To coincide with the release of Lisa Cholodenko’s family comedy The Kids Are All Right, FocusFeatures.com asked a group of prominent LGBT folks for their top family films.
Sleeping Beauty
I love the dragon, the thorns, I love the fairy godmothers. It’s a great story and the animation is so lush.
Fantasia
One of my all-time favorites. I discovered classical music when I was around 5 or so by raiding my parents’ record collection. My mom was a church organist and pianist and I play piano as well as several other instruments. Fantasia is such a great way to learn about classical music, so evocative. And I love the fact that the Bach piece is totally abstract.
My Neighbor Totoro
Miyazaki is a master. I could have populated this entire list with his works but I didn’t want to be so myopic. Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away….What’s so great about this piece, Totoro, is that it is simple and mysterious and captures that strange childhood reality.
Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilder version. Gene Wilder creates such a complicated moral character and I think morality is a complicated business. It’s like Grimm’s fairy tales – a harsh world where the children’s actions are punished in fairly drastic ways. Their sins seem like a version of the 7 Deadly Sins. Greed, Lust, Envy. And Gene Wilder is a comic genius.
The King and I
Come on – ya have to have at least one musical. I could have put Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or The Sound of Music, but I like tragedy and this is a tragedy. Cruelty, loss, forbidden love and the twin disillusionments of Anna and the King. Anna loses her respect for him and he loses his ability to believe in the things he always thought correct.
Dennis O'Hare
A Tony award-winning stage performer who has also made his mark on screens both big and small, Denis O'Hare has appeared in such popular television series as Law & Order, Brothers & Sisters, and such critically acclaimed features as Half Nelson, Michael Clayton and Milk. Initially known as a stage actor, the Kansas City native made his Broadway debut in David Hare's Racing Demon at Lincoln Center, won a Tony Award for his performance in Take Me Out and has appeared in numerous plays since then, most recently as Uncle Vanya Off-Broadway with Peter Saarsgard and Maggie Gyllenhaal. O'Hare is also a natural at musicals: he earned accolades for performances in Assassins and Cabaret, and won a Drama Desk Award for his performance as Oscar in Sweet Charity, which the Denis claimed would be his final stage musical. His next film will be Kevin McDonald’s The Eagle, starring Channing Tatum, which Focus Features will release in early 2011, and he can currently be seen in HBO's True Blood as Russell Edgington, the vampire king of Mississippi. His official website is www.denisohare.com.
He has also asked that we promote the 8K Ovarian Cancer Run in honor of his mother, who died of the disease in 2008. The race takes place on September 11, 2010, in Williamsburg, VA.
Denis is the final gay celebrity who we asked to pick his five favorite family movies, to coincide with the release of The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko’s comedy about unconventional families.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Pariah
Being Flynn
ParaNorman
The Debt
The Broken Tower
Flashback Feb 08, 2010 
Inside Our Movies 
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