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Tonight

Ten for the evening

One to ten. Newest, most watched, highest on the Living Meter. Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Hallmark, Acorn, and Netflix.

  1. 01

    The Sandlot

    Prime Video · 1993 · Film

    The Sandlot

    Keep it. Friendship, a game, and the humiliation of having to tell the truth about the ball.

    Smalls is awkward and the film lets him be awkward without a makeover montage. The team is a society with rituals, most of them silly, one of them the willingness to include the kid who cannot throw. The beast next door is a tall tale that resolves into a neighbor. The parents are present at the edges, which is right for a summer when children still had a lot to themselves. Benny's catch is joy. The confession about the ball is the moral.

    A boy can watch this more than once. It will not make him cruel. It may make him want to go outside, which is a good outcome and increasingly rare.

    1. Industry

      5/10

      Play taken seriously.

    2. Household

      6/10

      A loose gang of boys, and a stepfather trying.

    3. Piety

      3/10

      Little reverence. A real decency.

    4. Courage

      6/10

      Owning the lost ball.

    5. Republic

      5/10

      A neighborhood.

    6. Temperance

      6/10

      Summer excess, mostly harmless.

    7. Truth

      7/10

      The truth about the ball.

    8. Stewardship

      7/10

      It hands on the vacant lot.

    Live historicallyIf you borrowed it and you broke it, go say so.

  2. 02

    The Natural

    Prime Video · 1984 · Film

    The Natural

    Keep it, knowing it loves a myth. The gift is not for the gamblers or for his vanity.

    Roy Hobbs is almost destroyed by a fascination and a wound, and the film is more radiant than it is strict about that. Iris in the stands, a son he did not know, a team that is not a vehicle for his legend: these correct him. The last at-bat is pure storybook, and a house is allowed a storybook if it has told the truth about the years he lost. The gamblers are the clear no.

    A boy with a gift should see the middle, not only the lights. The lights are what people will offer him. The middle is the character.

    1. Industry

      7/10

      A craft abandoned and recovered.

    2. Household

      6/10

      A son, a woman who waited in the ordinary way.

    3. Piety

      4/10

      A mythic glow.

    4. Courage

      6/10

      He plays hurt, for the team.

    5. Republic

      5/10

      A public easily bought.

    6. Temperance

      5/10

      Vanity is the risk.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      The fix is refused.

    8. Stewardship

      6/10

      It hands a gifted person a warning and a glow. Keep the warning.

    Live historicallyUse the talent you put down years ago for someone besides yourself.

  3. 03

    That Girl

    Prime Video · 1966 · Series

    That Girl

    A young woman working, dated and decent. The ambition is ordinary, which is the compliment.

    Ann is not a revolutionary. She is a young woman with a suitcase and a father who has opinions about the suitcase. The series is studio-bright and often slight, and it is on her side without making the boyfriend the villain or the prey.

    Good for a teenager who thinks a start only counts if it is already famous. One or two episodes. The jokes are of their year.

    1. Industry

      7/10

      Auditions, temp jobs, a craft she has not mastered. The episode is usually the work.

    2. Household

      6/10

      A father who worries, a boyfriend who waits, an apartment that is hers.

    3. Piety

      3/10

      Manners, not piety. The world is kind.

    4. Courage

      6/10

      She walks into rooms that can say no.

    5. Republic

      4/10

      A city of small offices. No civic argument.

    6. Temperance

      8/10

      Romance without a leer. The want is a career and a clean engagement.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      It is honest that she is not famous. Trying is the story.

    8. Stewardship

      5/10

      A picture, for 1966, of a daughter allowed to leave home and still call it.

    Live historicallyLet someone in your house try a thing they are not good at yet. Do not narrate the failure.

  4. 04

    The Donna Reed Show

    Prime Video · 1958 · Series

    The Donna Reed Show

    A mother with a mind, in a form that later decades mocked without replacing.

    Donna Stone is competent, and the show does not think competence is a consolation for a more exciting life. That is the argument worth recovering. The world of the show is narrow, white, and comfortable, and you should know that. Narrow is not the same as contemptible. A house can learn from the sight of a mother whose work is the house and who is not sorry.

    1. Industry

      6/10

      She runs the house as a skilled post. Alex practices medicine.

    2. Household

      8/10

      The family is the entire subject.

    3. Piety

      4/10

      Decency, assumed.

    4. Courage

      3/10

      The stakes are domestic, correctly for the form.

    5. Republic

      4/10

      A neighborhood of calls, school, and reputation.

    6. Temperance

      7/10

      Orderly.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      It believes a mother's judgment is interesting. It was right.

    8. Stewardship

      7/10

      The children are being raised on screen, not parked.

    Live historicallyLet the person who runs your house be interesting at dinner. Ask about the day and wait for the answer.

  5. 05

    Peter Pan

    Prime Video · 1953 · Film

    Peter Pan

    Neverland is a visit. The nursery is the choice. Wendy is right.

    Peter is brave and he is a permanent child, which the film finds charming and Wendy, by the end, finds insufficient. She wants a story and a mother and then she wants to be the mother. That turn is the moral, and it is older than the Disney paint. Hook is a villain. The boys are lost. Wendy goes home and her father, who had been ridiculous about the nursery, is at the window.

    Watch it. Then do not let anyone in the house use 'never grow up' as wisdom. The wisdom is that she left.

    1. Industry

      3/10

      Play as a life. Wendy notices it does not feed a nursery.

    2. Household

      8/10

      The ending is a return to parents, and her own future as a mother.

    3. Piety

      3/10

      Wonder, and a boy who treats wonder as a refusal of duty.

    4. Courage

      6/10

      She is brave in the lagoon. The braver act is leaving.

    5. Republic

      4/10

      A ship of children with no law.

    6. Temperance

      6/10

      Peter's refusal to grow is the excess, and the film lets her outgrow it.

    7. Truth

      7/10

      Neverland is not home. The film admits it.

    8. Stewardship

      8/10

      She chooses the children she will one day have over the boy who will not.

    Live historicallyDo not flatter a child for refusing the next age. Walk them toward it.

  6. A father, a curse, a man who does the work. The later ones are rides. This one is a story.

    Before the series became a queue, it was a boy who made swords and wanted his father, and a curse that made stolen gold unspendable. That is a real tale. The pirate is funny because he is unreliable, not because the film has nothing else to do.

    Watch this one. Stop before the fountain and the mermaids and the fourth map. A family can take the curse. Say that the gold was not free, and that the joke is not the part that breaks the spell.

    1. Industry

      6/10

      A blacksmith's shop, a ship, a plan. People have trades.

    2. Household

      6/10

      He goes after his father. She is not only the prize; she is stubborn and specific.

    3. Piety

      4/10

      A curse is a moral fact: the gold was stolen, and the stealing has a cost.

    4. Courage

      7/10

      They sail toward a ship they cannot beat.

    5. Republic

      4/10

      A port, a navy, a governor who loves order more than his daughter.

    6. Temperance

      5/10

      It is playful and it still lets the curse be frightening.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      The pirates are damned in a way the film means, at least for an hour.

    8. Stewardship

      5/10

      What the son wants back is a father, not a hat.

    Live historicallyIf the house wants pirates, put on this one and no sequel after it tonight.

  7. 07

    Carmen Sandiego

    Netflix · 2019 · Series

    Carmen Sandiego

    Skill and a code. She is loyal to a crew and vague about any law above the code.

    Carmen is a thief with better taste than her enemies, and the series wants the taste to be enough. Often the object really should go home. A child can enjoy the competence and should be told that a private code is not the same as a law, and a crew on a radio is not the same as a people. Older children, with you.

    1. Industry

      6/10

      The heist is a craft, and she is better at it than the people she robs.

    2. Household

      3/10

      A found crew. No family she will stay for.

    3. Piety

      3/10

      A private code stands where a conscience would answer to someone.

    4. Courage

      7/10

      She goes in. The risk is physical and she takes it for the stolen thing, not for applause.

    5. Republic

      5/10

      Returning a treasure to a people is a public good. Doing it outside every law is the hitch.

    6. Temperance

      5/10

      Glamour, held back by the fact that she is not stealing for herself.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      The show is clear about who the real thieves are. It is softer about her.

    8. Stewardship

      5/10

      What she hands back is an object. She does not hand a child a way to live in a town.

    Live historicallyAsk where the object belonged, and who had the right to move it.

  8. 08

    Lucas the Spider

    Netflix · 2017 · Series

    Lucas the Spider

    Gentle, short, and kind. It does not sneer, and it does not last long enough to do harm.

    Lucas is a small hello repeated until it becomes a habit. There is no sarcasm and no product to want. The limit is the limit of any sweet short: it will not make a child useful, and it should not be the whole afternoon. Put it on for a few minutes. Then go outside and find something that is actually alive.

    1. Industry

      3/10

      No work. A little creature greeting the day.

    2. Household

      5/10

      Friendship is the whole plot, and it is not a joke.

    3. Piety

      4/10

      Wonder at ordinary things. No creed, no sneer.

    4. Courage

      4/10

      He tries the next small thing even when he is unsure.

    5. Republic

      5/10

      A neighbor is someone you say hello to.

    6. Temperance

      8/10

      Quiet, brief, and not hungry.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      It does not pretend the sill is the world.

    8. Stewardship

      5/10

      A child may copy the hello. That is enough.

    Live historicallyAfter it ends, go look at one real insect and leave it where it is.

  9. 09

    God With Us

    Prime Video · 2017 · Film

    God With Us

    Judge it by whether it points past itself. A title is not yet a testimony.

    Emmanuel is not a brand. If this picture is a straight telling of the claim that God drew near, it belongs with the feast and not with the franchise. If it is a mood with a scripture on the cover, the cover is doing work the hour did not earn. The desk will not invent testimony that is not in the frames.

    A house does not need a documentary to keep Christmas. It needs the story, said in the room, by someone who will still be there in January. Use the film only as a door into that telling.

    1. Industry

      4/10

      Unknown craft.

    2. Household

      5/10

      The claim is about a household that received a child.

    3. Piety

      7/10

      The title aims at worship. The film must not replace it.

    4. Courage

      4/10

      Unproven on the tile.

    5. Republic

      4/10

      A people, if it remembers it is one.

    6. Temperance

      5/10

      Likely quiet.

    7. Truth

      5/10

      The claim is either true or it is not. A poster cannot settle it.

    8. Stewardship

      6/10

      The right use is to send you back to the text.

    Live historicallyRead the nativity aloud this week, whether or not you press play.

  10. 10

    The Man in the High Castle

    Prime Video · 2015 · Series

    The Man in the High Castle

    A serious alternate history. The reel is hope, and hope is not the same as a reason.

    The useful fear is not the costumes. It is how quickly a household learns the new manners of a power that won. The films are a rumor that the world did not have to be this. Watch it for that rumor and for the cost of passing it on. Do not watch it for the production design of defeat.

    1. Industry

      5/10

      Occupation has jobs, papers, factories.

    2. Household

      4/10

      Families under a state that enters the kitchen.

    3. Piety

      3/10

      Resistance without much of a faith, except the need for one.

    4. Courage

      6/10

      Ordinary people carry the reel, knowing the penalty.

    5. Republic

      6/10

      The subject is a regime. It does not treat the regime as a style.

    6. Temperance

      5/10

      Grave.

    7. Truth

      6/10

      It asks what a lie of history does to the people living under it.

    8. Stewardship

      5/10

      The other world is a thing worth smuggling to your children.

    Live historicallyTell your children one true thing about the war that this premise rearranges, so the rearrangement is not their first version.

For this house

Keep going

The next title is the one nearest what this house keeps, then the measure where it is thin. Nothing here is a crowd. It does not leave this device.

Ask Annie