Michael Swaim
and the parents literally state that they don't remember why they ever got divorced. That's all well and good for Dennis Quaid, but our parents sure as hell remember why they got divorced, and in most cases it involved restraining orders, late nights at the office and four-hour shouting matches about undersalted meat loaf.
What it Led Us to Believe:
1) Adults spend most of their time dancing on giant pianos, getting paid to test toys, and winning beautiful women away from their boyfriends, and all we have to do to become one is locate a magic robot gypsy.
2) A good place to start? Our local carnival. Because there's nothing that will end your childhood faster than sneaking around the darkened tents of a carnival backlot and asking whoever you run into if there's anything they'd care to show a little boy. (Actually, this turned out to be a pretty effective way of ending our childhood, though no magic robot gypsy was involved.)
The Cold, Hard Truth:
In the movie Big, Tom Hanks gets paid to tell a toy manufacturer which toys kids will like. You know what that's called? Market research. You know how much you get paid to do that in real life? A handful of Cheetohs and a Styrofoam cup of Sierra Mist.
In reality, most adults make a living by selling off little pieces of their dignity to an asshole in a tie until they finally go home one night and "forget" to turn the car exhaust off in the garage. Also, gypsies aren't magic (unless looking crippled when you're not is magic) and playing the piano with your feet is a good way to get kicked out of most establishments. You really want to give up the next twelve years of your life in exchange for turning into Tom Hanks? Sure, it sounds okay, until you stop to consider that it means in a little under twenty years you'll look like this:
Damaging False Beliefs Traceable to Film:
Trampolines make good floors.
Our nagging suspicion that all the pricks we meet are just kids trapped in adult bodies, and while we slowly suffocate in our own awkward neuroses, they are marveling at the wonder of the adult world.
Elizabeth Perkins is a pedophile.
he steals a million dollars, then he uses a "hacked" Macintosh Performa 600 to perfectly mimic a human voice and buy a castle complete with go-kart track and water slide, making him the single greatest computer engineer of his era. In real life, he would have been promptly pulled aside while waiting in line at the bank and stood whimpering while his (probably drunk) father was called to come pick him up/beat him for wasting the nice peoples' time.
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