“Kit Kittredge, An American Girl.” The movie, not the doll. It opened this week, and the reviews are enough to make one gag. “Saccharine.” “Hokiness.” “Relentless sweetness.” “Flimsy plot.”

What I wonder is what in the sam hill are newspapers doing sending 40 year old men to cover movies for 10-year-old girls? In the movie, Kit is trying to get the Cincinnati newspaper to run her writings. So, why–this is such a no-brainer that even editors should have thought of it–why not get a 10 year old girl to review this movie?

Who wants to know what the local drama expert thinks of a children’s movie? I for one don’t.

Friday afternoon, I took our 11-year-old granddaughters, Abby and Erin, to see this movie. Until a few days ago, I had no inkling that a series of dolls exist in the name of this little girl or that to pre-teens, Kit Kittredge is as big as Nancy Drew (or maybe Barbie is a better comparison) was to earlier generations.

I was unable to take JoAnne, 10, who lives in New Hampshire or Darilyn, 10, but 11 later this month, who lives in North Carolina, with us. But wouldn’t that have been a hoot, taking all four granddaughters of that age! Anyway, I did the best I could and took the two who are nearby. It was a fun two hours.

Okay, being your typical grandpa, I would have enjoyed sitting on a park bench for two hours with those two (and moreso, those four). So the fact that I had a good time tells you nothing about the movie.

Okay, the movie. I did what you do before choosing a movie, and checked it out on some of the internet rating places. Today, after seeing “Kit Kittredge,” I’d like to go back to some of the reviewers who called it “simplistic” or “formulaic” and say to them, “Hey–it’s a child’s movie! It’s not for grownups and certainly not for movie critics.”

The truth is that “Kit Kittredge” is more purely a child’s movie than most that claim that for themselves. So many cinematic offerings in that category–whether from Disney or Pixar or other well-respected houses–are fakes. The parents are sitting there enjoying the movie along with their young-uns, and getting all the little innuendos and inside jokes that were inserted for big people and no one else. Meanwhile, the kids are wondering what all the laughter is about.

In this movie, if a kid doesn’t get the joke, it was thrown out. Movie critics don’t know what to do with that.

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Following the last article on fellowship in our churches, the one about shy people, my son Marty connected me with a website in which a college professor was sounding forth on the difficulty he and his wife–both shy people–are having locating a church in their new city on the West Coast. They’re looking for one of their denomination, one of the old-line liberal churches, and are quite specific as to what they like and cannot stand.

Below are the eight points he makes. Rather than posting my comments on his website, the way bloggers invite readers to do–in fact, we treasure those comments and invite them here–I’ll leave my conclusions here. I’m confident the professor would not appreciate much I have to say, my being Southern Baptist and no doubt a fundamentalist Bible-thumper to his way of thinking. Besides, he’d probably tell me if I’m going to write this much about what he said, I should get my own website. (I told a writer that recently. He/she came back and said, “Sorry. I don’t keep up with all the places I blog.”)

Well, since I have my own website, here we go…. Let’s call the professor Henry and his wife Hankette.

1. Please, please keep your hands off my wife and off me.

Henry doesn’t like hugging, and worse, he abhors people he has just met who stand there stroking his arm, shoulder, or back. Hankette is worse about this than he.

2. Do not call us out by name in front of the entire congregation.

Hank writes, “Our modus operandi when we’re trying out a new place is to take in the full service, then decide whether to fill out the visitors’ card.” He says, “Handshakes? Smiles? Absolutely. But if we tell you our names, don’t say to the whole congregation, ‘Be sure to welcome Henry and Hankette who are sitting on the back row!'”

3. We’ll come to the post-service potluck if we want to.

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