Four nights a week at Cedar Crest, residents gather to watch current and classic movies. Each movie night is slightly different, but they all have one thing in common: both the residents who pick out the films to show and the residents who watch them love the movies. They know what they like, and they’re not afraid to mention what they dislike.

Here are some reviews by Cedar Crest residents of recent DVD releases and one holiday favorite:

It’s a Wonderful Life, Paramount Home Video

This marvelous comedy-fantasy about the heavenly rescue of a bank may relieve some of the economic tension pervading our lives these days. It’s a feel-good movie in which George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) finds both his life and his bank saved by spiritual intervention in the form of an angel (Henry Travers), who shows potentially suicidal Bailey how dismal the world would be without his birth. The selfish Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) is stopped from closing the bank, and director Frank Capra’s long-ago vision of a miracle comes to pass. If only everything old were new again.

(By Lee Berton)

Away From Her, Lionsgate

In this Sarah Polley movie, extraordinary actress Julie Christie escapes from the cold in Dr. Zhivago, only to enter the bleak world of forgetfulness as a hospitalized Alzheimer’s patient, Fiona. She cannot remember her husband of 50 years, Grant (Gordon Pinset), and he is quite stricken after Fiona shifts her affection to another patient, Aubrey (Michael Murphy), the husband of neighbor Marian (Olympia Dukakis). It’s difficult not to react to this telling tale of life’s and love’s sacrifices at the Meadowlake nursing home.

(By Lee Berton)

John Adams, HBO Home Video
This screen biography of one of the heroes of the American Revolution has been shown twice at Cedar Crest to rave reviews.