Good news is that from what you've indicated you are not "tied" to any particular lens system. This means that you can choose whatever fits your budget or feels good to you. Both Canon and Nikon make some excellent entry level SLR's that will do everything you desire and more, because most of the entry level DSLR's from either now offer high definition digital video capability in addition to stills. Bad news is there are so many choices at different price points that you'll want to spend time researching your choice.
I'll also note that the pre-packaged "kit" lenses that come with these camera can produce image quality that matches or betters many of the fixed focal length lenses of the film era. They won't take a hard knock like those old film lenses could but if you're gentle with them the images they can produce are amazing. I have a 18-70mm NikKor that came with a D70 and when I tested it against some of my old film camera Primes it beat most of them in terms of sharpness and contrast. The only lenses it couldn't outdo were my 50mm f2 Nikkor H, an 85mm f1.8, and my Micro Nikkors. Tell you the truth, I was flat out flabbergasted at a cheap kit zoom making my 50mm f1.4 look soft but it did. Bottomline, don't be too concerned about these lenses, they are very very good lenses for very little money. Only real downsides are they are built a bit like plastic toys and they aren't nearly as "fast" as some Primes.
BTW, you did mention past use of film cameras. If they were Nikons and you still have those old lenses, Nikon does offer some bodies at the semi Pro and Pro level that are compatable with the old film camera lenses. I have a Nikon D300 and it allows me to use any of my old film lenses provided that they have the Nikon AI aperture ring mounted on them. Since I've used Nikons since the early 70's I took the time to have my old "rabbit ear" lenses converted to AI operation in the 80's. This means that a rather ancient 50mm f2 Nikkor H that was made in the 60's still works perfectly on my D300 as long as I remember that I have to focus it the old fashioned way by hand. Also have a really ancient 55mm f3.5 Micro Nikkor that works just as well. Unfortunately, Nikon's consumer cameras no longer offer compatability with the old AI lenses, so if you want to have this capability you'll have to start at the D300 and go up from their. BTW, the D300S should be selling in the range of 1700 dollars for the body so it's not cheap, however it's a truly amazing camera in terms of image quality at ISO settings as high as 3200. The S version also offers video which my older plain D300 doesn't. I'll also note the D300S is due to be replaced in the line and rumors are it's replacement will use a Full 35mm sized sensor.
Finally, I should mention sensor size and it's effect on percieved focal length. Most of Canon's and Nikon's consumer cameras use an image sensor with rough dimension of 16 X 24mm. The standard 35mm frame measures 24 X 36mm, so this smaller sensor basically crops the image to the center 2/3. As a result the field of view for a 50mm lens will be what you would see with a 75mm lens on a 35mm frame. A plus is that 1.5 lens factor means that a 300mm lens has the "reach" of a 450mm lens on a 35mm frame. The minus is that an 18mm lens will look like a 27mm lens on a 35mm frame. Basically, you gain at the long end and give up at the wide angle.
Spend enough for one of the Pro level Canon's or Nikon's with a "Full Frame" sensor and what you will see is the same as what you saw with 35mm film cameras. Bad news is that the Full frame cameras currently start at about 2500 dollars and go up from there. Good news is the 24mp, 8000 dollar Nikon D3x can approach the image quality produced by Kodachome 64. If you want K25 image quality, plan on spending something well north of 15K for a medium format digital with up to 120mp. Quite simply, you can still get "drool factor" images, unfortunatly it costs much much more than a 3 dollar roll of Kodachrome 25.
