Top Ten Movies BlogFest

For the sake of this bloghop, I have tried to stick with my favorite parent (especially daddy) movies. I will add a list of my favorite, no-restrictions-attached movies at the end too.

I’ve challenged myself to come up with one sentence to tell you why to watch this movie. Ten sentences won’t do them justice, but maybe one of them will be where you are at.

10  Finding Nemo (Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, 2003): Would you swim the whole ocean, face your greatest fears, give up everything- if you could save your child?

9 The Odd Life of Timothy Green (Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, 2012): Maybe not a classic yet but an interesting look at parenting through desperate eyes.

8 Martian Child (John Cusack, 2007): That box the boy is wearing, who put it there?

7 The Story of Us (Bruce Willis, Michelle Pfeiffer, 1999): Love is a difficult choice that we can all make.

6 What a Girl Wants (Amanda Bynes, 2003): Is her daddy.

5 Mr Holland’s Opus(Richard Dreyfuss, Sissy Spacek, 1995): Who you think you are does not change who you really are.

4 The Fiddler on the Roof (Topol, Norma Crane, 1971):  Tevye, I used to laugh at you, now I cry with you.

3 Dead Poets Society(Robin Williams, 1989): Conform your child to your own mould, or help them grow into their own?

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Luke and Owen Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, etc, 1991): How to be a jerk of a father, in case you wanted lessons.

1 Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997): There’s the dad I wish I could be.

My regular list would likely include numbers 1-3 above along with Citizen Kane, The Philadelphia Story, All About Eve, It’s a Wonderful Life, Toy Story, The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Vertigo, High Noon, 12 Angry Men, Modern Times, O Brother Where Art Thou…how many is that…oh and anything else with Jimmy Stewart (like Rear Window or Mr Smith Goes to Washington or Harvey or…)

Head's up for tomorrow's entry

I'm sticking another toe into blogging again tomorrow, joining Alex J Cavanaugh's Top Ten Movie Bloghop. You can join by following this link...

Welcome me back...please.

Well, its been a long time.

What could possibly bring someone back to the surface after such a deep dive?

A great read, that's what.

I'm going to post a review here that's basically stolen from a report I had to do on the book for our local Children's Aid Society. Though I don't endorse every phrase in the book, I heartily endorse, encourage and beg you to read it.

The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog,
In, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Dr. Bruce Perry, along with Maia Szalavitz, uses clinical examples to teach about loss, attachment, love and healing. He attempts to deconstruct the myth that children just “bounce back” from trauma, but they can be trained to grow back. He shows how there can be hope for even terrible beginnings, if acted upon quickly.


This book teaches so much about the developing brain and the way it works. He talks about rhythms and how children who have not been nurtured as infants do not learn to read social cues later on. He explains that the best way to build up neural pathways that never developed is in giving children as many meaningful relationships as possible. The body reacts to stress in ways that makes a child appear to have any of a number of “syndromes” or “disorders”. There is so much more too!

The whole last chapter is full of useful suggestions, from strengthening our own children so they become nurturing parents themselves, to ways to encourage our schools and government to make changes to the way we raise children.

The longer we foster, the more we are thrilled to be a part of this, but the more we wish we could do more, lobbying, publicity, creating change in parenting classes, etc. I don’t know what to do about this right now. Can we start a snowball that grows into something huge?

I absolutely recommend this book to everyone… to everyone who wants children, has children, or knows children… or criticizes parents but has no children of their own! Or doctors…or politicians…or anyone who thinks things can and should change.