Tonight
Ten for the evening
One to ten. Newest, most watched, highest on the Living Meter. Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Hallmark, Acorn, and Netflix.
Greed against a mouse, and against a father's craft. The slapstick is the sermon.
Ernie wants the house sold. Lars still knows how the string is made. The mouse is chaos, and the brothers' war on it is the picture of men who will wreck a home to clear a transaction. The string factory, a real product, is what their father left. The film would rather they make string than flip a mansion.
Cruel in the way old slapstick is cruel, mostly to the brothers. A family can watch it and hear the question: what did we inherit that we are too proud, or too tired, to keep making?
Industry
8/10
A string factory is the true inheritance. The house is the temptation.
Household
5/10
Brothers, a dead father, a marriage Ernie is failing.
Piety
2/10
None.
Courage
4/10
They endure the mouse. They are not brave. They are frantic.
Republic
4/10
A sale, a will, a town.
Temperance
6/10
Avarice starts the war.
Truth
6/10
The father's craft was the point of the will.
Stewardship
7/10
Keep the factory. The mouse, annoyingly, is on the side of keeping.
Live historicallyDo not sell the thing your father built in order to be finished with it.
The want is home. The songs are of their decade. A child can watch it; do not let the romance be the moral.
Thumbelina is kidnapped into other people's plans: a toad who wants a wife for her son, a mole who wants a pretty thing for a dark house, a beetle who wants a novelty. She is polite and then she is gone, which is the right order. The mother on the other end of the story is the point the songs keep trying to replace with a prince. The prince can stay in the picture. He is not the windowsill.
Don Bluth's drawing is more serious than the plot. The cold, the animals, the smallness are felt. Say, if you watch it, that a girl is not a prize for the next creature who finds her charming. Then name the place in your own house that a lost child should be able to aim at.
Industry
3/10
No trade. A journey.
Household
7/10
The plot is a child separated from her mother.
Piety
3/10
Wonder, and a fairy court that is not a faith.
Courage
6/10
She keeps refusing the houses that would keep her.
Republic
4/10
Creatures with their own interests. Little law.
Temperance
6/10
The beetle, the mole, and the toad are appetites. She does not join them.
Truth
6/10
Home is specific. The offers are flattery.
Stewardship
7/10
Getting back is worth more than the wedding the poster prefers.
Live historicallyAsk a child what they would walk back to if they were taken somewhere glittering.
Keep it. Desire, a tangent-prone father, and a feast that survives the disaster.
Ralphie's want is excessive and completely recognizable. The Old Man's pride in a hideous lamp is the adult version of the same excess, which is why the film is fair. The mother's management of both is the uncredited heroism. There is a meanness in a few of the jokes that a house can talk over. The Chinese Christmas dinner, when the turkey dies, is the scene that knows what a feast is: the people, relocated, still fed.
Watch it every year if you want. Skip any bit that is only a wince. Keep the pink bunny and the humility it requires.
Industry
5/10
A household kept through a holiday.
Household
8/10
Parents, a brother, a want.
Piety
3/10
Christmas as the setting more than the creed.
Courage
4/10
Little danger. Some social bravery.
Republic
4/10
A school, a bully, a neighborhood.
Temperance
5/10
Appetite is the joke and is gently corrected.
Truth
6/10
Childhood wanting is told truly.
Stewardship
7/10
The dinner that still happens is the heirloom.
Live historicallyLet a child want something, and do not make the present the whole day.
Invention as play, a family that is still in the house. The formula is the limit. Fine in doses.
The joke is that childhood is a construction permit the parents never quite notice. Phineas and Ferb are industrious in the way a cartoon can be: a roller coaster before lunch, no bill, no one hurt. Candace's need to be believed is the more human engine. Perry's double life is a spy sketch attached to a backyard.
A child can take the building. Do not take the lesson that a marvel leaves no mess and no adult has to be told. One episode, then a real project with a parent who is looking.
Industry
8/10
They design and build. The craft is the show.
Household
6/10
Brothers, a sister, parents home. The parents are pleasant and unseeing.
Piety
2/10
None.
Courage
5/10
The builds are brave only because they are impossible. Nobody bleeds.
Republic
4/10
A backyard, not a town. Doofenshmirtz is a comic tyrant.
Temperance
6/10
Summer excess, reset by dinner. The day does not keep the damage.
Truth
5/10
Candace tells the truth and the evidence folds itself away.
Stewardship
5/10
What they make is gone by sunset. Nothing is kept.
Live historicallyBuild one thing with a child that has to work, and put the tools away after.
Gentle and useful for a very small child. The tools are the lesson. Stop before the queue.
The continue-watching tile was a Mickey short, and the long shelf under that name is Clubhouse: a problem, a toolbox, friends who each do one part. For a very small child that is a fair use of ten minutes. The newer shorts are often only a gag with better drawing. Either way it is not a story you discuss at supper. It is a demonstration.
One. Then the real tools, even if the real tool is a spoon.
Industry
6/10
They pick the tool, they use it, the job gets done. A small child can see the order.
Household
5/10
Friends who help. No parents, and no one is abandoned.
Piety
3/10
Cheer is the mood. Nothing is sacred.
Courage
3/10
The problems are built to be solved.
Republic
5/10
A clubhouse is a little commons. Everyone gets a turn.
Temperance
8/10
No cruelty, no scare, no appetite.
Truth
6/10
The answer matches the problem. It does not cheat.
Stewardship
5/10
It hands a child the habit of 'which tool, then try.'
Live historicallyLet a small child help with one real tool — a spoon, a sponge, a broom — all the way to the end of the job.
A small courage story inside a toy commercial. The courage is real enough for a child.
Clara is told she is only a girl, and the plot contradicts the aunt without turning Clara into a brand ambassador for defiance. She is kind to a toy, steady in a strange country, and willing to be the one who moves when the mice have the room. The Nutcracker is a prince who needs help. That order is fine.
It is also a doll's film, and the last frame is a product. Do not pretend otherwise. The middle is still a usable picture of a girl who acts. Put it on for a young child. Do not build a theology out of it.
Industry
4/10
Little work. A journey and a task.
Household
5/10
A grandfather, a brother, a house. Thin, but not mocked.
Piety
3/10
A fairy tale. No creed.
Courage
7/10
She goes through the clock.
Republic
4/10
A toy court. The stakes are kindness.
Temperance
6/10
No cruelty is the joke.
Truth
6/10
The mouse is a mouse. She is not secretly the problem.
Stewardship
6/10
A child leaves with 'I can act,' which is the right souvenir if you keep it modest.
Live historicallyLet a daughter do one hard thing today that is not for an audience.
Duty with a body count. The lie to the household is part of the job description.
The show is honest that this work eats the people who do it and the people waiting at home. That honesty is the reason to respect it and the reason not to romance it. A country may need hard services. A household should not learn to call the wreckage glamour.
Adults only. Do not let the competence launder the cost.
Industry
6/10
The work is skilled and exhausting. That is respected.
Household
3/10
Marriages and children are what the job spends.
Piety
2/10
No creed beyond the mission.
Courage
7/10
They take the dangerous post. The nerve is not theoretical.
Republic
4/10
A republic that needs this work and should not enjoy it.
Temperance
3/10
Violence and the double life are the texture.
Truth
5/10
It does not pretend the cover story is clean.
Stewardship
3/10
The children inherit an absence and a cover.
Live historicallyThank someone whose ordinary job keeps a system running, and do not confuse it with this.
A friendship and a road. Slight, inoffensive, and not the first film.
Mater and Lightning drive. The episodes are stops: a diner, a recollection, a town with one joke. The first Cars film was about a famous machine learning to stay. This is a visit to that idea, shorter, with less at stake. Nobody is asked to give up a tour for a town.
Fine for a young child who likes the cars. Do not confuse it with a story that costs the hero anything. It is a drive. Enjoy the drive and do not build a week out of it.
Industry
4/10
A trip, not a job. Radiator Springs is offscreen and still the home.
Household
5/10
Friendship. A wedding at the end, which is at least a household beginning.
Piety
2/10
None.
Courage
3/10
Little danger they do not joke through.
Republic
4/10
Towns as episodes.
Temperance
6/10
Modest. No cruelty.
Truth
5/10
Memory episodes tell a plainer past.
Stewardship
4/10
What is handed on is a route, not a duty.
Live historicallyTake the long way to one errand with a child and let them notice one thing.
A small court on television. Better than a vigilante, thinner than a real docket.
Small claims is one of the last places a citizen can walk in with a receipt and get an answer. Filming it adds mugging and a winner's edit. Still, the receipt matters. Children can see that a promise about money is a fact.
Watch one. Do not let the bench become a personality you quote at your own table.
Industry
5/10
People come with contracts, deposits, and jobs. The dispute is often about work.
Household
3/10
Families sue each other. The show has little interest in the repair.
Piety
2/10
Procedure without a higher law.
Courage
3/10
They show up and accuse in public.
Republic
6/10
A court, not a fight. That is the civic good of the format.
Temperance
5/10
Greed is on the stand and often loses.
Truth
6/10
Someone has to say what happened to the money.
Stewardship
3/10
The judgment ends the episode and rarely mends the relationship.
Live historicallySettle a small debt or a borrowed thing in your own life with the same plainness.
Obsession is not a marriage. The novel already knew. A new poster does not change the measure.
Whatever this year's cameras add, the title still sells Catherine and Heathcliff. In the tale people mean, they choose a passion that cannot live inside a promise, and they punish the innocent who sleep under the same roofs. The moors are not a moral. The feeling is large. The damage is larger. A house that calls this romance has stopped reading at the kiss.
The desk has not invented a third act for the new picture. It does not need to. If the film tells the truth, the love is a haunting and not a vow. If it pretties the haunting, it is lying about a book that refused to lie. Either way, do not hand it to a teenager as the shape of devotion.
Industry
4/10
The estates are real work, neglected for a feud.
Household
2/10
Households are the casualties.
Piety
3/10
Awe of the weather, no worship that corrects anyone.
Courage
4/10
They are bold in the wrong direction.
Republic
3/10
Two houses destroyed by a private weather.
Temperance
2/10
Appetite wears the name of love.
Truth
7/10
The tale itself is honest that this ends in harm.
Stewardship
3/10
What it hands on is a sigh. Correct the sigh.
Live historicallyTell a young person the difference between a great feeling and a vow.
