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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
If you can find them, some of the old Henry Aldrich movies are fun...
--Henry Aldrich, Editor
--Henry Aldrich Haunts a House
--Henry Aldrich Swings It
--Henry Aldrich for President
I'd recommend two more movies for your list, Tron, and Mr. Bean's Holiday.
Yes, I know you have a strict, anti-Disney thang going on here, but one could hardly consider Tron as part of what is likely being abhorred. It's a great action-adventure flick, and the special effects are unique and stand-out to this day, and more importantly, do not take over the movie. It's good stuff, and fun for the whole family. ;^)
Mr. Bean's Holiday is a fun romp, and I think is a worthy successor to the types of silent, physical comedies pioneered and mastered by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
Farrell
PS - I've also seen 'The General', and it was great fun! :-D
"The Court Jester" 1954: Danny Kaye (written by Sylvia Fine) Glynnis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Cecil Parker, Angela Landsbury. A goofus saves medieval England from a tyrant with lots of kings, princesses, great sword play, word play, music and silliness. Parents, don't leave the room -- this is a great movie for you, too.
"Fly Away Home" 1996: Jeff Daniels, Anna Paquin. A young daughter bonds with her estranged father when she adopts some orphan geese in Canada and leads them to their winter nesting grounds in the Carolinas by flying an ultralight aircraft as their mother goose.
"The Rookie" 2002: Rachel Griffiths and Dennis Quaid. A high school baseball coach/teacher who burned his arm out pitching in college heals up in his late 30s and takes a shot at the big leagues. Of course, he makes it. One of those based-on-a-true-story handkerchief movies, but well done and perfect for boys and dads who dream of baseball and girls and moms who love good men, good fathers, and good marriages.
Thanks for starting this project and I hope my suggestions make the list. They're great crossover movies that parents can love, too.
Another vote for October Sky, Fly Away Home, and Matilda.
And for those willing to absorb some ancient history about race relations, how about Look Who's Coming for Dinner? (Hepburn/Tracy/Poitier) and A Patch of Blue (Sidney Poitier/Shelley Winters). Another classic for adventurous kids is the Hepburn/Bogart classic African Queen
The recent Planet Earth series in HD has without a doubt the best nature photography ever.
You are right about Fantasia, it's one of the great 20th century works of capital "A" Art, in any form. While I'm skeptical about it's value as an introduction to classical music, I don't regard that as a flaw. It's simply a stunning piece of imaginative work. Where else can you get such a range of well, stuff, phenomena, human experience, the cosmos, in only 2 hours? No where else. That makes it unique and indispensable. Here's a longish argument about that one:
http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/disneysfantasia_as_master_work/
Here's an analysis of "Dance of the Hours":
http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/slapstick_onto_logic_in_dance_of_the_hours/
And, yes, to Dumbo as well. I wish Disney had used that as his model for later feature animation. It's a darker and more various film than it's given credit for. BTW, did you know that the head crow was voiced by the (white) man who sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Pinocchio? (The other crows were voiced by black men.) Here's an essay:
http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Essays/Dumbo/Dumbo.htm
My son is 13 now, but I've been showing him interesting movies since he was 3 or 4.
He took a shine early on to M. Hulot, Mon oncle is our favorite.
Chaplin and The Great Dictator was also one of his favorites. He saw it right around the time he was learning about WW11 in school, so it was a jumping off point for a lot of discussions.
He also loves Laurel and Hardy and Sons of the Desert is one of their best, but the more obscure Utiopia is good as well.
The Mouse that Roared is a wonderful Peter Sellers movie that he also really liked, and from that we went to the Pink Panther movies. (Imagine how funny a man in a donkey suit who loses his back end seems for the first time!)
In response to the LW who said there were no movies on here for black kids, being black myself, I remember some things from my childhood. I would direct her to Sounder with Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield, Man and Boy, a very early Bill Cosby western, and much more fun, Uptown Saturday Night, and it's sequel, Let's do it Again, with Cosby and Sidney Poitier. Maybe for the older kids, Claudine, with Dihann Carroll and James Earl Jones. My son, who is mixed, came home one day imitating a southern cracker accent, and so I had to rent In the Heat of the Night and explain to him why that accent was like fingernails on a blackboard to me. Movies are handy that way.
He says to tell you now his favorite movies are 2001 and 2010. and he loves to read the books too.
"Sounder" has to be one of the best. As a schoolteacher, I once read the book aloud in parts during reading time daily to my 4th graders. and when the movie came out I organized a bus field trip for them to see the movie in the big city, where the new movies were released back then and could only be seen there for weeks and weeks until they were released to the boonies. My class saw their teacher cry twice (once in the book and once in the movies) and I think they gained an appreciation for a time and place and culture that they would probably never experience. And I hope some sensitivity, too.
The boy who starred in the movie never became a big star, but I understand he directs a lot.
Some historically-themed films:
*1776! (Saw it in 6th grade social studies. Still one of my favorites).
*Camelot
*Brigadoon
*Anne Frank: Diary of A Young Girl (a good live production is always better, but I remembered liking the movie very much when I was 8 or 9).
*Henry V: (Kenneth Brannagh or Olivier, or both to compare!)
*Clash of the Titans (1980) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963): these were cheesy, yeah, but I loved these as a kid.
*Prince of Egypt (animated) I'm not sure if this counts as "animated blockbuster" but I liked this treatment of the Exodus
*Exodus (watched it every Easter. Still chuckle when I catch it on tv).
*Billy Elliot and Back to the Future (ok, these 2 aren't "historical", but if you were born after Reagan and Thatcher left office, the '80's are "history")
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Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
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The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
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