FilmFam Men
Years ago, when both of my sons’ ages were in single digits, Sunday evenings was “Movie Night” with popcorn, a fire (in winter), and a rotating choice of pictures that ranged from new releases (like Ratatouille) to classic (Tarzan and His Mate, the original Flipper) to trash (High School Musical).
At some point, I had the bright idea that we could write and publish online reviews of the films we watched, with hopes that assigning ratings (i.e., passing judgement on the work of others) would bring our family closer together. I also hoped that such a project might encourage my kids to write independently. Finally, the world outside of our home could benefit from information about movies that don’t get much play in the era of Disney and CGI-driven perpetual now. Win-win-win.
Or so I thought. But it soon became clear that both boys were too young to commit to a regular writing regimen. That and the fact that my youngest was giving every film he watched five stars meant that this project — like so many over-ambitious family pass-times — eventually went away.
But the Web lives on, and in the near decade after our last review (of the aforementioned High School Musical) was posted, my younger son Ben (Mr. Five Stars) turned out to have quite discerning film tastes, as well as a lot to say.
And so we decided that the two of us would resurrect the project, the result of which is now being debuted here at Medium.
The old family joint writing-and-rating format has been replaced by a team approach in which Ben and I switch off on reviews, with me commenting on every review Ben writes and vice versa. This gives readers the chance to eavesdrop on agreeing or conflicting opinions of two generations of buffs.
The original idea of offering families information on films they might not otherwise choose to share is still operable with this new version of the project, although now we are in that zone where kids gravitate from G/PG to PG-13 and R. This is an important moment for every parent struggling to help their kids learn that in art (especially film) quality is not synonymous with spectacle, that excitement and tension can be generated and maintained without car crashes, and that romance involves more than sex scenes.
And with that as Dad’s opener, here’s what Ben’s has to say about our new foray into the Medium universe:
Ben replies: I must admit I have no memory of when we did this when I was so young, so I’ll mainly speak to the re-creation of the review site that we started when I was thirteen or so.
I was originally hesitant with the idea, thinking of it as just more work, but I warmed up to it as I wrote more and more. I found that it made me happy to get what I was thinking written down somewhere, and from there our site was born.
It’s like watching a child actor play a different role in their adulthood. This site is a completely new, more mature and well-thought-out piece of work than what we had previously done and yet carries a satisfying familiarity to what you may have seen in the past, as I’m sure you’ll notice as you catch up on previous reviews we’ll be posting here first.
I like what you said on here about maturity and film. I sometimes wonder where the whole idea of not showing a kid a movie before a certain age comes from. At first, you would probably think that it has something to do with “fighting corruption” and shielding the eyes of a kid as long as possible.
For my father, I think it has a lot more to do with when a kid is ready to appreciate something, a view I now understand and share. I would much rather show my eleven year old son Fast and Furious 7, for all it’s noise, than show him The Godfather in the hope that he would comprehend it to be more than mindless shooting and violence. Once I reached the point where I could grasp what made a great film great, my Dad and I decided it was time to share our opinions with people deciding what to share with their kids. That’s the kind of thing you’ll see on this site.
