Imagine That

“One time I asked [my father] how can I go visit those stars?" remembers Philipina novelist Lualhati Bautista. "And he said, someday, I'm going to build a ladder that you can climb all the way to the stars. I asked, and what about you? Are you coming with me? And he said, no, I'm staying down here to catch you should you fall. But I'm sure you won't fall. Because you are not afraid to climb. ...My father opened my imagination wide” — a gift Bautista hopes one day to celebrate via the big screen.

Because opening imaginations is what daddies do. Even when their not biologicals, as in Tarsem Singh's "The Fall," in which a man builds a daddy-daughter connection by telling her tales while both are injured in a Los Angeles hospital. (He is hoping to build the connection will lead to her helping him kill himself, but nobody imagines all father-child activities are always and completely sweet.)

Landing somewhere between imagination and competition are Will and Willow Smith. The father's starring turn in "Hancock" (superhero to lose superpowers ... sounds a bit like a dad's tale) will be competing (?) at the box office when both open July 2 against the daughter's supporting role in "Kitt Kittredge." In the schismed media either she is fine with daddy bringing home the bigger slice of the bacon, or daddies little girl is planning on sandbagging the old man.

Surely, that's a competition that leaves much to the imagination.