Film · Prime Video · 1987

The Princess Bride

Keep it. True love here is a long errand, not a mood. Inigo's mercy is the best scene.

Westley keeps his word across years and a mostly-death. Buttercup has less to do than she should, and the film is still on the side of fidelity. The boy in the bed, rolling his eyes at the kiss, is the real audience, and the grandfather wins him without cheating. Inigo wants a killing and is given a chance to stop at justice. That pause is more grown than the swordfight, and the swordfight is perfect.

A whole house can watch this. Quote it if you must. Then notice you are quoting a story about people who did not quit.

The eight

Industry
7/10
A quest with chores: the cliffs, the fight, the pit.
Household
6/10
A grandfather and a boy. A love that waits.
Piety
4/10
A fairy tale with a moral spine.
Courage
8/10
Everybody comes back for somebody.
Republic
5/10
A corrupt prince, laughed at and defeated.
Temperance
6/10
Vengeance is answered and then set down.
Truth
7/10
The book in the grandfather's hands is the true object.
Stewardship
8/10
It hands on the habit of reading aloud.

Live historicallyRead a story aloud this week, all the way to the end.

Film · Universal · 1982

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

He keeps the stranger safe, and he does not keep him.

Elliott wants a friend in a house that has a hole in it. The film understands the want, and it does not let the want win. E.T. has a home that is not this cul-de-sac. Keeping him would be the child's victory and the stranger's exile. The goodbye is the measure.

A child can watch it. Say, when it ends, that loving someone is not the same as owning them. The government men are a cartoon of a real temptation: to treat a life as a specimen because you can.

The eight

Industry
4/10
A child is not at a trade. The work he does do is the hiding, the building, and the getting of the friend to the ship.
Household
7/10
The father is already gone. The mother is tired and still the mother. The children keep a secret a parent should have been told.
Piety
6/10
The raised finger and the goodbye are played as reverence. The film believes a life can be owed to someone who is not useful.
Courage
8/10
The courage is the last reel. He takes the friend to the ship instead of keeping the miracle in the closet.
Republic
4/10
The men with the keys are a lab, not a people. The picture is not interested in a republic. It is interested in a yard.
Temperance
7/10
The fear is real and it is not played as a joke on the small. The bike flight is joy, not a taunt.
Truth
7/10
A boy tells the truth by refusing to hand a living thing to people who would take it apart.
Stewardship
8/10
What is not his, he returns. That is the whole stewardship of the film, and it is the right one.

Live historicallyName one living thing in this house that is not yours to keep, and treat it that way.