Be sure to take a look at the excellent Ten Tips for Parenting the Facebook Generation from Beliefnet’s Hesham Hassaballa. Technology has made the risks and humiliations and cliquishness of the early teen years exponentially more treacherous, and these guidelines will help keep kids safe until they can become wise. The most important rule, as always, is loving involvement in your children’s lives, so they know they can talk with you about all of their concerns.
“Leave It to Beaver” rejuvenates me. I need its gentle tone and mild-manneredness, its absence of deep drama and complicated characters, and its simple, predictable, formulaic story lines, in which nothing seems to have lasting consequence. And I need Beaver’s innocence, his youthful ability to trust and believe completely, his state of confused wonderment (“Gee whiz, Dad, has it always been hard on kids being kids?”), and his wholly natural, small-boy approach to life. When my cancer refuses to slow down for sentiment, “Beaver” helps me feel embraced by life, not tossed around by it….
It’s easy to lose one’s perspective in the suffocating web of cancer. I don’t know if watching “Leave It to Beaver” is pathetic or liberating. But for now, I’ve put my faith in the idea that these stories from my childhood — realistic or not — possess the kind of redemptive power referred to by William Maxwell. “Stories,” he wrote, “can save us.” Such is the reality; such is the hope.
“Of course, I’m really proud of ‘Leave It to Beaver’ and my directing career in television,” said Dow. “Those are great accomplishments. I’m really proud of them, but this is interesting because I don’t think they know anything about that at the Louvre.”
Still, I suspect Dow and his fellow castmates will be most fondly remembered for their 1950’s television show. It does hold up remarkably well, not just for the way it evokes a more innocent time, but because it evokes the worldview of a child. Sweet but not sugary, it is a family classic.
“Slumdog Millionaire” is a Dickensian story of orphans in India. The movie is not for everyone. It combines the most harrowing abuse, betrayal, and tragedy with a piercingly romantic fairy tale. It is the story of a young man who is accused of cheating when he wins “Who Wants to Be a Millionare?” because he has no education and lives in the slums. In flashbacks that reveal his whole life to that point we learn how he knew the answer to each question. The movie has one of the most transcendently romantic moments of the year and concludes with a rousing dance number under the closing credits.
Jenkins: How difficult was it to shoot in Bombay’s slums?
Boyle: The slums are great! You have to contact the right people to go in there, but once we were there and got to know the people, they’re extraordinary. They’re so resourceful, considering how little they’re given by the state. There’s no toilets, there’s no running water, no electricity. It looks filthy and disgusting, and it is around the edges, but you go in the homes and they’re absolutely spotless.
I think the energy of the film is a tribute to the slums. Everybody imagines people just hanging around, sleeping in the sun and not working. They’re incredibly industrious! Working in these cottage industries, and trading. That’s why they don’t want to move out of these places. Because the land is so valuable now, the municipal councils want to move them out to these tower blocks they built in New Mumbai. But they don’t want to go there. They do forcibly move them, but the people come back. They want to live amongst their own kind. Because what they get from their own kind more than compensates for the bricks and mortar that’s on offer out there. To be in the hub of the city, the maximum city, is priceless.
Working from a script by Simon Beaufoy (“The Full Monty”), Boyle stages every scene with verve and brio, confidently flashing forward and back from Jamal’s boyhood to his quiz-show appearance to his mid-game interrogation by a police inspector (Irrfan Khan) who suspects him of cheating. Throughout it all, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle’s camera bounces giddily through the tin-roofed shanties of Mumbai, while Indian superstar A.R. Rahman’s soundtrack throbs seductively. Not since Fernando Mireille’s “City of God” has a film about poverty and violence been told with such extraordinary panache.
Q&A With the Movie Mom — a 14-year-old wants to see slasher movies
Posted on November 12, 2008 at 10:58 pm
A reader of this blog wrote to ask about her 14-year-old, who tells her that all of his friends watch R-rated horror films and he wants to see them, too. Here is my response:
I am honored that you would ask for my thoughts on this very difficult decision.
There’s no good answer. At this age, you are going to be walking a tightrope for the next few years trying to keep a balance between protecting your child from social humiliation (very tender at this age of course) and protecting him from media you consider inappropriate. I can recommend lower-intensity horror films, of course, but I fear that your approving of them (or my approving of them) would probably make them unacceptable from his point of view by definition. Some of the scariest movies are not at all graphic. But at this age, I believe that these movies are not watched for enjoyment as much as they are for proof of endurance and the pleasure of crossing a line that parents have drawn.
What I would say is this: “Now is a good time to make it clear to you that ‘everyone else is doing it’ never, ever works in our house. We do what is right for us. I want you to think about why you should see these movies — why they are worthwhile, what they will add to your understanding, why they merit 90 minutes out of your life, what possible adverse effect they might have. Take some time and think about it. Write down a few thoughts if that helps. And then we will reconvene on this subject. But remember that one of the gifts I give you as a parent is ‘plausible deniability.’ If in your heart you do not want to see these films (or do anything else your friends are pressuring you to do), you can always blame me.”
Good luck and keep me posted!
from a man who f