As I have said in an earlier post, I would often witness battles of wills between parents and children over a movie. These battles had no age limit. From toddlers to teens there were some epic fights in the store. The teens were not louder than the younger kids, they were just bigger. As teenagers move into their own independent choice making, we can offer some guidance to them. It can take some convincing but once you proved yourself to them, the average teenager will take your suggestions more readily. Here are a few to start.

  1. American Graffitti. A ballet of cars moving through the night. Ah, the late very early 60’s. Gas was cheap, cars were beautiful, postwar prosperity was still at hand and Vietnam was just a place that France had failed in, not The United States. Five friends, four of them teenagers, two of whom are due to leave for college back east, spend one last night cruising the strip, saying goodbye and hopefully moving on.

    This night drips with poignancy and one-of-a-kind encounters. As one of the characters says at the end of the picture (in one of only two daylight scenes) “jeez what a night”. That sums it up. Cindy Williams, unfortunately remembered for playing Shirley on Laverne & Shirley, is probably one of the most underrated actress ever. Take a close look at the scene where she and Steve are dancing to Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and I hope you’ll get what I mean. Look for a young extra at the sock hop who would grow up to play Luke in director George Lucas’s next picture. Many a career was launched with this picture. Made on a minuscule budget, shot in 28 days (or nights I should say), the picture went on to earn a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Picture. If it’s been a while since you’ve seen this masterpiece, a revisit to 1962 with the kids won’t hurt.

  2. Paper Moon

    Ah, the ’30s, simplier times. The depression was dragging on but the air waves were full of tunes like “Keep Your Sunny Side Up” or “Happy Days Are Here Again”. The contrast of the music to what is happening in this picture is stark. Desperation, poverty and bitterness, by-products of the depression, are never far away.

    An orphaned girl is given over to a total stranger (or is he?) to be driven to St. Joseph Missouri to her nearest kin. A simpler time, indeed. The stranger (or is he?) turns out to be a grifter, a bible salesman con man. He’s desperate to get rid of the child at first but then discovers that her precocious nature can be useful. The late great Madeline Kahn got a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Tatum O’Neal, winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar at age 10, became the youngest winner ever in a competitive category.

  3. The Sting

    Another depression era set picture with what appears to be a complicated, elaborate con. I was often asked “will my 13 year old like this movie”. “Absolutely” I would say. I think that parents were worried about the kids being able to follow the con. Trust me, the kids will get it. It is simple to follow because we are let in on the most important details of the set up. We get a few surprises but there is not one moment that comes out of nowhere.

  4. African Queen See the post. If they haven’t seen this already, no time like right now.
  5. Splash

    There were times I would find that some parents had neglected this early Tom Hanks / Ron Howard epic of mermaid love. A slightly lost fruit and vegetable kingpin finds he has feelings for a mysterious woman who shows up nude on Liberty Island with his drivers license. John Candy is hysterical as Hanks older brother.

  6. Streetcar Named Desire

    They might have to read the play anyway so why not show the kids what all the fuss was about in 1947 when Marlon Brando made his debut on Broadway as the Stanley Kowalski in the original production of A Streetcar Named Desire. The only problem with the movie is that the studio ordered the ending different than how the play ends. The play ends with Stella staying with Stanley. That is the whole point of the play, that the status quo is retained and life goes on as it was before Blanche showed up. The studio felt that since Stanley was not the nicest person in the world, his wife should leave him. Go figure.

  7. Big

    Another early Tom Hanks picture that a lot of people missed can you believe it. I noticed over the years that films go in cycles of popularity and Big had fallen out of the cycle. It shouldn’t have. After a humiliating experience at an amusement park where he discovers that he is to small to get on a ride, a boy wishes to be “bigger”. The boy wakes up as the adult Tom Hanks. What separates this from the run of the mill body / personality switching or change movies of the 1980’s is that Tom Hanks was probably the best suited actor to pull off the 12 year old in a man’s body routine so convincingly. To their the credit, the writers take the man child into some very dark places; we see the boy/man sobbing in his lonely, seedy hotel room on his first night as an adult which is the perfect reaction for a 12 year old to have in that situation (especially if no one was watching). There are some moments of sexual innuendo so that is why I did not put this on my “tween” list. This picture however, could go there with some parental supervision.

  8. Casablanca Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. There is no better introduction to the work of American legend/icon Humphrey Bogart. The picture is heavily sexual without any mention of sex. That’s right, I said it. I know it’s there because when Rick gets that note at the train station in Paris and it melts in his hand, it’s him that is melting. The rain fall like tears of a loss so incredible; and we get that from a combination of Mr. Bogart’s supreme gifts as an actor and the greatness of director Michael Curtiz. I once siad out loud to a large group of people that included Lauren Bacall and their son Stephen Bogart that Rick was the coolest character ever written for the screen. The man we boys wanted to be. No one disagreed. No one better, ever.
  9. White Heat

    “Look Ma! I’m on top of the world!” the last line, and one of the most famous lines ever spoken on screen, in this picture. I have no doubt that this line was an inspiration for the “I’m King of the world” line as James Cameron wrote the script for Titanic. Only this time the person who says it is an insane mama’s boy escaped convict (that should be all one word) on top of a tank in the middle of a flaming chemical plant, not a guy on a doomed boat. James Cagney is great, read the post

  10. The French Connection One of the most important films of the 1970’s. One of the greatest pictures of all time. See the post.
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