Parents Lead

Red Carpet Double Feature: Fear/Parents

List Price: $14.98 Price: $13.49 You Save: $1.49 (10%)

Product Description

Customer Reviews

• Excellent value for PARENTS alone....
  FEAR has a TV movie feel but it's actually somewhat above your average b-movie and Sheedy does a pretty good job with the material. The antagonist and the storyline could have used a little more pep, but then it probably would have been even more like every other psycho-thriller. It has some unique, if unlikely, aspects that pull me out of the movie a little. Not that I totally discredit psychics, but the writer of this takes it to a new level that really could use something to give it a little more believability. Still, this film has some tension at times. Not worth the price of the set for it alone, however. Now, same can't be said for PARENTS. Truly, I bought this set for it alone and I was not disappointed. I rented PARENTS when it first hit the video store and was blown away. It made me seek out more black comedies. It's really first rate and I was happy to find out it did hold up over the years. The cast is great, the production design and storyline is terrific. And as everyone has already stated, this film is in widesreen and looks mighty sweet. NO COMPLAINTS. I can't give this set 5 stars because I think FEAR is not worthy. BUt if you can find this cheaper than the stated price, maybe $10 or so, then you're taking about a 5 star purchase.

  2009-03-15 | Radioman970 (Georgia, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4
• Excellent! ...and Yes, Looks Great in Widescreen Enhanced
  More of the same to chime in with the other reviews: I was really happy to see "Parents" in this release after seeing the original DVD had been discontinued, and then happier yet when I saw that others had reported that it's widescreen. Don't get nervous when you see the "full screen, 1.33" spec mistake, it's definitely widescreen enhanced and fills an HD set quite nicely.
  
  "Fear" is worth watching and good to have as a bonus, but "Parents" is a must-see / must-have movie. The surreal 1950's suburbia, the meals, the suspense, the great ending ---it's simply wonderful, and will leave you feeling good inside!

  2008-12-02 | Wayne (Kirkland, WA USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5
• Dark And Darker...
  I bought this double feature for PARENTS, but thoroughly enjoyed FEAR as well. I love Ally Sheedy (Man's Best Friend) enough to watch her in just about anything! Her role as Cayce Bridges, well-known psychic and author, was a real treat. She has made a career out of using her mental powers to assist police departments in tracking down assailents and (hopefully) rescuing victims. The idea of a psychic helping the police catch criminals is nothing new, but having a serial killer use his own psychic abilities to torment Cayce is definitely different! The interaction between Cayce and the "Shadow Man" is tense and frightening, especially when he decides to go after Cayce for real, instead of just playing twisted games with her. No one is safe! PARENTS is a tremendously wicked, jet-black comedy set in 1950s suburbia. Randy Quaid (Independence Day) and Mary Beth Hurt are the Laemles. They move to a new town w/ their 10yo son, Michael. Dad works at TOXICO, where he works on chemical defoliating agents. Mom is a perfectly prim housewife, always working in the kitchen on new and exciting meat recipes. Michael has a hard time at home, due to his suspicions about dear mom and dad. What does dad REALLY do all day at work? What KIND of meat is mom preparing? Michael also has trouble at his new school, where he draws macabre pictures and says some very disturbing things to his teacher, Miss Baxter. This causes the chain-smoking, school social-worker (played wonderfully by Sandy Dennis) to get involved. The darkness and dread in PARENTS are perfectly in synch with the bleakest black humor I've seen since Dr. Strangelove! Bizarre, unsettling, and dreadfully funny, this movie is worth multiple viewings. I highly recommend this double bill... P.S.- Yep, both movies are in widescreen, even though the box says full screen! No complaints here...

  2008-05-03 | bigfootsalienbaby (under the rubble) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5
• "Leave it to Beaver" meets Jeffrey Dahmer
  "Parents," pulled off with maniacal glee by Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt, is a twisted classic from the moment it begins with an over-the-top trumpet rendition of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White." The bizarre combination of high '50s decor, clothing, and architecture with a very disturbing secret is both creepy and funny. Part of what makes "Parents" so effective is that much of it is told from the point of view of ten-year-old Michael, powerless to act but certainly capable of understanding. And the title, as the ending shows, is perfect. Watch this movie and then eject the disc. "Fear" is just awful.

  2007-06-12 | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5
• NOT in full-screen, YAY
  Just to chime in with the previous review--both movies are indeed widescreen, not full-screen. Even better, it's anamorphic widescreen (nice looking too.) Even the box states "Full-Screen Version, thankfully the specs are wrong. Much higher quality transfer than the original release of Parents a few years back.

  2006-07-19 | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

Parents (2-year)

List Price: $84.00 Price: $12.00 You Save: $72.00 (86%)

Product Description

Customer Reviews

• Being a parent is hard
  I'm not even there yet (not until October) but the endless information in Parents is truly helpful. I suggest this mag. to anyone embarking on parenthood or even someone that's already there. I especially love the great cheap activities and awesome snack ideas.

  2009-05-29 | wysywig (Portland, OR) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• The BEST Parenting Magazine, Hand's Down
  I've been getting Parents for about ten years now, since I had my first child. I've also tried every other parenting magazine during that time, and they pale in comparison to Parents. Parents has great articles, real stuff that can help your real problems. They've helped me immensely with my son's bedwetting, my daughter's potty training and picky eating, and everything in between. I love the back of the magazine each month where it gives advice per age group. I also love the photos and the funny mom stories. Not to mention the great crafts and projects and foods to make! Parents is very creative and I think every parent needs this magazine! It is always my first gift to any new mom.

  2009-05-07 | Shilom (MI) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Informations that make you think Ah-ha!!
  During a routine doctor visit while pregnant, I picked up a copy while waiting to be seen. It was so full of good medical, psychological, and creative advice that pertains to helping parents and little kids out that I nearly missed my name being called. My little daughter is only 2 months old now and this magazine has helped me learn new ways to play and stimulate her mind and body development. The reward however is when my daughter smiles when we're playing.

  2009-04-29 (Marianna, FL) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• love this mag
  I love this magazine because there is always great information in there. I think all parents should have a subscription to Parents.

  2009-04-14 | jawclw (jawclw) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Wealth of Information
  Subscribed because it was so cheap and thought maybe we could find some information raising our five year old. Surprised that it has so much great information. And for this price? Would recommend it to all parents.

  2009-04-13 | aragorn (Chicago) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

Parents Busy Zoo

List Price: $48.99

Product Details Includes animal alphabet spinners, silly critter flip-flop puzzle, peek-a-boo doors, squiggly tracks, snake-along beads and beastie paths <B>Number of Players:</B> 1 or More Players <B>Award(s):</B> 2004 Parents Magazine Parents' Choice Award

Product Description

Customer Reviews

• Great Toy!!
  I bought this product for my 8-month old son and he loves it still to this day. It's bright, colorful, and has plenty to keep him interested. The babies in my playgroup ranging from 1 to 2 years also love it when they come over to play.
  
  My son did tip it over twice when I first bought it for him because he used it to lean back and sit down (something a 1 year old would probably not do hence the recommended age). He realized it and stopped. It never would have gone over otherwise, and even when it did it wasn't a fast motion, or anything I felt would hurt him.
  
  I haven't had any paint issues. Maybe take it out of the box and check the condition before buying? I like that all the pieces are screwed on including the small knobs on the doors.
  
  I also bought mine from Target for around $50.

  2009-06-28 | AZEricka (Arizona) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Busy Zoo
  I purchased this item as a first birthday gift for my grandson. It seems to be his favorite! It is the perfect height and stable enough for him to sit or stand at while he plays. While he enjoys his other toys, this one requires no batteries and is "kid powered"!

  2009-06-25 (Pawtucket, RI) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Enjoyed by both 1 and 4 year old boys
  First impressions: The one year old likes playing with the beads on
  the top and opening the doors providing he can get his four year old
  brother out of the way. The four year old also likes playing with it!

  2009-06-14 (Upland, IN USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Great toy, but shop around and watch your child with it
  My daughter really enjoys this toy. We've had no issue with pealing paint and it seems well-made. Make sure you shop around as the price really can vary. We bought it for $50 from Target. I don't know if they changed it, but the corners on ours are somewhat rounded, so there shouldn't be any injuries with it that way. The issue we've had is that our daughter pulls up on it and the thing tips over on her. I wish it was heavier at the base so it couldn't tip over. As is, whenever she plays with it, someone has to sit on the other side and hold it. I do think it will get years of use as the toys lend themselves to being played with at many stages of development.

  2009-06-06 | Mom 2 Five (Sammamish, WA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4
• My daughter loves this toy!
  My daughter has had this toy since she was 6 months old. She is 12 months now. She loved it then and she loves it now! She would play with all of the sides of the cube when she was younger, and now she likes to play with the top, though she still plays with both! I have not experienced any peeling paint as others have said. Overall, I get the impression that this toy is very well constructed and durable! I recommend this toy to anyone with a baby 6 months+!

  2009-06-04 (SW Florida) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life

List Price: $16.00 Price: $10.88 You Save: $5.12 (32%)

Product Description

Customer Reviews

• A NEW LEASE ON LIFE
  I thought that I was the only person in the world who had suffered this kind of abuse, indignity, pain & humiliation; all at the hands of my parents. And of course later at the hands of many, many, many, many different persons. I kept trying to figure out why everyone was so mean to me--why that world was filled with so many horrible people and then this book helped me to realize that I was choosing the types of people that I had been surrounding myself with. I was attracted to the same types of people that possesed my parents qualities!
  
  This book opened my eyes and showed me that I am not alone. It is truly a God-Send for me.
  
  Toxic Parents helped me to recognize the destructive patterns that I had exhibited for years and years and offered tangible, hands-on solutions that helped me to re-program my thinking and way of life. What I love most about this book is that it does not blame and shame abused persons rather, it offers ways to empower ourselves by letting us know that whatever we need to do to become healthy and happy (short of physically hurting ourselves or others) is okay.
  
  This book helped to give me a voice and the courage to take an honest look and my life and change it for the better. I no longer have to spend my life running away from what happened to me instead, I am empowered with tools and the courage to look at it square in that face and move forward.
  
  I originally purched this book a few years ago via a recommendation from a friend and am now in the process of re-reading it. I'm going to purchase a copy of it for someone I love today and hope that it helps her the way that it has helped me.
  
  I recommend this book to anyone who is sick and tired of being sick and tired. Even if you don't consider yourself "abused" I belive that reading this book would be beneficial.

  2009-05-07 (Reno, NV USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5
• great book, poor title
  I hate the title, it's a label, and I don't believe in labeling people. Some parents have a lot of toxic traits, but they are not toxic. Still a good read.

  2009-03-08 | you (Tampa, FL) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Toxic Parents
  This book was a wake up call for me and helped me see how disfuctional my family really was and how I needed to set boundaries.
  Linda

  2009-02-04 | curvesarein (Arizona) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• Relational
  Sometimes the better part of the cure is diagnosis: there is a lot of healing in finding out the simple truth that it wasn't your fault--that they--whoever they may be--were truly dysfunctional and abusive. How do you find that out when the abusive dysfunctionality is all you've ever known?
  
  That's where I found this book helpful. It helped me clarify the patterns of behavior in my own family and gave me cause to re-evaluate my relationship with them, and how I viewed my own childhood.
  
  I would recommend reading this book in conjunction with live therapy though, since a book can not gauge where you are with your family. It can, however, give you courage to tackle the process of healing and allow you to evaluate where you are at in your recovery from abuse.
  
  Although I underlined about half the passages in this book, I did disagree with the author on one point, though... forgiveness is essential to moving on. I believe this topic was best covered in Jerry Sittser's A Grace Disguised, about how he had to forgive the drunk driver who killed his wife, mother and four year old daughter and how he continues to have to forgive and goes on to clarify the damaging effects of an unforgiving heart.
  
  I do sympathize with those reviewers who used this book and believe it did harm to their psyche. But in my own experience (and I had a doozy of a childhood, trust you me) I do not believe that Dr. Forward's book is harmful in any way if used as a tool of recovery and not the source of recovery itself. Remember, a book can't see you cry during a particular part of retelling your story, but a therapist can. Remember that their ability to gauge your reactions is invaluable part of the process when it comes to addressing painful issues in your past.
  
  So get this book for validation, not as a substitute for guidance. It won't be the cure, but in its clarification of painful parenting practices, it's certainly a wonderful salve.

  2009-01-02 | mynewwritinglife.blogspot.com (Memphis, TN) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5
• This is a must read for all people
  No family is perfect, and this book offers insight to dysfunction. Easy read with clear examples of parental behavior and how to overcome the damage. This book gives the first step to understanding frustrations that are underlying in family hierarchy. Toxic parents help me understand my relationships with others and my role as a child of alcoholism.

  2008-12-22 | consumer (Bothell, WA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

Parents

List Price: $24.98

Product Description

Customer Reviews

• Lost gem.
  This is a unique film. Not everyone is going to appreciate it, but there really are few films like it. It is one of those movies that fail with mainstream audiences when they first hit theaters only to finally gain some recognition many years later.
  
  What I really liked about it was the ambiguity of the subject matter. Though it seems that the parents are indeed cannibals, because much of the film is from the point of view of a young boy with an over active imagination, that point is never entirely settled (at least in my mind). This aspect also explains the slightly hallucinatory feel of the picture.
  
  And while the film truly captures what it is like to be suspicious of, and confused by, the adult world, really it works best as as an allegory for a young vegetarian who is repulsed by meat and can't understand why his parents insist on feeding it to him. This is particularly obvious when you pay attention to how vegetables are inserted into the film and the role (or lack thereof) that they play.
  
  I eat meat, but I know people who grew up repulsed by meat. By associating animal meat with human, it puts you in the shoes of a child who feels that repulsion....and makes you take a second glance at the roast beef sandwich on your kitchen table.

  2009-06-30 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
• I'm not very hungry tonight ...
  The opening scenes of this "dark comedy" feature great 1950s cars, decor, costumes, and musical score! Perky housewife "Mom" is a kitchen whiz who serves up tasty looking left-overs every night. White shirt-and-tie "Dad" is ravenous after putting in long days at Toxico. (Clever company name!) Little Michael just wants to make friends at his new school - and eat something for dinner that's not "mystery meat." What a wholesome, 50s era set-up for a comedy about cannibals! I was having a fun time and even asking for "seconds" at the dinner table - until the little boy started having nightmares. Then I lost my appetite completely.
  
  This is NOT a comedy and definitely not for the kiddies. The first fifteen minutes or so are fine, but watch out! When the film-makers start splashing blood around, "Parents" becomes a totally different kind of movie. That's too bad because it could have been a fine little comedy.
  
  I have two questions for the screenwriter of this kitchen fiasco - what did the family eat in their old hometown, and why does their son aged 9 or 10 wait until now to refuse to eat "meat"? My mother made the worst liver in town and we kids somehow choked it down. "C'mon, Michael, how about taking just one bite of this delicious meat dish? Your mother slaved in the kitchen all afternoon..."
  
  Ugh, please pass the Tums and hit the rewind button on the VCR. Think I'll pass on dessert tonight, too!
  

  2007-11-13 | book lover (Birmingham, AL USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1
• Am I crazy or were his parents actually NOT cannibals?
  I'm probably wrong about this (as demonstrated by all the other reader comments), but what I got from this film was a dark eerie tale about a disturbed child whose father's job happens to involve experimentation with corpses. I think the father was bringing the body parts home to experiment on, not eat. He was shown to be obsessed with his job, so this makes sense to me -- and would also explain why he doesn't want his son in the cellar, to find out his secret, that he's been illegally bringing corpses home to experiment upon.
  
  Furthermore, when the school psychologist is killed, they don't show who did it. I think the psychotic child did it, and didn't even realize it.
  
  Finally, at the end of the film, the father knows that the son has seen the corpses in the basement, and THAT'S why he says "So now you know our little secret." As for the meat, he never says, "This is dead people." He just says, "You'll learn to love it, just like your mother did," which is just a response to the boy refusing to eat his meat for a couple weeks in a row. When he sets out to KILL the child, it's only because the child tried to kill him first and it pushed him over the top!
  
  That's my interpretation anyway. I don't think they were cannibals. If so, that's kind of a lame ending.

  2007-08-25 | (or his wife) (NYC) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4
• Unusual, quirky, and possibly unique
  Something dark and sinister lurks below the surface of the otherwise polished surface of 1950s suburbia in this unusual and quirky movie. The bland, boring 50s is revealed to be anything but that as Balaban creates an increasingly menacing atmosphere, building up the tension to a fever pitch before the deep, dark secret is finally revealed. When it is, the strangeness and incongruity of it all just adds to the drama and tension, and one wonders how the movie will end. Well, it does end a little predictably, but overall it's a fine movie with a very odd premise, which I won't reveal here so as not to spoil it for you. But this first directorial effort by Bob Balaban is worth your time if you enjoy different, strange, or offbeat movies, and this one certainly has those qualities in spades.

  2006-12-04 (Santa Clara, CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4
• Silliness that could have been, but was not, inspired.
  Parents (Bob Balaban, 1989)
  
  TV director Balaban makes his feature debut with this little comedy about which I can't quite figure out what to say. I know I was unimpressed with it; I simply can't figure out why.
  
  The story concerns Michael (Bryan Madorsky, in his only screen role), a schoolboy who comes to believe that his parents Nick (Brokeback Mountain's Randy Quaid) and Lily (The Exorcism of Emily Rose's Mary Beth Hurt) are cannibals. This, obviously, messes with his head, which puts him on contact with school counselor Millie Dew (A Hatful of Rain's Sandy Dennis, in one of her final screen appearances). Is it all in his head, or are his parents really cannibals?
  
  There is nothing terribly wrong with this film, per se; the acting is competent if nothing special, the script is predictable but decent, and at times amusing, the direction is solid without being notable, etc. It's average to the point of being innocuous-- which is a problem in a film about a kid who thinks his parents may be trying to feed him parts of other human beings.
  
  And you know, for some reason, I just fgured out what's been nagging me this whole time. So how did it take this kid until he was ten, or thereabouts (I don't remember his age ever being specified), to start wondering what it is he's eating? And why does he stop? It makes no sense-- and as it's the basis of the movie, it undermines everything else. **

  2006-07-19 | xterminal (Cleveland, OH) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

Parents Directory