Mr. Popper's Penguins

We always read "the book" before we go see "the movie."  In this case, we had read and reread the book every time there was a 1st grader in our homeschool, so we were looking forward to Mr. Popper's Penguins.  But the modern movie adaptation made it hard to recognize the 1938 book (written at the end of the Great Depression).  It wont he Newbery Honor Medal and was illustrated by Robert Lawson!  The tale is about turning lemons into lemonade, following your childhood dreams, and not being afraid to like geography in the midst of a prejudiced, small town.  The movie, however, is about a divorced father trying to look cool on custody weekends.  The penguins eventually melt his icy Park Avenue heart and help him win back his kids' hearts, his wife, and the quaint restaurant of his childhood.  The humor is Jim Carrey style (goofy gags) but the negative content is surprisingly closer to a G rating than many PG movies these days.  It's not the beloved story of our homeschool treasury, but it was worth a couple of laughs at the $2 theater.

Henry Poole is Here

Three parents and nine teens from our Catholic homeschool group went to see "Henry Poole is Here." All of us really, really liked this movie. It is definitely hard to write about it without giving away the whole plot. It's also hard to find the right adjectives to describe it. Henry Poole knows he is going to die soon, and takes a sad/angry/depressed approach to meeting his death. He uses the Lord's name in vain twice, but he says it in the context of moaning in exasperation (and for deliverance). It was very appropriate to the script, no matter how offensive to my 40-something ears.

Henry's conscience is being pricked by the "religious" neighbors. Esperanza is a beautiful Catholic woman, who cares for his feelings and his eternal soul. She brings her priest over (George Lopez?!) and he says all the right things about the apparition on Henry's house. It is not an anti-Catholic movie at all! That's all the spoilers I will give away.

Prepare yourself for a slow-moving plot. Stretches of silence give you the depths of Henry's despair and his solitude actually brings him to reflect on his childhood and make sense of his life. The background music is very "techno" (Bob Dylan, Ben Harper, U2) - I don't know how to describe it. The music and the main character are very odd! I probably would not take my 10-year-olds because they might think it moves too slow. However, there is nothing to prevent that age group from going! I can heartily endorse this movie for showing the honest struggle of man's deepest questions about life and death. It is both funny (we laughed out loud) and sorrowful (we passed out tissues). Enjoy!

Bless me Father

We've been watching this as a family nightly, courtesy of netflix. The Amazon link will give you a glimpse of how well-loved this series is--it has a solid 5 star rating from numerous customer reviews. Now available as a complete set on DVDs. Filmed in the 70s, set in the 50s, supposedly pulled from BBC in the USA.

The old pastor of St. Jude and the new, inexperienced young priest and their housekeeper is a hilarious trio. Family fare, and not at all disrespectful of the Catholic Church, although of course a bit politically incorrect for these days: the doctor is always smoking and carries a bottle in his bag!

My Favorite circa 1930s Comedies

Continuing with my recent theme...

I discovered a number of these movies from a Crisis Magazine article on the Vatican Movie List a number of years back. I couldn't find the original article online, but vaguely remember that it expanded on certain themes in the original list with additional suggestions. I remember looking for You Can't Take it With You for years, before our library finally purchased it (this was obviously well before Netflix came into the picture).

I would consider these appropriate at least for my teenager (though often the whole family will enjoy it, even if they don't understand the whole thing), you might want to preview them to decide age level beyond that...

The Philadelphia Story (1940) - Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant - This is kind of the reverse side of Holiday - The rich have their problems too, but even the hard-working newly "made it" can be overly star-struck and insincere. There's also a musical based on this story called High Society starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong.

Holiday (1938) - reviewed here

The Awful Truth (1937) - Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a married couple who decide to split up after a spat - this a comedy about the breakup of the wife and her new boyfriend. I love the upside-downness of it - in a good way!

It Happened One Night (1934) - One of Frank Capras earlier movies and the original road trip film. Claudette Colbert is a rich heiress on the run from her father who meets Clark Gable on a bus trip from Florida back to her home in New York. When we had the subtitles on here, we noticed a little mature content in the lyrics of a song (that we had never noticed before). Also a few slightly risque scenes.

You Can't Take it With You (1938) - Classic Frank Capra - Jean Arthur, Jimmy Stewart, Lionel Barrymore star in this outrageous comedy about money, family, and what really matters. Great fun for the whole family.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) - Gary Cooper is a plainspoken man from the sticks who arrives in New York City because he's inherited a large fortune from a long-lost uncle. Jean Arthur is a reporter who feigns interest in him to get the insight scoop on his "odd" ways. A lot of fun and a great one for the whole family.

Bringing Up Baby (1938) - Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are taking care of a very tame leopard who brings them into all sorts of hilarious situations. Another family favorite.

Bachelor Mother (1939) - Ginger Rogers is a young working mother who is mistakenly believed to be the mother of a baby left at an orphanage. When her employer is contacted (who kindly wants to help her keep the baby and her job) she feels she has to keep the baby.

We also enjoy some of the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy movies, but I couldn't tell you off the top of my head which were our favorites. We watched a Marx Brothers movie last night called Horse Feathers which was outrageously funny and clever, but not the kind I'd like my kids to see all the time.