The following videos were chosen for their content being inspirational or helpful in regards to helping families cope with various disabilities.

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Helpful Videos for Children

Dr. Caillou (VHS) Caillou visits the dentist, nurses his father back to health, and gets a scratchy throat from playing in the rain in the two episodes that make up this installment of the PBS series. Caillou (pronounced KY-yoo) is an animated, in all respects, 4-year-old whose "adventures" are the stuff of everyday preschool life. Meanwhile his stuffed animals have their own lives, and their own segments in puppetry form. Here, Teddy gets the flu--and assistance from his fellow stuffed animals--and Rexy helps Squirrel find something lost. The variety-show format of this 39-minute video is augmented by documentary segments in which real kids practice good health by swimming, eating fruit, and brushing their teeth. A song and dance troupe of kids further enhances each episode, here donning Western gear and singing about lost teddy bears. (It'll make sense to your youngsters.) (Ages 2 to 6) --Kimberly Heinrichs

Bear in the Big Blue House - Visiting the Doctor With Bear (VHS) After tackling the potty, Bear takes on another childhood fear: the doctor. In two episodes, Bear uses his tender touch and unflappable upbeat attitude to calm his friends when Dr. Hog visits in "A Big Blue House Call." Ojo is especially queasy about the visit, fearing the Mt. Everest of doctor visits--the dreaded shot. Through song and talking about the facts, Bear lets everyone know a checkup is full of good things for you and a shot, if necessary, only hurts for a moment. In "That Healing Feeling," Bear takes Tutter to Dr. Hog's to examine the mouse's crushed tail. Learning how the doctor's tools work, including the x-ray, calms Tutter. Whether your pre-kindergartner will be at ease at the doctor's after watching this video is unknown, but "Bear" fills a void in giving younger children calming information to counter the usual cartoon doctor high jinks. (Ages 3 to 7) --Doug Thomas

Arthur Goes to the Doctor (VHS) Get ready for a health lesson like never before in this trio of Arthur episodes exploring familiar, yet often misunderstood childhood maladies. In the first tale, viewers learn how blood cells fight infection after Arthur scrapes his knee as a result of a covert visit to the dump. The tetanus shot he receives is not as painful as D.W.'s valiant efforts to refrain from tattling. Asthma gets star billing in the next story when a guided tutorial of Buster's lungs finally convinces his friends that his breathing condition is not contagious. The third episode, "The Lousy Week," offers an entertaining exposé on head lice when an army of zealous nits (in combat fatigues) invades Muffy's school. It is no surprise that Arthur remains one of public television's golden nuggets, offering stories that are consistently creative and humorous while sprinkled with subtle reminders of kindness, forgiveness, honesty, and acceptance. (Ages 5 to 12) --Lynn Gibson

Inspirational Movies

Lorenzo's Oil (VHS) Starring: Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon. Director: George Miller (II) With this powerful 1992 drama, director-producer George Miller (The Road Warrior) proved that a movie about a disease doesn't have to be a typical disease-of-the-week movie. Based on the real-life case of the Odones family, the story concerns 5-year-old Lorenzo, suffering mightily from an apparently incurable and degenerative brain illness called A.L.D. His parents, an economist (Nick Nolte) and a linguist (Susan Sarandon), refuse to accept the received wisdom that there is no hope, and set about learning biochemistry to pursue a cure on their own. The film becomes an intriguing scientific mystery mixed with a story of pain, grief, and the strain on the two adults. In other words, Lorenzo's Oil is similar to all those medical-mayhem TV flicks but with some key differences: a pair of great actors in Sarandon and Nolte--who actually do some of the finest work of their careers here--and Miller's bold and typically inventive direction. Miller, a doctor himself, refuses to shirk from the chaos and horrors of a child's agony, and he makes us hear the death chains rattling behind images that would be purely sentimental in another director's hands. --Tom Keogh

I Am Sam (DVD) Starring: Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer. Director: Jessie Nelson I Am Sam makes you laugh, cry, and recoil all at the same time. Perhaps no other film of recent memory has epitomized the shameless sentimentality of Hollywood as succinctly as director and screenwriter Jessie Nelson's story of a mentally challenged man fighting to retain custody of his 7-year-old daughter. Sam (Sean Penn), who has the mental age of 7, wipes down tables at a Los Angeles Starbucks and takes good care of his daughter Lucy, who was left with him shortly after birth by a homeless woman. Sam has gotten by just fine with a little help from his friends, including his eccentric neighbor (Diane Wiest) and a lovable group of similarly challenged friends, but a series of misunderstandings leaves Sam fighting to get Lucy back from the state. Sam's lawyer, Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), is an overly ambitious woman whose life is soon transformed by proximity to Sam's brimming humanity. Sean Penn is, as usual, wholeheartedly committed to his role and turns in an admirable, if overtly affected performance. However, I Am Sam, with all its earnest charm, reaches an emblematic low when Sam, a character apparently devoid of any authentic sentiment, delivers a courtroom speech memorized from Kramer vs. Kramer as the film's finale. --Fionn Meade

Mr. Holland's Opus (DVD) Starring: Richard Dreyfuss and Glenne Headly. Director: Stephen Herek An earnest story of a music teacher's impact on those around him, Mr. Holland's Opus is at times a genuinely touching drama in the vein of It's a Wonderful Life. Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) plays an aspiring composer and musician who takes a job teaching music at a local high school to save money while he composes his music. But when his wife (Glenne Headley) becomes pregnant, Glenn Holland must put aside his dreams and address the everyday realities of his life, from the melancholy and sometimes tragic fates of his students to the discovery that the son he cherishes is deaf. Building to a highly emotional climax in which the teacher sees the impact he's had on the world around him, Mr. Holland's Opus is a showcase for a fine Oscar-nominated performance by Dreyfuss and an engaging, heartwarming story. --Robert Lane

Mask (DVD) Starring: Cher and Sam Elliott. Director: Peter Bogdanovich Peter Bogdanovich directed this sensitive and moving story about a teenage boy, Rocky (Eric Stoltz), who lives with severe facial deformities and poor prognosis for survival beyond childhood. The film concentrates on that threshold-of-adulthood period familiar to past and present 16-year-olds, folding together common experiences of youth (love, hassles with mom, a desire to travel) with the special burdens endured by the hero. Stoltz, absolutely unrecognizable under lots and lots of prosthetic makeup, is quite good, as are Cher (as Rocky's mother) and Sam Elliott (Rocky's father figure). More than a tearjerker, the film is a genuine celebration of all that is most precious in life, even more to those who have nothing to take for granted. --Tom Keogh

Rain Man (DVD) Starring: Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Director: Barry Levinson Rain Man is the kind of touching drama that Oscars are made for--and, sure enough, the film took Academy honors for best picture, director, screenplay, and actor (Dustin Hoffman) in 1988. Hoffman plays Raymond, an autistic savant whose late father has left him $3 million in a trust. This gets the attention of his materialistic younger brother, a hot-shot LA car dealer named Charlie (Tom Cruise) who wasn't even aware of Raymond's existence until he read his estranged father's will. Charlie picks up Raymond and takes him on a cross-country journey that becomes a voyage of discovery for Charlie, and, perhaps, for Raymond, too. Rain Man will either captivate you or irritate you, but it is obviously a labor of love for those involved. Hoffman had been attached to the film for many years, as various directors and writers came and went, but his persistence eventually paid off--kind of like Raymond in Las Vegas. Look for director Barry Levinson in a cameo as a psychiatrist near the end of the film. --Jim Emerson

My Left Foot (DVD) Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker. Director: Jim Sheridan Daniel Day-Lewis won a much-deserved Oscar for his wily, passionate performance as Irish artist and writer Christy Brown, whose cerebral palsy kept him confined to a wheelchair. Filmmaker Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) adapts Brown's own autobiography for this spirited piece, focusing on the sometimes-difficult fellow's formative years in his large family and in love with sundry women. Day-Lewis is inspired, and Brenda Fricker (also a recipient of an Oscar for her part in this movie) is almost luminous as Christy's dedicated mother. So, too, are Ray McAnally as the hero's stormy father, and Hugh O'Conor (The Young Poisoner's Handbook) as the child Christy. All in all, this is a complete pleasure for viewers. --Tom Keogh

The Miracle Worker (DVD) Starring: Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Director: Arthur Penn Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft had been playing their respective roles as Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, on Broadway for some time before director Arthur Penn (The Left-Handed Gun) built a mesmerizingly beautiful film around their layers-deep performances. Duke is astonishing as the deaf, blind, mute Keller, who awakens to an awareness of language under Sullivan's determined guidance. Bancroft is fascinating and focused. Penn wisely kept his adaptation unencumbered by cinematic indulgence. The black-and-white film is sparse and charged with the immediacy of the drama. The script is by William Gibson, who also wrote the original play. --Tom Keogh

...First Do No Harm (DVD) Starring: Meryl Streep and Fred Ward. Director: Jim Abrahams Does the medical community have the right to censor information about alternative medical treatments that don't include drugs or surgery? Is the double-blind study the start-all and end-all in the world of medical research and technology? Are anecdotal studies to simply be dismissed? These questions are dealt with in a most sensitive manner in this film. "Robbie Reimuller" (Seth Adkins) is subjected to one drug after the other...each carrying devastating side effects. Each new drug meant another drug to treat side effects and no drug achieved cessation of Robbie's seizures. Desparate to rescue her son from a fate far worse than death, his mother (Meryl Streep) begins to research childhood epilepsy herself and comes across case study after case study that showed the success of the KETOGENIC DIET, which was being administered at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center (Baltimore, MD). When Robbie's mom confronted the Dr. Avarsack with the information, she was told the diet does not work and was politely escorted out of the doctor's office. However, the mother perseveres and gets her son enrolled in the Ketogenic Diet at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore with the help of a doctor who was a friend of the family and the nurse that took care of Robbie and within a month, Robbie was seizure free. He was on the diet for three years and after that was returned to a normal diet. One thing that made this movie special is the fact that most of the actors had been on the Ketogenic Diet as children and were all leading normal, healthy, happy lives. It is my hope that this film will reach parents of children suffering from epilepsy and that it will save the child from being subjected to needless drugging and surgery. This is a must see movie that informs and shows the strong ties of love among a close-knit family. A five star film in every way.

The Elephant Man (DVD) Starring: Anthony Hopkins & John Hurt. Director: David Lynch You could only see his eyes behind the layers of makeup, but those expressive orbs earned John Hurt a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his moving portrayal of John Merrick, the grotesquely deformed Victorian-era man better known as The Elephant Man. Inarticulate and abused, Merrick is the virtual slave of a carnival barker (Freddie Jones) until dedicated London doctor Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins in a powerfully understated performance) rescues him from the life and offers him an existence with dignity. Anne Bancroft costars as the actress whose visit to Merrick makes him a social curiosity, with John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller as dubious hospital staffers won over by Merrick. David Lynch earned his only Oscar nominations as director and cowriter of this somber drama, which he shot in a rich black-and-white palette, a sometimes stark, sometimes dreamy visual style that at times recalls the offbeat expressionism of his first film, Eraserhead. It remains a perfect marriage between traditional Hollywood historical drama and Lynch's unique cinematic eye, a compassionate human tale delivered in a gothic vein. The film earned eight Oscar nominations in all, and though it left the Oscar race empty-handed, its dramatic power and handsome yet haunting imagery remain just as strong today. --Sean Axmaker

The Other Sister (DVD) Starring: Diane Keaton, Juliette Lewis, et al. Director: Garry Marshall Filming a love story centered on two mentally challenged people is a touching idea, one that's been attempted in films such as Benny and Joon and even, to a certain extent, As Good As It Gets. The Other Sister is another addition to the genre, a well- acted comedy-drama centering on the romance of Carla (Juliette Lewis) and Daniel (Giovani Ribisi) and throwing in some general family angst as a secondary story line. The acting is tremendous--Lewis and Ribisi both give convincing performances without condescending to their characters. Diane Keaton plays yet another charming scatterbrain, this time as Elizabeth Tate, the uptight, rich mother who wants a picture-perfect life. Will Carla and Daniel make it work? Well, of course. Will mother Elizabeth loosen up about her "gay workaholic" daughter and let Carla live her own life? There are a few cringe-worthy moments that have a sense of truthfulness, such as when Daniel stands up at Carla's sister's wedding to announce his feelings. But otherwise, these characters live in a pampered, fairy-tale world where the worst thing that happens to them is that the meanies at school put chewing gum in Daniel's bike helmet. Ultimately, this is a sweet, albeit occasionally saccharine, tale that will move those who are looking for cheerful fare. --Jenny Brown

Children of a Lesser God (DVD) Starring: William Hurt, Marlee Matlin, et al. Director: Randa Haines Mark Medoff's tough play about deafness is sweetened and softened in this 1986 film adaptation directed by Randa Haines (Wrestling Ernest Hemingway). William Hurt plays a teacher newly hired at a school for deaf children, and Marlee Matlin is the deaf and withdrawn janitor who captures his attention. Romantic and heartfelt, the film makes its audience care very much about its two leading characters, and wince when Hurt's well-meaning instructor allows Matlin's handicap to become a problem. Haines develops some interesting visual ideas to underscore the isolation of Matlin's world, particularly a lovely refrain that finds Matlin swimming alone at night. The drama is cut somewhat by the bouncy energy and good humor of Hurt's students. Piper Laurie is very good in a supporting role as Matlin's mother. --Tom Keogh

Philadelphia (DVD) Starring: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, et al. Director: Jonathan Demme Philadelphia wasn't the first movie about AIDS (it followed such worthy independent films as Parting Glances and Longtime Companion), but it was the first Hollywood studio picture to take AIDS as its primary subject. In that sense, Philadelphia is a historically important film. As such, it's worth remembering that director Jonathan Demme (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs) wasn't interested in preaching to the converted; he set out to make a film that would connect with a mainstream audience. And he succeeded. Philadelphia was not only a hit, it also won Oscars for Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Streets of Philadelphia," and for Tom Hanks as the gay lawyer Andrew Beckett who is unjustly fired by his firm because he has AIDS. Denzel Washington is another lawyer (functioning as the mainstream-audience surrogate) who reluctantly takes Beckett's case and learns to overcome his misconceptions about the disease, about those who contract it, and about gay people in general. The combined warmth and humanism of Hanks and Demme were absolutely essential to making this picture a success. The cast also features Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas (as Beckett's lover), Joanne Woodward, and Robert Ridgely, and, of course, those Demme regulars Charles Napier, Tracey Walter, and Roger Corman. --Jim Emerson

Forrest Gump (DVD) Starring: Tom Hanks Director: Robert Zemeckis The Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Best Director Robert Zemeckis, and Best Actor Tom Hanks, this unlikely story of a slow-witted but good-hearted man somehow at the center of the pivotal events of the 20th century is a funny and heartwarming epic. Hanks plays the title character, a shy Southern boy in love with his childhood best friend (Robin Wright) who finds that his ability to run fast takes him places. As an All-Star football player he meets John F. Kennedy; as a soldier in Vietnam he's a war hero; and as a world champion Ping-Pong player he's hailed by Richard Nixon. Becoming a successful shrimp-boat captain, he still yearns for the love of his life, who takes a quite different and much sadder path in life. The visual effects incorporating Hanks into existing newsreel footage is both funny and impressive, but the heart of the film lies in its sweet love story and in the triumphant performance of Hanks as an unassuming soul who savors the most from his life and times. --Robert Lane

Brian's Song (DVD) Starring: James Caan, Billy Dee Williams Director: Buzz Kulik While women shed more than a few tears over Love Story back in 1970, men had their equivalent with Brian's Song on TV. This biopic about the Chicago Bears' Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers is no mere sports film. It's one of those transcendent stories that struck a rare cultural nerve, a sensitive film about love, friendship, cancer, racial harmony, and football that came along at just the right time. James Caan is at his free-spirited best as Piccolo, and Billy Dee Williams is very charming as the quiet Sayers destined for superstardom. Roommates and rivals, these two rookies soon become best friends because of their competitive natures and complementary personalities. When Piccolo becomes stricken with cancer, his relentless will to live inspires the talented Sayers to reach his athletic potential. Jack Warden, as the masterful coach George Halas, superbly manipulates the ying and yang relationship for all it's worth. Michel Legrand's melancholy theme still lingers in the mind as one of the all-time greats. --Bill Desowitz

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