Recommendations of good non-animated "family" films for two parents and a 3-year-old?

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 22:12:13 EDT, "Beth Gallagher" wrote:

I cannot imagine fast-forwarding through any part of Wizard of Oz, by the
way. Isn't having nightmares about the witch an essential part of growing
up?! (only half tongue-in-cheek). My general feeling is that if a kid can't
handle essential parts of a movie, such as the Dorothy-kidnapped scene in
Wizard of Oz, he should wait and see the movie when he's ready.
Fast-forwarding through parts of a great movie like Wizard of Oz is like
reading the "Illustrated Classics" version of Jungle Book. What's the rush?
If you can just hold off for another year or two, he'll be able to see the
unadulterated thing the first time around, and that experience cannot be
beat.

I still hide my eyes and/or plug my ears in parts of movies, and I
flip through overly gross or violent parts of books. By your
reasoning, I shouldn't see/read them at all because I can't tolerate
the violent or suspenseful parts. I think it's good to give kids
lots of tools for dealing with entertainment that turns out to be too
intense for them, and reminding them that they can fast-forward video
is one of those tools.

On the other hand, as a parent or a non-parental supervisor, I don't
think I would choose to show a movie to kids that I wanted to prevent
them from seeing parts of. It seems unnecessarily intrusive or
something, for me to choose or approve the movie, yet insist on
holding the remote and skipping bits. Our kids complained and sneered
when rainy-day entertainment at their sports camp once included a
drama video about their sport, with the counsellors fast-forwarding or
distracting them during the sex scene. They thought that the
counsellors should have edited the video ahead of time or not shown it
for younger kids and for teens should just have let the kids make the
choice to talk during that part or go to the bathroom or whatever.
They didn't really appreciate the accountability of camp counsellors
to a mixed group of parents, but otherwise I could kinda see their
point..

Louise