"1934"

The movies' portrayal of women over time reflects the evolving social dynamic of the past century, revealing much about what has and hasn't changed. As certain special movies demonstrate, feminists were staking their territory long before there was a name for them.

It isn’t Christmas without cookie-making, candy canes and chocolate Santas. But what we forget is that all that sugar puts kids on fast forward. To counter the ill effects of too many frosted things and to captivate spun-out minds, we've put together a list of can’t-miss movies for kids that grownups can enjoy too.

Ah, that eternal question: which is better, the book or the movie? Though such comparisons are natural, even inevitable, they’re also kind of pointless, since the conventions of each medium differ so markedly. Books explore the dense inner lives of characters in a way movies can’t, while films use sight, sound and motion to create an immediacy books can’t.

Here’s a bold statement: Giving your children the chance to watch classic films can be just as vital as anything they learn in school. 

Man versus Nature. It’s a struggle as old as the movies—even as old as man himself. (Man, that’s old.) Many movies have thrilled us by pitting their leading characters against the elements. Floods, blizzards, tornados, tsunamis and other cases of severe and, at times, catastrophic weather conditions are the stuff film drama is made of.  It seems that hardly a calendar year goes by without stormy weather whipping around audiences. Earlier his year, Russell Crowe’s “Noah” encountered a flood of Biblical proportions. And just when we thought the memory of Hurricane Sandy was starting to fade, “Into the Storm” arrives in theaters shortly, bringing destructive cyclones and tornadoes with it.

In his hey-day, William Powell was the epitome of sophistication, wit and urbanity, with his distinctive baritone voice, custom tailored suits and pencil thin mustache. During the 1930s and 1940s, Powell was a bona fide box-office draw, starring opposite Myrna Loy as a tippling detective in “The Thin Man” series, as the sly hobo-turned-high society butler in the classic screwball farce “My Man Godfrey,” or in “The Great Ziegfeld,” playing legendary theater impresario Flo Ziegfeld.