Getting started

Jeff says: Like a lot of parents, I loved the idea of showing movies to my two boys, Jett and Dylan, because it kept them quiet for a couple of hours ‑- especially when they were toddlers. But I'm a Los Angeles-based movie columnist with my own Website, Hollywood Elsewhere, and once they got a little older, I wanted to pass along more than just a desire for distraction.

You can't necessarily create a cinephile. There's no protecting them from kids' programs on TV, which are largely about greed and toy buying and cheap highs. And you also can't instruct or guide a kid into loving movies deeply. But you can help to shape their vistas by keeping them away from poor-quality films and by exposing them to the good stuff ‑- and more is better. Good films expose kids to intangibles, and once the fundamentals sink in, your kids will respond more to great movies and less to crap on the tube.

I didn't set out to turn my two sons into cinema connoisseurs, but that's how it's turning out. My older boy, 16-year-old Jett, writes a column of his own now for a weekly paper in his hometown, and contributes to my site with his own weekly blog. This is how we got ourselves to this point.

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