This Week’s Classic Kids’ Movie

There are so many classic movies for kids out there (that is, films intended for kids, unlike, say Planet of the Apes or Jackie Chan movies) which I may never get to, that I’ve decided to feature one every week, with a very brief blurb on it, just to remind you they’re out there.

This week, we point you to the Iron Giant, which is not that old, but I have very fond recollections of K at about age 6 watching this at a birthday party with some dear friends back in SF; the kids just loved it. (Hmm. Come to think of it, they were probably a little on the young side for it, really, but I remember they were glued to the screen and obviously enjoyed it. K asked to see it again a few years ago.)

It’s animated, and is rated PG as it does deal with some suspense and peril, and it also has some juvenile potty humor and language (er, certainly nothing worse than “penis breath” muttered by a kid in E.T. -- ah, you’d conveniently forgotten that, hadn’t you?). Like the aforementioned E.T., it deals with a creature taken in and loved and protected by our child protagonist, but there are deeper subtexts that are quite moving and poignant. In fact, it’s a little on the heavy side.

Ok, so forget I mentioned six-year-olds.

We were all, clearly, bad parents.