I am proud to say that my nephew, Kevin Gallagher, worked on the John Adams miniseries.  You can see his name in the credits! He worked on the lighting and camera work.  It is an excellent program!

My wife and I have always watched “Emmit Otter’s Jugband Christmas” VHS. We finally received a copy on DVD and the whole family & some reluctant guests watched.  My wife and I have watched this movie from the first year we courted and continue to every Christmas.  It’s a Jim Henson production so Great for little kids.  We also watched the 1952 version of Ivanhoe.  It’s a little deep for my boys, 6 & 4, but they enjoy the action and I explain the violence, but of course by today’s standards the fighting pales.  It is rated G and teaches Chivalry and Honor.

Thank you for the suggestion, we loved Horatio and look forward to watching John Adams! Our family has enjoyed Amazing Grace and Master and Commander (although these are definitely for teens and up).

We loved John Adams although we didn’t watch it with our children.

We did see the Tale of Despereaux in the theater and thought it was terrible.  Of course, a mother dies. The father withdrawals.  Another single father gives up his baby to terrible guardians.  The lead character is a mouse who is his own individual, yet his parents don’t protect or jump to his defense when he is misunderstood.  Very dark.

Melissa,
How cool that your nephew worked on the series!  If you think he might be interested in answering a few email questions I would love to do a quick interview with him about his experience working on the movie.  Lisa

Thanks for giving the suggestion of John Adams and Horatio Hornblower.  I’ll have to look into them.  Our family enjoys watching Joyeux Noel…we haven’t watched it yet this Christmastide, but hope to over the weekend.

Merry Christmas.

We loved JOHN ADAMS! And we don’t even know anyone who worked on it! I wish there were more DVDs like this. Currently we rented an old mini series (27 hours worth) called Centenniel. It is about a piece of land out west and how it was settled. It was based on a novel by James Mitchner. Has some violence such as Indians shooting and there was one scene where it was suggested a girl was raped but nothing graphic was shown. It is like a 1970s or 80s movie and we are enjoying the historical part - though it is interesting that all the characters have 70s hair cuts back in the indian & pioneer days! Keep the recommendations coming - we love good clean history, biography, family movies and are well is drying up here!

Jen, another series we enjoyed was “Into the West” which originally aired on TNT.  Also a great series.

We took our children (all girls, 13, 11, 8, & 6) to see the movie, Tale of Despereaux, this past week.  My children loved it.  I loved the fact there was no obscene or unmannerly behavior.  I loved the theme of light vs dark.  I loved that my girls were told over and over again that honor & truth were good things to strive for.  My favorite lesson in the movie was at the end.  The audience sees how a person’s actions, whether negative or positive, effect others and then ripples out to effect more people.  This is something that I am always “preaching” to my children.  We might be surprised what a smile can do for the world. 

So yes, the mother dies.  This is life.  One father does withdrawl and one father does give up his child.  But in the end, they are both reunited with their daughters.  The mouse was an individual and he gave me courage to realize that when we do what is right our families may not always support us but that is not an excuse not to do it. 

There was darkness in this film. But the overall lesson is you can choose darkness which in turn causes others to turn from the light of right.  Or you can choose light and bring hope and light to many people.

My son recently recieved Facing the Giants for Christmas.  We have watched it 3 times since Christmas.  It is a good Christian movie ,especially for boys who love sports.  It has a great message of how God works in our life, especially if He s placed in the center and everything is done to glorify Him.

Lisa,  my nephew, Kevin, who worked on the miniseries is currently on his Honeymoon .  I am sure he wouldn’t mind being interviewed when he returns. I think he gets back next week. I will send him an e-mail and get back to you.

SOme of the movies we’ve enjoyed as a family with 5 kids ages 10 & under, include “The Iron Giant” (great story - by the same guy who wrote “The Incredibles”), Horton Hears A Who, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Herbie (both old & new version), Planet Earth and some cooking shows.  My DH & I are “into” cooking, so we really enjoy watching Good Eats & the Barefoot Contessa.  Often we’ll make a highlighted dish as a family the next day.  Another movie my DH & I thought would be good to watch with an older teenager is “Lars & the Real Girl”. (Don’t let the title scare you.)  We used to be youth ministers and thought this movie could provide a way to discuss many things related to loneliness, reaching out, supporting others and being supportive.

We just rented and watched “Joshua” and I really loved it!  It was totally appropriate for the kids, and I was smiling and crying toward the end!
God Bless!

We get lots of dvds every year. Our favorites for family viewing have been old tv comedy series, mostly from the sixties.
we own several seasons of Hogans Heroes and
Gomer Pyle. Everyone enjoys these. For teens and adults the Canadian Red/Green comedy series is great offbeat humor, with occasionally a little “adult” innuendo, but very little and not to an offensive degree. We also just received the first season of the old “Addams Family” series from the sixties. haven’t watched that yet and I was only five years old when it first came out on TV, so I can’t promise that this is a real winner, though I suspect my crowd will like it. Granted, these aren’t educational like John Adams. Just lots of laughs.