Autism And The Movies: We Made History

We woke up unusually early that day, excited and buoyant. Even Alphonse, who wakes up late most days, didn’t complain when we woke him up. “It’s your day, anak,” I whispered gently to this sleeping baby, all five feet and four inches of him. He stirred a little, blinked a few times, then jumped immediately [...]

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Autism And The Movies

Every afternoon, at around one, Alphonse knocks on the back door and asks to be let in the house. He knocks politely and says “he” rather loudly (“he” is his word for help). When the door is opened, he runs to the upstairs bedroom and hands me a picture card of our television. Then he [...]

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Family Movie Night

Movies at the cinema are a rarity in our family life. For one, Alphonse never learned to enjoy movies in a darkened movie theater. The first and last time we brought him to a theater for a screening of Mulan, he started crying as soon as the lights were turned low. A had to bring [...]

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Prelude to a Tag: Onscreen Romance

Written seven years ago in 2001, this article chronicles our family’s love affair with movies. Just a little prelude, my friends, to share with you the beginnings of our own family ritual: Family Movie Nights.
I never used to go to the movies.
As a child, I grew up with a staple of B movies in the [...]

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