Rocky's new career path?

Rocky recently became a megafan of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. For you youngsters who never heard of Siskel and Ebert, this dynamic duo of dueling film critics hosted a TV show called At the Movies, way back before the turn of the century (*bones creak nostalgically*). Several of their "Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down" reviews are on YouTube, and Rocky has watched every single one. He takes great delight in repeating them to me, word-for-word, over and over and over and over and over and over again. Weee!

Rocky is absolutely riveted by the critic team's witty repartee, intelligent debate, and obvious passion for films. I think he feels like he's finally found "his people". The other day, after watching them argue about the merits of the film, Blue Velvet, he announced, "Mom, I don't want to be a film director anymore. I want to be a film critic."

I was thrilled! I've been thinking for a long time that Rocky's obsessive, perseverative movie talk could be turned into obsessive, lucrative career gold. Rocky is articulate, funny, insightful, and he knows absolutely everything there is to know about the film industry. I started telling him as much when he held up his hand to stop my adulation.

"I know all that. But there's a problem. Sure, I can tell you if a screenplay is well-written, and I can rate the special effects and director's pacing and cinematography. But I can't figure out how to judge an actor's performance. I hear people talk about how Heath Ledger's Joker had so much more depth and character development than Jack Nicholson's Joker, and I have no idea what they're talking about."

I started to tell him that learning the nuances of good acting takes time and maturity, but he held up his hand again.

"No! I think I can't do it because of my autism."

I had to take a deep breath before responding, to keep my voice from trembling. "Huh ... that's an ... interesting thought ....... so, um, whadya mean exactly, buddy?"

"I've been noticing lately how different my brain works from everyone else's. I don't understand people -- at all! And how can I be a film critic if I can't understand people?"

The fear in his eyes was heartbreaking, and for a while the only thought in my head was, "Oh, baby. You're right. " But then, a wonderful, magical word popped into my head and erased all my doubts. And that word was:

"Plastics."

(Just kidding -- that wasn't the word. Though I should have said that to Rocky, since he always appreciates a good film quote.)

Actually, the word was:

"Library."

As I went online and requested several books about film criticism from our library, I explained my thinking: "One of the great things about your autism, Rocky, is that when you are interested in information, your brain just soaks it up. You can read these books, and maybe sometime you can take classes at school about acting technique, too. I guarantee you will be able to learn this skill. Everyone has to work at learning some things. I bet lots of other people who want to be film critics have to spend years learning about all the film technique stuff that you already know backwards and forwards."

He sighed. "You just couldn't resist bringing school into this, could you?" As he took over the computer and clicked on YouTube to watch Siskel and Ebert duke it out once again, he nodded to himself and whispered, "I can do it."

Thumbs up, Rocky!

Thumbs WAY up.