I love movies! I love the thrill of being lost in a fantastic story, putting up my feet, digging into a big bowl of popcorn and being swept away into another time or place.

As a Christian family, we try to be discerning and wise in our movie viewing (not an easy thing these days). Here are some resources we use in previewing and monitoring our movie choice:

Plugged In - run by Focus on the Family, this is a Christian review site. Profanity, sexual content, violence, and religious themes are all clearly outlined.

Screen It - another “spoiler” type review website. Unlike Plugged In, this is not a Christian based site. It is geared toward parents, however, and does an excellent job of detailing the specific content of the movie. There is a separate section where the author rates the movie (on a 1 to 10 scale). Although he is not filtering through a Biblical world view, I often find the movie critique to be insightful.

If the children are going to watch a movie they have to pay a “chip.” Daniel and David encourage Sarah to pay as often as possible. They even occasionally let her actually select the movie. That’s big brothers for you.

IMDB (International Movie Database) - the mother of all movie websites. It has every movie, actor, director, etc every made in it’s database. This is the place to research movies, cross reference composers, or just plain track down the answer to that illusive question.

“Who was that guy who played in that movie with the other girl? You know, the one where she kisses him at the end?”

If you can figure out even one little piece of the puzzle - the name of the movie, one of the actors, even the year in which it was made - you can unravel the mystery and connect the movie dots. This has brought much peace in our household. Tim has resigned himself to my OCD need to place actors into proper movie context.

“Tim,” I’ll say in the middle of a movie. “Do you recognize that character? Yes, the cashier. Do you think he’s the same guy who played the teacher in the comedy we saw last week?”

Poor guy. He doesn’t even pause. After all, the “movie itch” isn’t going to go away. I must know.

“Why don’t you go check IMDB and see. I can wait.” Of course, that’s code for ‘I’ll be playing my computer game while you get online. Call me when you’ve figured it out.’

For movie trivia, you can’t get any better than IMDB. You can also find trailers and links to other external reviews.

Yahoo Movie Listings - I keep this site bookmarked because it links automatically to my zip code and will list all the theaters in my area, complete with showing times, movie info and maps.

Coming Soon Trailers - proceed with caution. This site collects the newest trailers as they are released. We don’t have a tv and rarely go to the theater, so if we do see a movie preview, it’s usually online. I ignore all the “junk” or questionable movies, and enjoy the fun ones. Although they do include children’s films as they are released, this is definitely not a site for kids to visit unsupervised.

These buddies stick together.

ClearPlay - a dvd player that offers filtering options. We purchased ours at Target last year but they have since stopped carrying them. Basically you purchase a subscription to the filters (which are accessed online), load them on to a USB stick and then plug the stick into the dvd player. The ClearPlay DVD player recognizes the filter and applies them to your copy of the movie. Profanity, violence and inappropriate sexual scenes are either edited or skipped. Recently we had some trouble with the audio portion of our player (purchased in November 2007), ClearPlay paid for our shipping and is mailing us a new DVD player free of charge.

If you have a movie resource that your family recommends, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear about it.

Visit Rocks in My Dryer for other Works For Me Wednesday tips.

Keep your eyes open for Fireproof, the newest movie produced by the makers of Facing the Giants, coming out in the fall of 2008. Check out the trailer! Looks powerful.

Kathy

This evening, while I was ignoring the dirty dishes and waiting for the seventh load of laundry to finish, I stumbled across a list of books that are being made into movies. Now, I know that I spend more time reading blogs and homeschooling books than actual novels, but this is a LONG list and I don’t recognize even half of them. Surely I’m not THAT out of touch with the literary pulse of our society.

As a comparative literature major, that is a wee bit embarrassing. Well, it would be if I wasn’t so busy with the aforementioned laundry and dirty dishes. And if I were a little more confident in the caliber of books being published these days.

Mom, I’m not sure about these books.

Look it over and tell me if these are books you have read and loved (or hated). I should also mention, I am in no way recommending these books (or the potential movies). If they are wildly inappropriate, I apologize! As I said earlier, I have not read (or even heard) of most of these titles.

Uglies
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Inkheart
The A-List
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You
Teen Idol
Maximum Ride
Airborn
The Clique
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 — August 2008
City of Ember
A Yellow Raft In Blue Water
Wolf Brother
Lovely Bones
On the Road
Where the Wild Things Are
The Looking Glass Wars
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Valiant
The Historian
City of Beasts
Avatar
My Sister’s Keeper
The Ruins
Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging
Marley and Me
The Tale of Despereaux - December 2008
The Other Boleyn Girl — already out in the theaters
The Kite Runner — already completed
Love in the Time of Cholera — out in theaters
The Lightning Thief
Emily the Strange (comic)
The Giver
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Flipped
Stargirl
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Maestro
Narnia: Prince Caspian — May 2008
The Hobbit
Memory Keeper’s Daughter - on Lifetime TV
The Life Before Her Eyes - September 2008
Then She Found Me - May 2008
Nim’s Island - out in theaters

I am still surprised at the length of this collection. The real question, however, is not:

Have you read these books? But…

What book would YOU see made into a movie?

I love the Jane Austen flicks - wonderful! Joshua is crazy about the Lord of the Ring trilogy. We have several movie literary adaptations in our DVD library. After looking at this extensive list, I’ve started thinking about what other books just cry out to be made into movies. Three that came to mind while blogging late at night:

Prince of Foxes - this historical romance would be an amazing period piece with the right (dashing) cast
Ender’s Game - sci-fi author, Orson Scott Card, has been working for years on the movie version
Nearly anything by juvenile author Gordon Korman - love his kids books as they are clever, hysterical but clean and not filled with over the top obnoxious children.

David appreciates movies with sword fighting.

Leave a comment and tell me what titles I’ve overlooked. Oh, and did I mention we’re on a Budget (with a capital B) and don’t get to the movies much these days? Probably cheaper to just read the books from the library.

Kathy

Today our pastor preached the fourth sermon in our month long Choose stewardship campaign. The four topics were Invite, Belong, Serve and Give. This morning’s sermon was on giving, looking at the story of the widow’s coin in Luke 21.

As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke 21:1-4)

You decide, are these two giving out of their wealth or poverty?

It was an excellent sermon, encouraging us to give generously and delight in God’s blessing in our life as we serve Him with our time, energy and finances. I was struck by the picture of Jesus visiting the temple and observing people as they placed their gifts in the offering.

“What would it be like to have Jesus watching you as the offering plate passed by?” I whispered to Tim, my eyes wide at the thought.

“Um,” Tim’s expression was a bit puzzled, “Kathy, He is watching you.”

Ouch. Somehow the image of Jesus sitting next to me and looking at me while I take and pass on the offering basket was very convicting. Thinking of Him searching my heart and counting all the treasures I’m storing up here on earth, brought a flush to my cheeks.

Maybe we’ll find all those missing socks when we get to heaven.

This afternoon we watched a portion of one of our favorite family movies, FlyWheel. Flywheel, produced by the church that filmed Facing the Giants, has a low-budget but an incredible message. I encourage everyone to go out and find a copy of this movie! It is slow in places and the acting “raw” but the transformation of the main character, as he decides to trust God with his whole life, is remarkably powerful.

Early in the movie the family attends church together. When it’s time for the offering, the father takes out his envelope, makes sure it is EMPTY, and then very carefully places it into the basket. His wife sees him and shakes her head with disgust.

If someone were watching…

Jesus sees what I do with my time and my money. The scriptures are full of promises regarding rewards the Lord will give those who are faithful, loving, and generous. Do I trust His Word? Do I believe the treasures I can store up in heaven are worth more than the temporal things of this world?

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. (Matthew 16:26-27)

It was a day full of conviction and challenge. What would it look like, I wondered, if I gave sacrificially, loved with my whole life, and said “Yes!” to the Lord? Am I willing to be stretched? Do I believe He is watching?

Kathy
Project 365- Day 273

So says my beloved, 11 year old daughter. No doubt she could write today’s blog in her sleep if I would just do the typing for her.

Here Rachel is saying, “I’m cold, stop taking my picture and get me a sweatshirt.

I’m hungry but it’s close to bedtime and I’m trying to be careful not to eat late at night. I had a lovely cup of tea but somehow it wasn’t quite as tasty as the huge bowl of popcorn Tim and the children devoured. Go figure.

We watched The Ultimate Gift this evening. It was a moving tale about a spoiled young man who receives 12 gifts from his deceased grandfather. Each gift (or task) is designed to teach him a lesson about life. There are some intense scenes of peril in the second half but our entire family enjoyed the movie.

The Ultimate Gift certainly made me wonder if I am teaching my children the lessons illustrated in the movie - the gift of work, true friendship, the value of money, how to help others, etc. It is so refreshing to find movies the entire family can watch together.

Kathy
Project 365 - Day 271

How many times did you listen to yesterday’s clip of Inigo speaking to Westley? Once? Twice? Didn’t listen at all - really, you’re busy and don’t have time for random clicking on misc. blogs. “How did I get here anyway?” is the question you’re asking. That and “What is a Duckabush??”

In our house, I think we played the same sound bite over 10 times. The older two listened to it twice while they were reading the blog. I laughed and played it two or three times myself. Tim listened to it this morning. Daniel came by, wondering what I was doing, and made me play it. David heard the tail end and wanted to hear it himself. That might be closer to 15 times.

At lunch I had an overwhelming and totally surprising desire to watch The Princess Bride (hope that didn’t ruin the Obscure Movie Quote from the end of yesterday’s blog). Speaking of which, anyone recognize the other quotes?

I have to confess that we occasionally watch bits and pieces of movies during lunch time. Just one of those perks of homeschooling. Often they are educational films (amazing what you can define as “educational” if you put your mind to it). The 3.5 hours of Shackelton’s Stowaway lasted us a whole week of lunches (and a few dinners). We’ve watched animal films, nature and geography studies, and all sorts of science movies. It goes without saying, of course, that Civil War films show up on a regular basis. The younger set, however, have a fairly low tolerance for documentaries. Joshua usually grabs the Civil War library movies and heads out to the garage to “preview” them for me. I’m training him well - he’s already working on this week’s Civil War co-op agenda. My evil plan is working!

Today, however, we did not attempt to disguise our movie viewing under lofty scholastic labels. We skipped highbrow and went straight to comedy, adventure, romance and fairy tale all wrapped up in one delicious movie, The Princess Bride.

Six Things You Can Learn in The Princess Bride movie:

1) Vocabulary words like ‘inconceivable’
2) A little history of the countries Florin and Guilder
3) The definition of R.O.U.S.
4) An exposition on the phrase, “As You Wish”
5) The truth behind the Dread Pirates Roberts’ identity
6) The origin of Iocane Powder

And many more.

The Princess Bride is a pivotal movie in The Life of Tim and Kathy. The children know the story but haven’t really invested the time like Tim and I have. The film came out before we met but is probably one of our first ‘couple movies’ where lines are quoted and scenes watched over and over again.

I know, other people bond over adventures (real ones, not just the kind they watch on the big screen), common interests (hey, the fate of Buttercup and Westley was very important to us), or perhaps spiritual and intellectual pursuits. Not us. We relate through movie quotes. Sad but true.

I first saw The Princess Bride at the ‘cheapie theater’ when I was home from college one summer. Do they still even have ‘cheapie theaters’ anymore? I think the price was $1.50 or something outrageous like that. Sure you had to wait in line (if the movie was popular) and the floor was sticky but the price couldn’t be beat. I went with my parents and my best friend and her boyfriend. I can’t remember if my brothers joined us - probably, we all spent most of the summer together. My folks were rather wary of the movie, “Just what is this about?” was the question of the hour. As I recall, Jodi’s boyfriend had already seen it and SWORE we would love it (he didn’t actually swear, you understand, after all, my dad is a pastor).

We went in skeptics and came out devotees.

I asked Tim if he remembered where he first saw The Princess Bride (he really should be writing this blog but he had a killer day at work and spent the evening with the darling 5th and 6th grade boys in his youth group. I am not Tim but I will try my best to do the movie justice). With the question, a dreamy gaze came over his eyes (the darling 5th and 6th grade boys awaiting his arrival at church became but a distant thought).

“Ah, yes. I was visiting my brother in Germany. I was passing through to do laundry.”

If I had them I would insert scenic photo of Tim’s travels through Europe the summer BEFORE he met me. Hasn’t been back since. Rats. I think I missed my chance to bum around Europe with him, backpacks loaded. I think I’m really too old to “bum around” anyway. Maybe we’ll make it to Norway before the cousins move.

“This is my story, remember Kathy?” The musing, dreamy expression has been replaced by an indignant look, directed at me.

“Where was I? Oh yes, doing laundry in Germany. Mark and Liz had a copy of The Princess Bride and I settled in to watch it between loads. Gotta pass the time somehow.”

Another enthusiast was born. Tim says he saw it 3 or 4 times that week alone.

Cue forward to the next summer. Tim and I have now met and he’s in another scenic location doing laundry. Okay, I just threw the laundry part in to see if you were paying attention. He was working at a camp in beautiful Colorado. While at Spring Canyon, Tim met up with another Princess Bride fanatic. The two of them took to quoting the famous scene between Westley and Vizzini. In quote dramatic fashion, they could quote the entire passage from “And now it is down to you and it is down to me.” all the way to Vizzini’s final laugh (complete with his dramatic death fall - sorry for the spoiler but the movie debuted in 1987). I was privileged to see these talented thespians perform when I went out to visit.

They repeated the scene at least once a day. I wonder if they could still do it now? We’ll have to record Joshua and Tim doing the scene and post it online. A project for the weekend.

Mind you, the real treasure in The Princess Bride lies in the book. The movie is wonderful, a classic, but the book is a true jewel. Author William Goldman presents the novel as an abridgment of an older version by “S. Morgenstern”. The book, in fact, is entirely Goldman’s work. Morgenstern and the “original version” are fictional and used as a literary device. All of which brings us to the “Reunion Scene.” From Wikipedia

In the novel’s commentary, Goldman claims that he has added nothing to the “original” Morgenstern text. However, he says that he did write one original scene, a loving reunion between Buttercup and Westley, but claims that his publisher objected to this addition. He invites any reader who wants to read the Reunion Scene to write to the publisher (formerly Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; now Random House.)

I was one of those people! I wrote to the publisher and requested the letter. I completely and totally believed Goldman’s story (wasn’t totally sure about Florin and Guilder but hey, I’ve already explained that history was one of my weakest subjects). I received a letter in return for my appeal. Instead of the extra scene, however, the letter detailed the legal problems that Goldman and his publishers encountered with the Morgenstern estate and its lawyer, Kermit Shog. The letter was too long to include in the blog (after all, I do my best to keep these blogs tight and concise) but you can read it here.

The movie remains very faithful to the book and captures the whimsy and delight of the story full of creative characters, high adventures, and true love. It’s hard to choose which one, novel or film, I enjoy more. What’s your vote?

With lunch behind us and an afternoon of reading ahead of us, I went to the garage and grabbed one of our multiple copies of The Princess Bride and determined to sneak in a chapter two today. I saved it until the very end. We worked hard - we did our Proverbs devotional reading, laughed over a book about a Chinese emperor (pointing out all the Proverbs we found to be true in the book), studied some of an illustrated book on the country of China, and read our two Sonlight novels (both set in China).

When all of that was completed, I picked up The Princess Bride and set about reading. I had to edit the intro a bit as it was long and a bit inappropriate for my audience (do I really need to read about Goldman’s interactions with a Hollywood starlet, even if the whole incident is rather harmless and completely fabricated?). Joshua loved the book. He “got” the humor and excessive use of parenthesis (probably because he reads my blogs which tend to lend this way as well, ahem) and had no trouble following the story (from unwieldy introduction to rather slow start about Buttercup).

Here he TRIES to keep from laughing.

Rachel struggled a bit more but enjoyed the story. At one point Daniel gave up and went off to get his math. He returned, lesson in hand, and worked while listening to the story. He raised wide eyes when we came to the description of Prince Humperdink’s Zoo of Death.

Poor David and Sarah, they waited patiently for us to finish reading. With all of school and then the extra chapters from The Princess Bride, they suffered from serious neglect.

Look how they suffer!

Tim came down just as I was losing my voice and struggling to keep reading (three hours of reading aloud does that to a girl). He immediately jumped in and finished the chapter for me. Not content to just read a wee little bit, he went on to read another whole chapter. As he started to read the third one, I realized if I didn’t get up and start cooking it would be cold cereal for dinner. Tim and the kids followed me into the kitchen and continued reading.

Now we have the book and the movie to finish.

Is it time for lunch yet?

Kathy