there wouldn’t be another major mess-up).
I invited everyone I knew in the area and posted it to Mile High Mamas. Within three hours, the tickets were gone, gone, gone, and I was so so so stoked!
The movie exceeded my expectations and made sense of several areas in the storyline. I already loved the Cinderella lead Lily James who stars in Downton Abbey, and Prince Charming was perfectly cast.
But what I enjoyed the most was it presented Cinderella as a strong strong and empowered woman who was not a martyr who needed a man to save her from a terrible life, but instead chose kindness and courage despite her adversities. “Where there is kindness, there is goodness. And where there is goodness, there is magic.” What a great message!
My college roommate Dori drove an hour with her daughter
I felt so grateful to be surrounded by so many wonderful friends who universally loved the film as much as I did. My friend Sam brought her preschooler and kindergartner and she said loved watching her daughters enraptured by the film, bringing back her own memories of seeing it for the first time. Another friend posted on Facebook that “it is the best movie I’ve seen in years.” Quite predictably, Jamie raved about the giant pumpkin-turning-into-a-coach scene.
Even the boys liked it, though my friend Lisa’s teenager Keith observed they didn’t use any of the traditional songs (he’s apparently a big fan?) while one of Bode’s friends reluctantly said it was good but “it needed more action.”
I’m sure he meant more kissing scenes. I couldn’t agree more.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 