The Night Before Christmas…and More Classic Holiday Tales
Posted on December 13, 2010 at 6:00 pm
My very favorite DVD series for families has a wonderful holiday treat: The Night Before Christmas…and More Classic Holiday Tales
Ask Amy’s ‘Book on Every Bed’ Project
Posted on December 12, 2010 at 8:00 am
Amy Dickenson has a wonderful idea for Christmas, “A Book on Every Bed.”
Take a book. Wrap it. Place it on a child’s bed so it’s the first thing she sees on Christmas morning (or whatever holiday you celebrate). That’s it.
I’m working with the Family Reading Partnership, a literacy organization in my home town of Ithaca, N.Y., to spread the word about the importance of reading with children.
A million stories: Our goal is for a million American children to wake up to a wrapped book on their beds.
This is not a fundraising appeal. This is not about buying books (the book you give can be passed down).
“A Book on Every Bed” is an appeal to spread the love of reading from parents to children. We also want to encourage families to share books by reading aloud.
Dickenson recalls her own love for Green Eggs and Ham
Reading Rockets has some good ideas to get you started. Long after the electronic gizmos and fads are forgotten, the gift of books and the learning and imagination they inspire will be a sustaining force in the lives of children. Start the tradition of waking up to a book on Christmas morning for the children in your home — and — why not — add books for the adults as well. Letting children see the people they love enjoying a book will be a gift to them as well.
Giveaway: ‘Flipped’
Posted on December 10, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I am delighted to have five copies of one of my favorite family movies of the year to give away. Flipped, directed by Rob Reiner has wonderful performances by Madeline Carroll and Callan McAuliffe in a story set in the 1960’s about two kids who meet as second graders and go through a range of feelings about each other and their families as they reach their teens.
Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com and tell me the name of your 8th grade crush (first name only!). Don’t forget your address. I will pick five names at random on December 16. Good luck!
Fantasia
Posted on December 6, 2010 at 7:00 am
A+| Lowest Recommended Age: | All Ages |
| MPAA Rating: | G |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Some scary images |
| Diversity Issues: | None (15-second segment removed from the original film in the 1960's for racist imagery) |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 1940 |
| Date Released to DVD: | December 7, 2010 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B0040QTNSK |
Disney’s glorious “Fantasia” and its sequel, “Fantasia 2000” are out for a limited time in a spectacular 4-DVD blu-ray package.
Considered a failure on its original release, “Fantasia’s” eight-part combination of images and music is now indisputably a classic. Musicologist Deems Taylor explains that there are three kinds of music: music that paints a picture, music that tells a story, and “absolute music,” or music for music’s sake, and then shows us all three. Highlights include Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, whose plan to save himself from a little work by enchanting a broom to carry the buckets of water gets out of control, the Nutcracker Suite’s forest moving from fall into winter (with the adorable mushroom doing the Chinese Dance), Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, with characters from Greek mythology celebrating at a festival and seeking shelter from a storm, and the Dance of the Hours, with ostrich and hippo ballerinas dancing with gallant (if overburdened) crocodiles.
It concludes with the scary Night on Bald Mountain followed by the dawn’s Ave Maria. The movie is perfect for blu-ray — it’s as though we can finally see the colors the way the artists could only dream of. The flying Pegasus family soars through the sky, the thistles kick like Cossacks to the Russian dance, the dinosaurs lumber to the Rite of Spring. This is one of the greatest movies in cinematic history, groundbreaking and timeless.
And there’s more. Disney planned another musical segment designed by famous surrealist artist Salvador Dali, who came out to the Disney studio for eight months to work on it. But it was canceled due to financial setbacks at the company at the time, and Disney always regretted that it was not completed. It has become a legend, much speculated about and sought after. This splendid set includes Destino, with Roy Disney at long last completing Dali’s original vision, 58 years after he began it.
Roy Disney also supervised “Fantasia 2000,” the sequel, which includes a charming Al Hirschfeld-inspired Manhattan saga set to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and a wildly funny flamingo/yo-yo mix-up (more like a pile-up) to the music of Saint-Seans.
Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 
Twelve Great Christmas Movies That Don’t Feature Clarence the Angel, Bing Crosby, Tiny Tim, or a Leg Lamp
Posted on December 3, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Reprising from 2007:
I love It’s a Wonderful Life
So, let’s assume you’ve seen all those already this year and are looking for something else. Here’s a list with one for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. And I’d love to hear about your favorites, too.
(From #6, Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Plus Halloween & Easter Celebrations