movies
Movies – Divorce, Loss, and Kids
Movies can touch the heart of youngsters who are going through a divorce. From a psychological point of view, movies address two basic genres that children of divorce deal with everyday.
1. There are movies that are specifically about divorce itself, such as Liar Liar, Imagine That, E.T. or Mrs. Doubtfire. Here, a child can identify with what other kids may be going through and feel less isolated in their experience.
2. The second theme that is useful for kids of divorce centers around loss and the child’s heroic adaptation to that loss. Movies like Harry Potter, The Karate Kid, Cinderella and the Wizard of Oz. all are about overcoming loss.
If you look carefully at children’s movies, you will discover that many of these kids come from family structures that are anything but traditional. Consider Cinderella who was raised by a wicked step mother or Pinocchio who was “raised” by Geppetto, or The Little Mermaid, Ariel, who was raised by King Triton, with no mother mentioned.
ET is not often thought of as a divorce movie – but where is Elliot’s father? The Karate Kid (Daniel is raised by a single mother) and The Wizard of Oz (Dorothy is an orphan raised by her aunt and uncles) are both wonderful movies respectively, about a teenage boy and a teenage girl, who have to deal with the inadequacy of their parenting environment and long for something more.
You may wonder why these themes are so popular if the many children who love these films have intact families. The answer to that is really quite simple and yet profound as well.
Children want more from their parents. They always do, and they almost always get less than what they truly want. It is the nature of human life. Whether you have two parents, one parent, or a stepparent, we all long for more.
Children and teenagers have a natural wish to explore past their families to a world outside to find love, support and validation. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds it in an adventure with some inadequate male adults, the Lion, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, while confronting a scary woman in the guise of the Wicked Witch of the West. She comes to terms with family life when she accepts that these men and the Wizard himself are just people – like herself – who strive to be better than they are.
In ET, Elliot finds an extraterrestrial friend, and a special one at that. We can all relate with the wish to have a special friend who can make everyday magical.
In The Karate Kid, Daniel (Dre in the 2010 remake) is a boy raised by a single mother, who gains one of the great pleasures of life – the mentorship of a surrogate father. How many children going through divorce end up with surrogate fathers, whether they are coaches, teachers, ministers, or rabbis – and even sometimes psychotherapists – who truly make a difference in who they are to become?
One cannot leave the topic without touching upon the great contemporary classic, Harry Potter. Harry is a young man who has to deal with the loss of both his parents while living with his unkind Aunt and Uncle. Harry’s adventure into another world speaks to all children who have a yearning for their own sense of specialness, a new set of surrogate parents and a wish to individuate.
So, go to the movies, rent them and see them at home with your children. You do not have to provoke a big discussion. Just being there while they see the movie is good parenting in my book.
It may evoke a thought, a feeling, a tear, or a longing. And all that is good. What is even better is if you are in the mix when it happens.
Movies – Generate New Film Ideas from Existing Movies
By cross-tabulating the names of the existing movies you can generate an infinite number of new, interesting and sometimes humorous and whacky movie ideas.
The Film “Unkown” (2006) for example seems to be a cross between “”Reservoir Dogs” and “Memento”.
Let’s create a 5X5 table and fill the last 4 row and column headers with the titles of 4 films. (The top-left square should be left empty.)
Let’s see what kind of cross-pollinations we can get if the films we choose for this exercise are…
The Godfather, Memento, Devil Wears Prada, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Godfather-meets-Memento: A Mafia boss tries to get his revenge if only he can remember who killed his wife and sons.
Godfather-meets-Prada: An ambitious fashion boss in Manhattan hires contract killers and forms her own posse to get rid of all her rivals in the fashion world.
Raiders-meet-Prada: A Harvard educated team of fortune-hunters in Egypt hire a top-notch fashion designer to decipher the clues hidden in the clothing of the pharaohs depicted on the walls of the pyramids.
Raiders-meet-Memento: An archeologist progressively loses her memory and identity as she gets closer to the hidden crypt inside the pyramid. Her only chance of survival is to enact the revolting act of worshipping ritual that she deciphers from a crypt.
Here is another…
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) meets Das Boot (1981) – A group of mentally retarded patients are shipped to a destination unknown inside an old German U-boat. Our hero has a chance to stage a revolt and take over the command of the submarine. Can he do it? At what price?
Possibilities are endless. Cross-index the movies you love and have fun!
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Movies – The Shadow
The “Butcher of Lhasa” is also known as Yinko, played by Alec Baldwin, is a ruthless opium drug dealer who made a practice of taking other’s opium fields and killing anyone who crosses his path. One night, Yinko is kidnapped from his estate and taken to a Chinese temple. Once there, he meets a priest who know Yinko’s true name, Lamont Crankston. This priest teaches Lamont to overcome the evil in his own heart and to combat crime and to cloud men’s minds, thus becoming “The Shadow”.
New York City, early 1900s. Lamont Crankston aka “The Shadow” just rescued a professor at NYU from a group of thugs who were about to throw him over the New York City bridge. The Shadow and Professor Tam are both riding a cab and The Shadow recruits Professor Tam as one of his fellow “contacts”. Professor Tam is let out of the cab at his home. The cab driver, played by Peter Boyle, is actually another of Lamont/The Shadow’s fellow contact and loyal friend. The Shadow tells the cab driver to take him to the Cobalt Club as he transforms back into Lamont Crankston.
Once at the Cobalt Club, Lamont meets his uncle, played by Jonathan Winter, who is also the head of police. As they talk, Margo Lane, played by Penelope Ann Miller, enters the club. Lamont is easily attracted to her and invite her to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. She accepts. As they both enjoy their dinner, Lamont notices that Margo has the gift of reading people’s thoughts, for the simple reason that she read his. Lamont takes Margo home.
At a museum, Shiwan Khan, the last descendant of Genghis Khan, is hidden in his ancestor’s crypt. He escapes the museum and recruits Mongolon warriors as his followers. He visits Lamont and Shiwan tells him that he also was lectured by the Chinese priest. Shiwan asks Lamont to join him in his worldwide takeover as Yinko, his former self. Lamont refuses.
Shiwan hypnotizes Margo Lane’s father, who is a leading scientist, played by Ian McKellen, to build and atomic bomb. Tim Curry, who played father Lane’s assistant, also helped in the task of his own free will. Knowing that Lamont is the shadow, Shiwan hypnotizes Margo into killing him. Margo arrives at Lamont’s home and with a failed murder attempt, Lamont breaks the spell over Margo. She realizes that Lamont is The Shadow as well, but she promises to keep his secret between the two of them. Margo asks for Lamont’s help because her father has disappeared. Together they find the whereabouts of Margo’s father and Shiwan Khan at a Hotel Monolith. This hotel was hidden in plain site because Shiwan cast a spell over the whole city NOT to see it. The Shadow strikes at the Hotel Monolith, defeating Shiwan’s warriors until only Shiwan remained. Meanwhile, Margo and her father are trying to stop the time sequence on the atomic bomb; they succeed. The Shadow and Shiwan have a battle of the mind in a room full of mirrors. The Shadow had a piece of the mirror strike Shiwan’s brain, therefore defeating him. Shiwan ends up in an insane asylum, where one of the doctors is a friend of The Shadow. The doctor tells Shiwan that a part of his brain had to be removed, the part that is used for telepathy. Shiwan is left in a room at the asylum outraged. Lamont and Margo kiss each other and then parted ways.