WAR GAMES (PG)

This should probably be a Weekly Kids Classic Movie, but I'm sort of desperate for copy at the moment. (I attempted to recommend a nice French film for you and your kids, but Small Change is a bit too ripe with mature themes and dialog, so changed my mind. It's a great Truffaut film for us big kids, remembering growing up in the '70s in France ... oh, wait, I grew up in a California suburb. Oh well, we had the same hair cuts!)

Anyway, as the weather changes here in the East and the outdoors beckons (along with the real work of recovering from winter!), viewing time has been a bit diminished.

However, last week we picked up the '80s movie, War Games, for K to watch, and I ended up sitting in on it. (Husband D was well familiar with this film, and you may be, too.) It's a classic Cold War paranoia thriller, using a computer savvy teenager (Matthew Broderick, whose hacker character is clearly breaking the law most every time he gets online, it must be clearly stated) to get its anti-war point across. (It's a good one, by the way. Great fodder for thought and discussion.)

War Games is mostly innocuous, except for the law breaking part and the cursing (there are a few real curse words here) ... and the threat of U.S. annihilation may be kind of scary. All said, it's great for kids 11 and up, IMHO, and if you parents haven't seen it, you'll probably enjoy it, too. It's great fun pick out the names and faces of the '80s (Ally Sheedy also stars, along with Dabney Coleman... and extra points to me for figuring out that one of the earliest scenes in the movie is that of a young and hunky Michael Madsen, playing opposite a youngish John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on "West Wing!").

And honestly, it does provide a great opportunity for discussion with your kids about the topic of war ... don't let it slip by when the movie ends.