2024 the best movies to watch review

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If a child can watch Barney, can’t that same child also enjoy watching Charlie Chaplin or the Marx Brothers? And as they get older, wouldn’t they grow to like screwball comedies (His Girl Friday), women’s weepies (Imitation of Life), and westerns (The Searchers)? The answer is that they’ll follow because they’ll have learned that “old” does not necessarily mean “next channel, please.”Here is an impassioned and eminently readable guide that introduces the delights of the golden age of movies. Ty Burr has come up with a winning prescription for children brought up on Hollywood junk food. FOR THE LITTLE ONES (Ages 3—6): Fast-paced movies that are simple without being unsophisticated, plainspoken without being dumbed down. Singin’ in the Rain and Bringing Up Baby are perfect.FOR THE ONES IN BETWEEN (Ages 7—12): “Killer stories,” placing easily grasped characters in situations that start simply and then throw curveballs. The African Queen and Some Like It Hot do the job well.FOR THE OLDER ONES (Ages 13+): Burr recommends relating old movies to teens’ contemporary favorites: without Hitchcock, there could be no The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, without Brando, no Johnny Depp.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1400096863
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; 0 edition (February 13, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781400096862
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1400096862
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.87 x 9.25 inches
Reviewer: Sharyn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A borrowed library book becomes an essential reference guide
Review: Ty Burr has written an excellent book. It's entirely readable and more than just a list of movies. He breaks it down into age levels, gives selling points for a film, possible "pause-button explanations" when there are topics that may need to be explained or discussed, and other films to line up next. An example would be starting with the Adventures of Robin Hood and moving onto The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood. We added The Prince & the Pauper and so Errol Flynn is now a known actor in our household.Would I ever have thought to try The African Queen with my sons? No. But it's true that the Hepburn and Bogart characters are amazing, the leeches grossed them out, they enjoyed Hepburn pouring the booze into the river and the adventure of the river journey made for a great family movie night.Burr's description of showing his daughters movies like King Kong will make you laugh out loud and I enjoyed reading the descriptions of movies that even if they aren't suitable for my family. I have sons while Burr has daughters but that just makes me wonder if I could get my family to watch a musical - I bet I can with some of Burr's suggestions.When a book keeps getting checked out from the library that means it's time to buy my own copy. This is just that type of book.

Reviewer: Deirdre M.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Inspiring
Review: I can't say enough good things about this book. It has ended the difficult search for movies that please both the kids and the adults. It has inspired my family to get at least one pre-70s movie every week to watch together. It's been an education. Through this book, we've found a few movies that we all unequivocally adore, and others that we enjoy but have sparked some important deeper conversations. His ideas on why older movies are good for our children are very thoughtful.My daughters are nearly the same age as his daughters were when he wrote the book (9 & 11), so the book is particularly on target for us. I love how Burr describes his daughters' and their friends' reactions to old movies. I am surprised by how much negativity about older movies he says has received from some of his children's friends and their parents, because my children and their friends have always been completely receptive to older and black & white movies. But we don't move in mainstream circles (we are secular homeschoolers), so I will take his word for it.If you enjoy watching movies with your children, you need to own this book.

Reviewer: Todd Pytel
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Full of both love and insight
Review: I can't recommend this book highly enough. It would be easy to imagine a book like this starting with some thoughtful consideration about family viewing before descending into a dutiful but dull cataloging of 100's of movies. But Burr's passion for film and insight into kids and families leaps off of every page. It's a real joy to read and sometimes gets me laughing out loud. The book is squarely focused on "Old Hollywood" - the era from the dawn of "talkies" into the early 60's, though it includes some entries on silents and foreign films as well. We prefer a wider-ranging approach in our household and often include foreign films and more recent productions in our movie night lineup. But the book is no less valuable to us - Burr's insights into children and cinema are universal.

Reviewer: RCS
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: What a Great Time this Book is!
Review: This book is a gateway to a GREAT family movie experience! I have a 4 year old son, and although this book is a little more bias toward girls, it in no way forgets the boys. In fact the strength of the book, is in laying the groundwork to open up the world of classic movies (mostly Hollywood, but not exclusively) to young children by combing the various movie genres for age appropriate material and by emphasizing that each child is different. This to me is what makes this book succeed.I've experimented with "Singing in the Rain" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood" so far with universally positive results (my son was somewhat fidgety during the dialog portions of "Singing in the Rain", but was riveted by the singing, dancing, and comedic scenes). "Robin Hood" was a hit from frame one.This book is also a pleasure to read with regard to Mr. Burr's antidotes. You can tell he learned a lot through this process and had a great time doing it.Highly recommend!!

Reviewer: H.D.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Best Movie Book For Anyone
Review: There is a reason that I am the 17th person to rate this book as 5 stars and not a single reviewer gave it less than 5 stars. This is a terrific movie guide, not just for family viewing but for anyone wanting suggestions as to which movies are the most satisfying to watch. I especially like "The People Who Made Them" chapter where you can read a short bio on the stars and the directors (my favorite is the directors) and a list of my some of their better movies and why the author included them.Ty Burr is a movie lover, not a movie snob, this is so readable and once read it will be referred to many times when your looking for that special movie.

Reviewer: Ellyn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fun and informative
Review: Take it from a writer with a masters in screenwriting from AFI, everyone can use this. Wish I'd gotten this earlier in my children's movie watching education. It's fun to plan a summer film festival as we did one summer of Japanese anime, or 60's musicals or French Nouvelle Vague. Your kids will enjoy these activities and this book will help you plan. Also good for plain on Friday night watching. Will help you avoid those moments where the movie you thought was so great in the 80's is a dud for your teen. (Say Anything. Don't do it.) Been there done that. This book is great!

Reviewer: Katherine Phillips
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wonderful (different) book for new parents
Review: I absolutely love this book. It's opened a new world for my daughters and me. I've always loved classic movies but never thought to introduce my kids to them. It's too late for my teens but my younger girls are loving our new "movie nights." Even if you don't have children, it's a great read and you'll find some movie gems. And funny too! Just a wonderful book. Thanks Amazon for leading me to it!

Reviewer: FB
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Terrific book. We knew we'd found a kindred spirit after reading the first few paragraphs of the introduction.
Review: Brilliant idea for a book. So glad this exists. Have recommended it to all of our parent friends.