While the nation was consumed by the anticipation and uncertainty of one of history's most significant elections, our family found ourselves in a state of unexpected unease, facing more immediate concerns. To spare the details, let's just say that our senior columnist underwent a life-altering medical event, which in turn has had a profound impact on the lives of our entire family. Now, the three of us - father and son columnists along with our "mom" who serves as our editor/coordinator/archivist - have both the honor and the pain of realizing just how fragile our worlds truly are.

In the Wake of Change

During these great moments of transformation, the ordinary takes on a newfound extraordinariness. This has been the case with our family. The simple pleasures of sharing a meal together, taking short walks, and even just watching a rerun of "Seinfeld" have all acquired a deeper meaning. But as our readers are well aware, in our family, there is one art form that truly brings us all together - movies. This Thanksgiving, we are going to deviate slightly from the norm and explore what truly makes movies great.

Take One: The Movie Night Ritual

In our household, the journey of watching a movie typically begins around six o'clock. Someone will suggest the idea, but it will take us all nearly an hour to reach a consensus on which film to watch. The criteria change from year to year, but generally, it must be a) in black and white, b) a film noir or a story involving deceitful lovers, and c) less than two hours long. This narrows down the selection to a few thousand titles from the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s, and we have made our way through many of them. On a recent Saturday evening in early November, all three of us gathered around the television to watch "Dark Passage" (1947), with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a classic black and white film noir.The film starts with the camera in the first person as an escaped convict (Hollywood bit player Frank Wilcox, who is only seen in a newspaper clipping) wanders through San Francisco while on the run. When he is picked up by a captivating love interest (Bacall) who is deeply involved in his case, she provides him with shelter until he can undergo significant plastic surgery to change his appearance. As the film shifts to the third person, the new face that appears on the screen is, of course, Humphrey Bogart, who delivers many witty remarks about how ugly he has become. The film continues on this unusual path with a few truly astonishing twists, guided by a fiercely jilted former lover played by Agnes Moorehead. However, it is the city of San Francisco in the 1940s that truly steals the show, as the characters' fates rise and fall on its streets.All things considered, "Dark Passage" is a good movie, but it is not a great one. Yet, one of the great secrets of life is that the movie (or book) itself is secondary to the people with whom you share it. In this context, "Dark Passage" has now become one of my favorite films.

Take Two: The Power of Childhood Movies

If anyone truly understands the fragility of life and the simple joys of everyday experiences, it is undoubtedly me. I have always had a wide range of interests in movies, but I am particularly grateful for the films of my childhood that ignited my passion for cinema. When I was 11 years old, I was mesmerized by David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) for its stunning production values and exotic locations. Steven Spielberg, who has always claimed that this was the film that inspired him to become a film director, shares this sentiment. And a year earlier, I had a teenage crush on Hayley Mills in Disney's original "The Parent Trap." One Saturday afternoon, I sat through three consecutive screenings of the film ("Let's Get Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah") in the old Valentine theater in Defiance.But the film that I truly loved and recently shared with my partner was William Cameron Menzies' science fiction masterpiece "Invaders from Mars" (1953). The story is told through the eyes of a child trying to navigate an adult world that is skeptical of his alarming claims of alien abductions and the transformation of grown-ups into menacing robotic surrogates. The movie was filmed in vivid color, and the Martian underground headquarters are (even today) a source of amusement. However, to a 6-year-old boy with an impressionable mind, they were truly terrifying. I will never forget the small metal clips on the backs of the adults' necks that had been altered by the invaders. Whenever my parents were angry with me or seemed distant, I would check the back of their necks to see if there was a metal clip attached. Thankfully, the aliens never had the chance to turn my parents or the adults in Defiance into robots.All these films are available on Amazon Prime and YouTube.(This column is written jointly by a baby boomer, Denny Parish, and a millennial, Carson Parish, who are also father and son.)