Top of the World, Ma!

So I just got through watching the movie White Heat starring James Cagney. Tons of gangsters (not gangstas or worse yet, gangstaz) and shooting, but no blood or guts. 1949 moviemaking at it's absolute best.

That's my blog fodder for today. I watched this movie by myself but my kids could have easily watched it with me. There was no sex or objectionable language. Could you imagine me watching Goodfellas with my babies around me? They'd have nightmares for, well, ever.

My beef is the fact that it's so hard to find DVDs that we can all watch together. Either I'm sleeping before the hero shows up or the kids are bored and they start kick-fighting on the couch. Now that they're starting to move out of the animated movie thing, finding live-action and appropriate for everyone is close to impossible. We tried some Disney stuff like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins but Elliott gets bored with those. We've recently seen and liked the Back to the Future movies, the Indiana Jones movies, Harry Potter & the Star Wars series. Audrey freaked out during Jurassic Park and we had to stop it and we all fell asleep during Hook. In my own defense, I'd been up since 5am that day. I love Hook.

So Scott and I thought we'd try some old classics like The Music Man or the Court Jester (what kid wouldn't like Danny Kaye?). So off we go to our local video emporium, anxious to start showing the kids the movies we grew up with. After going to 3 different places, we finally found what we wanted at the 4th place. For sale only. For nearly $40. Each. So much for that brilliant idea.

What I want to know is why can't I rent great old movies at my local store? Stuff from the 40's and 50's. They don't even have a "classics" section. Yes, Aliens is a brilliant movie but my kids will need extensive therapy if I let them watch it. We're at a loss, here, people. Does anyone have any suggestions for our Saturday movie night?

kxx