Eight golden lessons from the silver screen

Learning about money can feel a lot like swallowing harsh medicine: It's supposed to be good for you, but the taste is dreadful. Want the same lessons with a spoonful of sugar?

Pull up a chair and make some popcorn. Movies, it turns out, can deliver some sage financial advice. These aren't dull documentaries. Some classic and not-so-classic but enjoyable films -- "It's a Wonderful Life," "The Big Lebowski" and "Josie and the Pussycats," to name a few -- can teach you a bit about contrarian investing, estate planning, the high cost of divorce and other important topics.

"Almost every movie has lessons about priorities, problem solving, integrity, compassion," said Nell Minow, author of "The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies." "And trust that, if you watch carefully, they will tell you even more about handling your money than learning the difference between a Roth IRA and a 401(k)."

Here are eight such tales, some inspirational, some cautionary. Watching them might not make you rich, but if you learn their lessons, your own money story is more likely to have a happy ending.

The movie

"Mary Poppins" (1964)

The lesson

Save some, spend some, give some away.

In this movie, siblings Jane and Michael Banks have a classic problem: They've got just a few coins -- and everybody has a different idea about what they should do with their money.

Their dad, a banker, wants them to save it to learn about the wonders of compound interest. Their nanny wants them to think about giving to the less fortunate. The children themselves would like to buy a little something to play with at the park.

Like most people on a budget, Jane and Michael have limited options. They need to set goals, make choices and acknowledge that they can't get everything immediately, said Michael Eisenberg, a certified public accountant in West Los Angeles.

Virtually anyone with a reasonable income can accumulate enough to be able to save a little, spend a little and give a little to charity -- without going into debt. But getting there takes time.

"You can have it all," Eisenberg said. "Just not all at once."

The movie: "Josie and the Pussycats" (2001)

The lesson: Resist the urge to keep up with the Josies.

Everywhere members of a newly discovered girl band go in this satire of the pop music industry, they see teens in coordinated outfits racing from store to store and screaming, "Pink is the new orange!"

The teens have been brainwashed into rabid consumerism through messages embedded in the music they listen to. It's up to Josie, who engages in a fight scene superimposed on an ad for Advil, to thwart the evil makers of subliminal messages and tell the world's teens that they're fine the way they are.

The lesson is that America's marketing machine is always at work -- through movies, music, billboards, newspaper ads, television and even video games -- and it's effective.

"I even get caught up in it," said Judi Martindale, a financial planner in San Luis Obispo. "I saw the advertisement for the new iPhone and said, 'I've got to have that,' " she said. "My husband just looked at me and said, 'You've got to be kidding.' "

If you buy into the marketing without thinking about what you really want, you're likely to sacrifice things that are precious to you in your effort to keep up, Martindale said.