Newton Mothers' Forum: Movie Night

By: Megan Ulland, a Newton Mothers’ Forum Contributor

As the April rains fell on Monday night, the Newton Mothers’ Forum welcomed Boston Globe Movie Critic Ty Burr to the monthly Mothers’ Night Out event to speak about engaging children with old time movies and foster the family movie night in this time of busy school, sports and playdate schedules. It was a perfect setting to discuss an indoor family activity. As a parent himself, Mr. Burr has first-hand experience with mixing a child’s interest with a parent’s goal to not watch the same animated movie for the 15th time this month.

A Newton native, Mr. Burr has been with the Boston Globe for over six years after working for Entertainment Weekly as a video critic. Mr. Burr has written two books, one of which, The Hundred Greatest Movies of All Time (Time-Life Books, 1999) was highlighted in his lecture at the Mothers’ Night Out. In addition to talking about how to engage children with old-time movies (typically defined as pre-1965 films), we were treated to a 15-minute clip show of Mr. Burr’s children’s favorites from Singing in the Rain to the original King Kong to Casablanca. It gave the moms a chance to remember movies from our childhood and to discuss when and how to introduce children to movies.

The discussion flowed from questions of at what age a child can really sit through a movie to how to use movies to start a conversation about current events, peer pressure kids are faced with at school and history. Movies, especially to young children, are not about history, unless it’s clearly stated to them. So, pull out Annie, Singing in the Rain, and The Three Musketeers for those school age kids and start enjoying a family movie night!

The Newton Mothers’ Forum has a monthly dinner and speaker series on the first Monday of the each month September to June. The next Mothers’ Night Out event is Monday May 4th at 7pm at the Longwood Cricket Club. Guests are always welcome. The speaker will be Ginger Burr, AICI, CIP, author and owner of Total Image Consultants. Her talk will be “What's In Now and How to Wear It”. For more information about May’s event or about the NMF, please email the Newton Mothers’ Forum at newtonmoms@yahoo.com.