bet your bottom dollar...

Family movie night isn't nearly as fun when it's light out; so we've taken the summer off. But now that the days are shortening, the weather is cooling, and cuddling under blankets isn't quite so sweat inducing, it may just be time to start it up again.

The older the kids get, the better our viewing options become because, I don't know about you, but animated films are really hard for me to sit through. What I've discovered, however, is that what once seemed cool to me is often not as impressive to my techno saavy children. Take The Little House on the Prairie movie, for example, which even six months ago I still sniffled through, and found myself offended when Elijah and Priscilla used the word, boring, to describe it. Granted, the quality was poor - all warbled and grainy, but I thought, just maybe, that Laura's tenacity and great courage would suck them in all on their own.

Mary Poppins, though, was a big hit. And so were The Princess Bride and the The Great Muppet Caper. Elijah thinks the old Star Wars movies are still super intriguing, and all the kids were almost as impressed as I was at their age by the mythical looking creatures in the Never Ending Story.

I think in the back of my mind I've wanted to re-create for them something akin to a few of my own past cinematic highlights, in which I was lost, completely absorbed in a place, in a time, in a really great story. In 1982, for example, I sat very nearly breathless in a darkened theater watching Little Orphan Annie sing her way into the heart of Daddy Warbucks. "Did you like it?" my mom asked afterwards, and I could hardly speak. I still, to this day, know the words to all the songs, and hum them often.

A few years later, it was Anne of Green Gables or Sound of Music that I watched over and over and over again. Much later still, it was Age of Innocence, Immortal Beloved, Shadowlands, and Dead Man Walking, that had the capacity to move me to tears with either their visual beauty, stunning soundtracks, or the complexity of their characters.

It is absolutely true that much of Hollywood, and the film industry in general, is a breeding ground for smut and greed and tastelessness. But I try not be a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" kind a gal. So I will be scanning the aisles of our library's AV department in search of
timeless and memorable tales worthy of warming a frigid evening and capturing our imaginations with their creativity.

Any suggestions?