There are so many classic films that I enjoy, it is hard to pick a few. I won’t ruin the films for you by telling all, but I will summarize what I enjoyed about each.

First on my list of classic films you should watch is To Kill a Mocking Bird.

I have seen it dozens of times and still find it interesting. I like the producer/directors choice to make the film in black and white. Not only does it make a rather new film, in all the years of film making, appear to be more in the time frame of the setting but it is definitely a statement of black and white human relationships in Macon, Georgia in this case, but it could have been any town in America during the time period of the 1930’s. It showcases the helplessness of anyone that doesn’t fit into the traditional mold; blacks, for the simple reason that they had a history of servitude, obedience and staying in their place and the other character, Boo, because he was mentally different and didn’t fit into the normal society.

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Gregory Peck is at his very best playing Atticus, the widowed father of two school age children. He is a strong father but makes sure his children know what is right and wrong with the society they live in. He is not a person that would protest, march or rally against wrongs but by his actions, even risking his life to make sure the law is upheld, he lives by example. When he finds out the bad news after the trial, it is clear he wished he had handled the case differently, if he had done more to protect his client. I found it touching that he went personally to the grieving family.

The story was told in the narrative of childhood memories. The group of people Scout and Jim, the brother and sister in the story, faced everyday seem to be good upstanding people and it is very difficult when they recognize at the courthouse that their father is in danger from the very people that have depended on his good heartedness in the past. The other point made by the film is clear by the last scenes. Sometimes holding our tongue, when what we could say would do more harm than good, is the right thing to do.

My second choice would be Friendly Persuasion. This movie tackles both the situation of Quaker’s passiveness during the Civil War and the battles between the Quaker doctrine in personal lives and what each member allows or condemns. Sometimes, the two collide. The mother seems to be the strong character in the story but when the strength of her faith is tested by situations that are very different from the safety of her beliefs, she finds that the strictness of her safety net begins to tear. The film hides the turmoil in the beginning by the most peaceful setting imaginable which makes it even more horrifying when war enters the midst, then conflict among family members and then death. The Quaker meeting is tested and tried, individual members clash in what is right and wrong and ultimately, people come back to faith. I find that the best part. We believe and have faith but don’t always have the answers to life’s dilemmas, but faith endures.

My third choice for classic films you should watch would be Ben Hur. The film Ben Hur takes friendship and family and puts them both to the ultimate test. It is a story of a circle in which a wealthy Jewish family loses all due to the Roman occupation and comes back stronger. The occupying force happens to be one of Ben Hur’s closest friends from childhood. To gain position in the Roman government, he turns his back on friends and family and because of a mistake, Ben Hur is put into slavery. It is at this point he meets Jesus Christ for a brief moment but it stays with him. Ben Hur rises from slavery again to find his mother and sister are living in a leper colony. Ben Hur is now a great chariot racer and challenges his past friend to the race of a lifetime. It is a difficult thing to wrap that race up in a few words but it is terrifying and sad. The movie is long but the thread of salvation and forgiveness runs through the whole film and concludes with Ben Hur and his family healed, physically and spiritually.

Ben-Hur (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

My fourth choice for classic films you should watch is Shane. Shane is an example of a man that has decided to change his life as a gun slinger and become a peaceful farmer. What he finds that even in an area that seems as mundane as farming, there are still choices of how to deal with wrongs done against people. I know there have been farces that make fun of the film Shane because of the young boy, but I find Shane’s devotion to his new friends and his desire to help them without putting back on the guns, a great struggle against holding fast to your principles or releasing them for the greater good.

My fifth choice of classic films you should watch would be Three Came Back, the story of a family separated by war and ending up in separate but close concentration camps. It is an agonizing portrayal of the ruthlessness of the death camps and a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit in places a human never dreamed they could endure.

My choice of classic films: Honorable mentions

I have some choices that are strictly fun classics but I think worth mentioning because they are good films.

The Egg and I is a film I have watched over and over with different people on family night and still find it funny and worth the time.

It Happened One Night is a classic comedy with some kinds of social statements for and against the rich in our society and just a nice romance.

The old Shop Around the Corner with Jimmy Stewart is another film that is easy to watch but still has some very strong elements about the effects of society.

I have more and more classic films coming to mind because I enjoy them more than most of the modern films being made: Roman Holiday, Ma and Pa Kettle, Man in a Gray Flannel Suit, Back Window and other Hitchcock classics, Sabrina, African Queen, King of Kings and just on and on.

There are some modern films (made after 1960) I enjoy but they are far and few between. Classic films can be watched by most any member of the family and they won’t be bombarded by language or scenes that are very offensive. Classic films leave some things to the imagination in areas where films now-a-days show all, and the story line gets forgotten. Happy classic films viewing!

Waiting for the next DVD film releases? While waiting, let’s talk about some of my favorites…

There is one word that strikes fear into the heart of my inner (okay, and outer) pop culture junkie, a horrible ‘F-Word’ that I dread. Favorite. As in, what is your favorite DVD film releases? That word, with the implication that I can pick only one thing, is what draws my mouth into a trembling-lower-lip pout and my eyes become big, round, and sad, begging you not to make me choose. I may as well be asked to choose between my children, which at this point in my life, is rather difficult as I haven’t had any yet (smart money is on my first daughter). However, if we pluralize it to ‘Favorites’, that makes it much easier and much more interesting. Allowing the discussion of multiple favorite items allows the wider opportunity to find common ground with another person, and allows for a much wider spectrum of judging criteria: favorite comedy, favorite drama, favorite romance, favorite animated film, favorite movie starring your celebrity crush, etc. The following are my favorite DVD film releases, in no particular order.

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If a gun were held to my head and the only thing that could save me was a truthful response to the awful ‘Favorite’ question (in the singular), I would answer The Empire Strikes Back. The second (or fifth, if you count the prequels) film of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise has been one of my favorite films since childhood. It was the first film I can remember in which there was no happy ending, which speaks to the copious quantities of Disney films I consumed like most other females of my generation. The ending was made especially painful by the fact that Han Solo (as portrayed by Harrison Ford) would be my first and longest-lasting celebrity crush (I was only partially joking about that particular criterion in the introduction).

DVD film releases I recommend

I have the 2004 original Trilogy set on DVD with an extra disc of bonus material, including the documentary Empire of Dreams, several featurettes, including my personal favorite, the 15-minute The Birth of the Lightsaber,  showcasing how every geek’s favorite weapon works. I prefer the original Trilogy, but any Star Wars love is good love; if you want to go all the way, George Lucas has recently released a box set of all the Star Wars films (The Phantom Menace through Return of the Jedi) on BluRay.

Another film I have loved since I was a child is The Nightmare Before Christmas. I am honor-bound to watch that movie at least twice a year, at Halloween and Christmas, and sometimes I will watch it just because. It is difficult to believe this film is almost 20 years old; it looks just as good as any 3-D computer animated film coming out now, if not better. The creativity of the story of two completely different holidays crossing over into each other may not resonate with today’s children, as more and more stores seem to be putting their Halloween and Christmas decorations out at about the same time, but when I was a child, this was truly a bizarre concept. What sorts of hijinks ensue when you put the ghouls that haunt Halloween in the Christmas season? Of course, I didn’t know any goths, emo kids, or wanna-be vampires at the time either, and having seen some of them during the holidays, they aren’t nearly as fun as Jack, Sally, and Oogie Boogie.

The Special Edition DVD of the film includes audio commentary with director Henry Selick, a making-of featurette (It’s a good thing I like featurettes, because most films have at least one on every DVD), and two of Tim Burton’s earlier short films, 1984’s Frankenweenie (which is being remade into a full-scale movie due out in 2012) and 1982’s Vincent, about a boy who wants to be Vincent Price, narrated by Vincent Price. Yes, please! But my favorite set of extras on this DVD are the glimpse into the art of not only designing and making these little figures, but having them come to life in this manner. There are storyboards and concept art and animation tests, as every second of movement is set up, recorded, stopped, set up, recorded, stopped second by second, movement by movement. It took 100 people and three years to create 76 minutes of pure magic, and it was worth every moment!

One of my favorite DVD film releases: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’

No list of movies would be complete without at least one romance, or ‘chick flick’, if you will. While the DVD release is not particularly special (a featurette, director commentary, a music video), my favorite romance is Sleepless in Seattle, which makes this list purely by virtue of being one of the most awesome romance movies of all time. You know how I know it’s the most awesome? It’s my dad’s favorite. My cranky, abrasive father, who is basically Gregory House with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, LOVES this movie. He used to quote lines from the movie as I started dating, about not wanting to be in love, but wanting to be in love in a movie (a fairly central theme to the film, and good advice besides). But besides an apparent predisposition to liking the film, it’s just wonderful on its own. Tom Hanks, the mayor of the film industry, and Meg Ryan, the queen of the 90s romantic comedy, both turn in possibly their most perfect performances. Unfortunately, this didn’t carry over into their next collaboration, You’ve Got Mail, a remake of the far superior Shop Around the Corner choked with what has now become a history lesson about the early days of the Internet, but I digress. Sleepless in Seattle is one of the most perfect, timeless love stories I have seen, along with The Princess Bride and It’s a Wonderful Life, which is, at heart and most importantly, a love story.

And finally, what is a list of favorite DVD film releases without a few honorable mentions? My honorable mentions list includes Young Frankenstein, and almost all other Mel Brooks films. These are especially great to get on DVD with Mel and others doing commentary. The man is just plain hysterical and so creative; it’s always great to get a brief glimpse into the mind of the artist. Young Frankenstein has a great cast of many of his regulars and is a great spoof of monster movies. Another comedy with a great DVD release is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, featuring a family-friendly version of the film and special features such as cartoons, and another version with other special features that is, shall we say, less so.  Moving from the realm of comedy into musical comedy, the 26th Anniversary Edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, featuring commentary, games and trivia, and audience participation commentary and subtitle tracks to brush up before you attend the local theater’s Halloween showing.

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In terms of dramatic film, nothing beats Gregory Peck’s hero Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Really, he was voted the number one film hero in AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Heroes and Villains list. The stirring, sharp black and white film has no special features, but that is to be expected in the case of many older films, wherein any extra footage would have either been locked away and forgotten or destroyed (either intentionally or not). All this DVD has is the film, and that’s really all it needs. And finally, in the special honorable mention category, the 30th Anniversary collection of School House Rock. Yes, I just did that. You know why? ‘Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?’ You heard that singing in your head, didn’t you? You’re probably still singing it in your head, or maybe even out loud. This is the reason many people know the Preamble of the Constitution, or how a Bill becomes a Law, or how to multiply by five. All of the originals, plus five new ones, a trivia game, and all sorts of other fun stuff. This is one of the DVD film releases I am saving for the aforementioned children that don’t exist yet, and should probably be required repeat viewing for children of any age.

That is my list of my favorite DVD film releases and why – I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!