The begin­ning of this sum­mer has brought plen­ti­ful rain. Plen­ti­ful enough to make the days feel slow. The gar­den plant­i­ng isn’t in a rush, the pull to accom­plish out­door chores has eased, and the qui­et light that fil­ters through the cur­tains is just con­ducive to light a can­dle and sit down and enjoy it.

All this to say, the appre­ci­a­tion of a slow pace that opens your eyes to details you may not have noticed before has been show­ing up in the old movies we have watched. If you haven’t bro­ken the chain of typ­i­cal film; loaded with spe­cial effects and 21^st cen­tu­ry jar­gon, please do. The sub­tle humor, of “The Lilies of the Field”, the method­i­cal slow paint­ing of per­son­al­i­ty in “Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton”, the beau­ty and redemp­tion amid the Dutch song of “Babette’s Feast”. These are an art that our fam­i­lies need to know.

I con­fess that the ease of a bright, shiny, new movie is tempt­ing, and the temp­ta­tion to for­go the effort it may take to see beyond the sub­dued gray-scale of clas­sic film is easy to fall into. Not all that is old is good, and not all that is new is bad, or inartis­tic, but this sum­mer, amid the busy­ness of gar­dens and trips and extra math prac­tice, embrace the rain, and give your fam­i­ly the gift of expe­ri­enc­ing an old movie.