9) The Lego Batman Film
The first Lego Movie came out in 2014, and received generally positive reviews, even if yes, it was basically a vector for selling merchandise. One of the best things about it was Will Arnett’s Dark Knight skewering performance as the self-important brooding caped crusader, so we had high hopes for the sequel putting him centre-stage. I can’t remember the last film we both sat through giggling quite so consistently.
This just about merits a spot in the list as Lego has been another cultural touchstone throughout our relationship. In 2009 Terry wrote a blog post about our love of collaborative video games. It started when we had a couple of PCs hooked up to each other over a LAN. When we got our first console, we started on the Lego Star Wars games with their fabulous drop in/drop out multiplayer mechanic. (Actually, those first three Travellers Tales titles, based on the infamous Star Wars prequels, did a lot to redeem the franchise.) As part of our screw-tradition approach to the wedding, we made an early decision not to have any flowers, and instead opted to have Star Wars Lego sets on the tables so our guests could build their own centrepieces.
Lego is about building things, and doing that together with a friend makes it even better. On a basic level, that seems like a pretty good simile for a happy marriage.
10) Hunt for the Wilderpeople
In September 2016 my parents moved to New Zealand. Helping them pack, sell their house, and move was a significant undertaking. This culminated in a three week period with my parents living with us, before they jetted off. When you marry someone, you are also marrying into their family. I will forever be grateful to my beautiful husband for his gracious support both helping me adjust, and helping my parents with this significant undertaking.
Knowing our 10th wedding anniversary would be in January 2018, we had started to think about going somewhere exotic to celebrate (my vote was for St Lucia). But we quickly realised that if we were going to make a trip out to NZ to see how they were settling in, then December 2017 would be the most sensible time to do that.
As cultural preparation, and on the advice of many friends (who now that I think about it were doing a similar thing to our recommendation of The Story of the Weeping Camel) we watched this independent film directed by Kiwi auteur de jour Taika Waititi. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is about identity, family, and belonging. By a happy coincidence, the film enjoyed its NZ TV premiere while we were out there, so we got to watch it again.
Although we do occasionally still sit down to watch a movie together, films don’t occupy our attention in the same way, hence the top weighting of this list to the early days. I don’t know if that says more about us, or the films.
Here’s to the next ten years!