Crooked Timber

“The Snapper” is one of my all-time favorites. A big, loud Dublin family dealing with the oldest daughter’s unplanned pregnancy. Funny and charming and hilarious. I think it meets all your criteria.

I recommend Babe. Not only is it my favorite movie but it does a good job of showing the importance of equality of opportunity and also of family, though in a non-traditional form. And, it’s a wonderful movie. (Avoid Babe II- Beyond Thunderdome, though.) (“The Snapper” was, to memory, pretty good, too.)

You can’t go wrong with some episodes of the Simpsons – the one where the kids are put in the Flanders’ care or the one where Apu pretends to be married to Marge to avoid an arranged marriage would be good.

Don’t know if either of these will pass the speed test-

Bacheha-Ye aseman (Children of Heaven)- Iranian movie, subtitles

Dear Frankie- English, difficult accents

The Four Hundred Blows is, of course, the best movie ever made. And it’s about childhood.

In similar vein is Los Olvidados.

Or what about My Life as a Dog. A marvellous film, too.

john is absolutely correct about the 400 blows. (And My Life as a Dog is pretty good too).

A few more suggestions:

• An episode of The Royle Family. (maybe the Christmas one). Very well observed.

• An (early) episode of Shameless (may fail on the sex and violence criterion, though).

• Kes

• Secrets and Lies (may fail on S&V)

Raise the Red Lantern, for an example of how not to behave. Of course it is the ultimate movie about office politics, but it is still basically a movie about family life and how degrading it is to base all family life and marriage around reproduction. It is also an interesting illustration of how a person can be called Master and be anything but in his own house.

I’ll vote again for My Life as a Dog and for both Secrets and Lies and also All or Nothing, also by Mike Leigh (it has some of the same actors as S&L as well, playing something like the same characters if only they’d had much worse luck.) All or Nothing has a bit of sex but not enough to make a college student emberassed, I’d think. (American students might well need subtitles for some of the accents in both S&L and All or Nothing, too!)

Running on Empty, with Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti and River Phoenix – its an interesting film with family dynamics at the core.

I’d be inclined to say, “Eat, drink, man, woman”, but it’s not rated.

we’ve been watching Big Love (HBO) at home (it’s a show about an FLDS familiy, one husband and three wives)—it drives me nuts but never has a program stimulated more discussion. the episodes where the wives discuss power-sharing would be particularly good. the most interesting parts of the show are that power is discussed so openly—and many of the same things are operating in more traditional families, they just aren’t discussed (e.g., one wife, one husband)… there is some violence and some sex but not in every episode. It’s terrible if you’re interested in the FLDS or Mormons in general but a great commentary on family life, child-rearing, power, and traditional gender roles.

I second “Little Miss Sunshine.” The combination of absurd craziness and family love is hard to beat. Not to mention a whole lot of not-Hollywood body types.

“Harold and Maude” – as a lesson in what “family” is and what it should do. “Family” is the people who know who you are and love you anyway, not the people who think you are a freak of nature and an unwelcome legal obligation.

Ditto for “La Cage” or “The Bird Cage” the American version with Robin Williams. Both are about the importance of family – and that family is who you love and who is important to you despite all the obvious reasons why you should know better.

Suggestions:

Chaplin’s “The Kid”
“When Father Was Away on Business”
“Mississippi Masala” or “Monsoon Wedding”
“Fanny and Alexander”
“The Incredibles”

just off the top of my head . . .

Oh, and yeah, Bloix @17:

In America

You’re not kidding.

Verges dangerously close to sentimentality at a few points, but still: well done and truly done.

License to Drive starring Coreys Haim and Feldman.

The Snapper and Life is Sweet get my vote, too. How about Little Miss Sunshine?

Almost certainly violates the “too slow” rule, but: any Yasujiro Ozu movie.

I second Bend It Like Beckham and also nominate My Dog Skip, based on Willie Morris’s memoir of his childhood.

Strongly second episodes of My So-Called Life. One of the striking things about it is that although it centers on the Claire Danes character, the adults are fully-drawn characters as well.

Possibly Real Women Have Curves?

In America is great (if deeply flawed) but I seem to recall a lot of Samantha Morton’s skin at one point. Hmm, the IMDB says there’s a special PG-13 version for the US.

The White Balloon

What’s Cooking

If you do The Snapper remember you need to talk about consent and date rape. It’s a wonderful, charming movie about people dealing with common situations, that US colleges are trying very hard to declare unacceptable. For good reason. The movie characters did not treat it as such, though I think the director did.

Definitely would be a great class though, sounds like it would be exactly what the school was hoping. And your oldest child is probably getting closer to the age where she should hear some discussion of such unpleasant matters. Doubt I’d have the courage to do it though.

You might try Parenthood which tackles nontraditional family issues head-on, in an otherwise conventional comedy/drama setting. Has some sex towards the beginning, and of course childbirth at the end, but it was also a solid cast and script, if memory serves. It also has a few of the awkward conversations parents have, which might be mode awkward than watching nude romping.

Whatever you do, don’t listen to ben alpers. Although My So-Called Life is good.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that The 400 Blows is the best movie ever made.

I third or fourth recommending My Life as a Dog.

Bicycle Thief is really about family and childhood.

It’s not that good a movie, but if you want something current, Meet the Robinsons is about family. It’s okay.

Maybe Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid.

Sorry, ben alpers—I was so distracted by some of your extreme suggestions I forgot you recommended the 7 Up movies, which I have to agree with. Didn’t mean to put you down. Just that most of what you named should not be shown with children around.

Forbidden Games and Grave of the Fireflies. Both about war and family life. Harriet the Spy is about issues of growing up.

A few not yet mentioned:

Housekeeping: the sister’s desolation feels so right to me
Wedding in White: a great 1970s Canadian film, with Carol Kane & Donald Pleasance, about banal rape (quasi-rape?) & pregnancy. The relationships are complex; the family friend they get to marry the girl must abandon his long term intended.

Although not your agenda here, I have long wanted to arrange a pro-choice movie night double feature of Wedding in White and 10 Rillington Place (about Christie the murderer who promised his victims an abortion).

The mention of Grave of the Fireflies has reminded me of the contemporary live-action Japanese film Dare No Shiranai (Nobody Knows) with a similar theme: it’s a tender and heartbreaking look at four children abandoned by their mother who cope alone without the involvement of the authorities. In a similar vein is the French film La Fracture du Myocarde (Cross My Heart), about a boy of about 12 whose mother dies and whose friends conspire with him to conceal this so that his doesn’t get taken over by social services.

I was the same age as the characters of My So-Called Life when it was first broadcast, and I felt as if finally, finally, someone understood me. My classmates felt the same: there was no water cooler in our school, but if there had been, MSCL would have been the water cooler show to end all water cooler shows. We all loved it with a fiery passion. Ten years later, I watched all the episodes on DVD, and they still made me cry.

kiki’s delivery service and my neighbour totoro are also about family and growing up, but maybe a little more positive than the other Miyazaki movies mentioned here.

Last of the Mohicans is about families, and involves a great open-heart surgery scene. Probably not appropriate though…

I would say a very important modern take on the family, in which friends are as important (or more so) than actual family, would be in buffy. The episode where Buffy’s mother dies springs to mind.

Mon Uncle.

My life as a dog (fourthed)
Fanny and Alexander
Six Scenes from a Marriage—if they really want to know what destructive emotions a marriage an encompass. It’s almost the complete negation of family.

I second Big Love (HBO). I watched a few episodes with my family and even we couldn’t help but discuss the various implications of a multi-wife household (the effect is amazing because we are not the sort to actually discuss shows at all). It also deals with whether or not you can “indoctrinate” your kids, so to speak. There’s a great episode where the son starts looking for mulitple girlfriends to get ready for a mulit-wife family and the first wife (his real mom) is ready to send him to her mother’s to keep him from following in the footsteps of his dad (and community). It may even be the same episode where the daughter’s boyfriend is cheating on her and the dad actually tries to intervene on her behalf, and for that his daughter charges him with hypocrisy. I think it’s actually appropriate (no violence, and I’m pretty sure no actual sex).

For a lighter watch, you should definitely watch Three Men and a Baby to discuss the social norms issue of men raising children. (note: people may tell you it’s not a good movie, and it probably isn’t, but Val and I loved it)

I would definitely vote for the early 7up documentaries or a ken loach film such as Ladybird Ladybird.

I think matt just above means Truffaut’s Pocket Change (L’Argent de Poche), which I second wholeheartedly, along with In America and some Miyazaki (perhaps Totoro is most familyesque)

Lilo and Stitch is a good look at the dynamics of a non-traditional family that nevertheless gets firmly asserted as a family . . . though, as others above have said of other selections, that may reveal more about my particulars than about the film.

#27 – When Father Was Away On Business is to my mind the greatest movie about childhood ever made – but it’s subtitled and in black-and-white, and the plot is driven by the politics of the Tito era, which would require a huge amount of exposition for a student audience – even most adult audiences would have trouble understanding what was going on – and although very funny, the humor is in the deadpan East European style that the student audience likely wouldn’t get. But if the readership of this thread is looking for a movie to rent, this is one to put on your queue.

A Bronx Tale
La Traviata (Zeffirelli)

We just watched Raising Arizona again last night. It’s a little too close to my upbringing for me to be enthusiastic. My suggestion is Mostly Martha.

Heavenly Creatures. Very good and very disturbing. (You may not want your children watching it.)
Here’s the wikipedia entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Creatures

It’s only about a minute long (and ironically produced) but it’s a good illustration of the potentially damaging role of commercialism on children’s (especially girl children’s) identity formation.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1225901470/bctid1231041723

Tha Apple.
For it’s subject, the people who made it, and the performers.

Sounds like a wonderful course.

I second Lilo & Stitich, and let me add in the animation category, Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant.

In the black-and-white decades-old foreign film, let me recommend Ozu’s Tokyo Story, and also his Late Spring.

The latter might not qualify under your “not too slow” requirement, but it is remarkable, and has the virtue of exploring an aspect of families not often explored, an adult daughter so devoted to her adoring but complacent widowed father that she is passing up a life of her own. Goaded by a busy-body aunt, the father takes radical action to free his daughter.

Tokyo Story moves along at an acceptable pace, I think, and it’s a wonderful study of family life under the pressure of changing times. Truly a great film, with lots to talk about. It manages to be deeply funny and deeply moving.

Both of these are available on Criterion.

Lastly, an underrated American flick – Men Don’t Leave: Jessica Lange in a sudden tragedy becomes the widowed mother of two sons, is left without the means to continue to live in the suburbs and moves the family to an apartment in Baltimore, where she becomes a working woman; the film goes on to explore what binds people to one another and comes out on the side of odd ducks being the true insiders. The film is a gentle comedy, the performances are all wonderful; one caution, Joan Cusack plays a medical receptionist living in the same apartment building who has an affair with Lange’s teenage son. There is no explicit sex, but in extending the notion of family, the film refuses to huff and puff about adult-under-age sex, and Cusack’s character turns out to be the kind of person we’d all like to have in our family.

I had no problem with that, but could certainly understand if you might think having a discussion with kids about why the son moves in with Cusack, other than the constant arguing that is killing his relationship with his Mom, is one you might not want to have.

Junebug.

Junebug is dreadful.

Gotta go with “After the Wedding” – really deconstructs the responsibilities of members of a family.

If.

Heathers.

Monsoon Wedding. Generously explores what it might mean for a professional, “liberated” woman to accept an arranged marriage. Subplot treats molestation and family secrets.

Freaks and Geeks. “Kim Kelly is My Friend” is a good family episode, but there are any number of great ones.

Paper Moon
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

I third “You Can Count on Me.” Linney and Ruffalo are fantastic.

I second Monsoon Wedding, way over Bend It Like Beckham. If you want Chaddha, go for Bhaji on the Beach. If you want British Immigrants, go for My son the fanatic with Om Puri. Both those latter might not be child friendly; not sure. I also second Little Miss Sunshine, Addams Family Values, The Lion in Winter, Chaplin’s The Kid, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Suggestions I didn’t see here: Billy Elliott (family opposition, family coming together, community, very much about children, slightly more heartful and less precious than little miss sunshine); Grapes of Wrath. I never saw the movie, but Joy Luck Club the book certainly has some interesting material. The Professional is very violent but oddly moving. BTW, if you characterize Monsoon Wedding or PatherPanchali/Aparajito/ApuSansar as being about arranged marriages, you’re getting it all wrong IMHO: they are about parents and grown children. And it’s rather sappy—but hey, I grew up with them—-I have to say the Apple Dumpling Gang and Benji are rather charming on the family front.

L’enfant (the Dardenne brothers), and Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Festen’ (you can’t bring your children to watch the latter, though)

There is this documentary called “My Flesh and Blood” about a woman who adopts 13 handicapped children. It is brilliant, involves legal issues, and has a lot of relevant outtakes.