Going to the Movies on a Sunny Afternoon

A lot of the blogs that I've followed for the past many years seem to be falling into the same routine as I have been; namely - not posting but once a week if we're lucky.  I pondered that for awhile and I realized that I had started following these blogs back when all of us had younger children.  Back when packing everyone up to go out was a monumental event so we just stayed home and had a wee bit more time to do homey things...like blog all the time.  Now that the kids are older and far more mobile, it seems as if we aren't ever home anymore. I check my blog feed and I see the same post headlines that were there the last time I checked...two or three days ago.  At least I'm not the only one. 

So what has kept me busy this past week?  Well, one of my children had her Spring break last week (it really is difficult when everyone is on a different schedule!) and she talked me into going to the movies with her to see "Cinderella".  I went grudgingly for a few reasons:  1.  My back had gone out that morning and I was a tad uncomfortable at the time (although not as uncomfortable as I would be after sitting in the theater for 2 hours!) and 2.  See above.  I really didn't want to leave the house again.

Alas, as mothers, we must die to ourselves and go to the movies with our daughters on occasion (cue the mournful violin music) .  I'm glad I did.  It was a very enjoyable movie.  I cried multiple times.  Since then all of my daughters have seen it and not one of them cried.  Not once.  Really?  Cold-hearted they are.  My eldest said that crying at movies must be something you acquire when you become a mother.  I think she's right.

You've already read a ton of articles, opinions and reviews on this movie so I'll just chime in and say that yes, you should go see it because it really was as Christian as everyone said it was, the cinematography was beautiful, the acting was great and the storyline was wonderful.

When we were watching the movie, there was one line that just jumped out at me.  It is when the fairy godmother says "The greatest risk we will take is to let others see us as we really are".  I don't know why, but it stuck with me.  Even more so than the "have courage and be kind" line (which is a good one, too).  I think that between the two lines, you have a pretty good guideline about how to live your life.  You should be kind to others, have courage in all things, and be yourself, even if it means taking that risk with someone.  I just really appreciate when the person I am getting to know is being who they really are and not acting as someone they aren't.  I want to get to know the real person, not just the facade they put on because they think they should be acting a certain way.  We've always tried to be that to others, too.  Yes, we're crazy and loud and kind of goofy at times.  What you see is what you get.  It hasn't scared too many people away, yet (I don't think!).

I'm so glad the prince still wanted to marry Cinderella even though she wasn't what she had seemed to be at the ball.  It really was a beautiful moment.  I'm pretty sure I cried. 

Go see "Cinderella" with your daughter, you'll be glad you did.

God Bless!

The Lego Movie Review

It isn't often I do a movie review, but I couldn't pass this one up it was so good.  My kids are LEGO fanatics, so when they noticed sometime last year that LEGO was going to make a movie, we were psyched!  Once we found out the date, we booked it on the calendar.  That date was this past Sunday.

I have to agree with my husband that this is the first movie we've all enjoyed in quite awhile.  It was good on so many levels.  Without spoiling the plot twist, I have to say that this was an ingenious move by the LEGO marketing people and I wouldn't be surprised if sales of LEGO went through the roof after this movie.

The story centers around Emmet, your average, run-of-the-mill, rule-following, all-around good guy.  He inadvertently gets himself involved in saving the world from the evil Lord Business, who has plans to attack all of the LEGO realms with "The Kragle".  The cast of characters who join with Emmet are diverse and funny, but my favorite has to be Batman.  His sarcastic personality is right up my alley. 

(As a side note, make sure you stay for the credits to listen to Batman sing a song that he wrote.  If you laughed at him during the movie, you will find this very funny!)
 
I tend to be a rule-follower and if I played with LEGOs, I would be like Emmet;  I would follow the instructions and build the kit the way that they told me too.  What this movie does, besides entertain, is get people to see that they don't always have to do that; that it is okay to throw that instruction book out and be creative.  The "Master Builders" are the ones who can take a pile of LEGOs and build amazing things with them.  On the flip side, saving the world depends on following the instructions, so this movie does a great job at showing people that there's room in the world (at least in the LEGO world) for both kinds of play - following the instructions and being creative.

If you are looking for a great way to spend some hard-earned cash, this would be my recommendation!

God Bless!

I Saw "Les Miserables" and then...

I fell into the trap.  One afternoon some friends and I were conversing about life when one of the ladies asked if anyone had seen "Les Mis".  I enthusiastically responded that I had.  She asked what I thought.  I told her that I cried through most of it and then asked if she had seen it.  That is when I realized I had fallen into "the trap".  

A conversation then ensued about the appropriateness of seeing a movie such as that.  Another friend pulled up a blog post entitled "Why good Catholics shouldn't see 'Les Mis'".  Discussions were had about whether or not a few bad minutes of a movie render the entire movie worthless.

Whenever discussions such as this come up I always think of the story of the dad who made brownies for his kids and told them after they began eating them and raving about how good they were that he only put a little bit of dog poop in them.  When they were done spitting and being repulsed he defended his actions by stating that, really, it was just a small amount, it shouldn't have any great effect on the overall brownie.

I know many other "good" Catholics who have seen the movie and who have raved about it.  I know many who will not see it because of the one scene which takes place during the song "Master of the House".  Yes, it was objectionable.  Yes, I was uncomfortable.  Should I have left the theater?  Should I go to confession?  

I haven't had a chance to discuss this with a priest yet, but I will because I want to know if watching that one scene makes the movie worthy of confession.  We've had quite a few discussions around the dinner table about this and still aren't sure what the "right" answer is.

Of course, I know that asking 10 different priests will give me 10 different answers.  Asking the others will also elicit a variety of responses, I'm sure, from the "Don't be ridiculous" to the "Get thee to a confessional" variety.

What's your opinion? Have you heard a priest speak about this specific movie, or others like it?  Have you seen "Les Mis" and, if so, what did you think?  Without passing judgement on me or others, I would LOVE to hear you take on things like this.  I know that sometimes, for whatever reason, people can't leave comments here.  If that's the case, I'll have a link to this posted on my Catholic Homeschooling Resources facebook page.  Feel free to comment there, too :)

God Bless!

The War of the Vendee

We had the opportunity to see this movie today.  "The War of the Vendee" is about the Vendee region in France during the French Revolution.  It was here that a large group of faithful Catholics who didn't want to see their religious freedoms taken away, their priests killed and their churches destroyed  organized a militia to overtake the Revolutionaries. 

The movie was 90 minutes long so things had to be condensed, but overall it was a very good movie.  Did I mention that all of the actors are homeschooled youth?  It takes a bit to get used to who is supposed to be an adult and who is supposed to be a child, but they did an incredible job with all of the acting and directing.  It was a very well done film. 

The music was professionally done and written by a professional Catholic composer.  It really adds a lot to the movie.  I have to say, though, that during the fighting scenes, every time they showed this one sequence, the music started off like "Pirates" music so I kept expecting to see Jack Sparrow.  

Overall, this was a great, and timely, movie.  Just like "For Greater Glory" it really makes you think about what a revolution would look like in this country.  I wonder how faithful Catholics here would band together and unite to stand up for God?

The trailer has a wonderful statement that really gets you thinking,

"If everything you know, if everything you love, if everything you hold sacred is taken from you, what would you do?"

If you get the opportunity to view this on DVD, take it!   It will be worth your time.

God Bless!
 

 

Two Thumbs up for "Courageous"

My husband and I went to see the movie "Courageous" Sunday evening.  WOW!  What a great movie.  As one friend of ours described it, it was "an emotional rollercoaster!"  There was one moment when I was still wiping away the tears and laughing hard at the same moment.  It is so impressive to see what this one church has done with these movies.  Is it your top-quality Hollywood movie...no.  But what it lacks in some areas, it makes up for in the message that it portrays.

The whole story centers around fatherhood; how this country needs to have strong fathers who will stand up and take responsibility for their actions and their families.  Fathers who will form their children, especially their sons, to be the God-centered, loving, and morally responsible human beings they were created to be.

My husband wondered how many wives out there would let there husbands be the kind of husbands portrayed in the movies.  The whole man-as-the-head-of-the-household thing has gotten so skewed in our society, that how many women are willing to take those "pants" off and give them back to their husband?  The movie did a great job at portraying the wives as supportive, loving women who did not dominate their husbands.  It was very refreshing to see a wife portrayed that way. It was a very subtle sub-plot and I wonder how many people will pick up on it.


I'm not sure how long this movie will be in the theaters, but if you get a chance to go see it, we would highly recommend it!

Movie Recommendation

We've been on a great run of good movies lately.  There have been times when we've gone almost a year without watching a newly released movie, so to see three good ones in the past week has been fun and refreshing.

(Okay, I'm only going to talk about one, but the other two we watched were "The Tourist" and "Tangled".  Both good movies!)

The one that most surprised me was "Megamind".  When my husband and I had seen the previews at the theater, we weren't that impressed and so we just pushed it off the radar screen.  Recently it came out on video and a friend recommended it because she said it had a really good message.  We were looking for a weekend movie to watch so we tried it.

What a hoot!  We loved it.  So much so that my husband, who rarely watches movies more than once, agreed to watch it a second day in a row.  It was funny, the music was good (good ole 80s hard rock, but I liked that they would cut the song off before any offensive language was heard!) and the moral of the story was great:  evil doesn't pay!  In fact, an often quoted line in the movie is:

As long as there is evil, good will rise up against it.

And that is just what happens.  The main character, who was "forced" through a set of circumstances into a life of evil, has a chance to turn it around and do good. What a great story for all ages.  I might be behind the times here, but if, on the off chance you haven't seen this movie yet, by all means run out and rent it this weekend!

"Waiting for Superman"

It is not often that I do a movie review, but we watched a movie this weekend that was phenomenal!  Not quite sure why I picked it, but I happened to be walking past a Redbox and it kind of jumped out at me! 

This is a 2 hour documentary on the state of the public school system in America.  Now I thought for sure no one would go for this, but we all sat down last night, at 8:30 no less, to watch it and it was fascinating.  Seems kind of weird that a bunch of homeschoolers would be interested in a documentary about the public school system, but we all sat there riveted by this movie.

I think it made us truly appreciate the gift of homeschooling and feel so sorry for the people who are caught in the system with very little chance of getting out.  It is absolutely reprehensible that bureaucracy can mess with the lives of children.  

Homeschooler, private schooler, public schooler...doesn't matter.  EVERYONE should watch this movie!

 

"You Can't Take It With You"

After watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington a while back, some friends recommended we watch another Frank Capra film entitled, "You Can't Take it With You". Well we needed some comic relief so we watched it the other evening. What a riot. While it didn't fit with any current topic of study, it did fit well with the general theme of life that we strive for. If you've not seen it, the movie is about a very eccentric family headed up by Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff.

Basically, Grandpa walked away from his very lucrative career because he wasn't having any fun in life. He then decided to do whatever he wanted to do and encouraged his family members to do the same. Their family definitely embodies the unschooling mentality.

While talking with a wealthy business man, Grandpa says, "Maybe it'll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use? You can't take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends." This was the way that Grandpa lived his life. Oh that we could all be like that.....

One of my favorite parts of the film was when Grandpa said grace before the family sat down to dinner. He does it twice in the movie but unfortunately I could only find the text from the second time. Here is Grandpa talking to God:

(offering grace) "Quiet, please, quiet! Well, sir, here we are again. We've had quite a time of it lately, but it seems that the worst of it is over. Course, the fireworks all blew up, but we can't very well blame that on you. Anyway, everything's turned out fine, as it usually does. Alice is going to marry Tony; Mr. Kirby, who's turned out to be a very good egg, sold us back our house - he'll probably forget all about big deals for a while. Nobody on our block has to move; and, with the right handling, I think we can even thaw out Mrs. Kirby here. We've all got our health; as far as anything else is concerned, we still leave that up to you. Thank you."

I especially focused in on the part when he says, "as far as anything else is concerned, we still leave that up to you." I'm always amazed at the wisdom in some of these old movies. It's not too often that you find a current movie with characters who talk like that!

So, as we head into the weekend, if you are looking for a funny, light-hearted and inspirational movie to watch, check out "You Can't Take it With You". Although, maybe you've already seen it. I guess I assume that everyone else is as old-movie deprived as I am!

God Bless!

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Instead of a recipe today, I've decided to offer you a movie review.

Last night as part of our unit study on elections, we watched the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with Jimmy Stewart. Wow. This is definitely a classic because even though it was made in 1939, it is very timely for today. With all the media coverage over the upcoming election, watching this moving was like living it.

In case you've never seen the movie, I have included this clip to give you a taste of what the movie is like.



What a speech! What we need in this country are a few more Mr. Smiths. There probably are some out there, we just never get to hear much about them. I believe we are also using the homeschooling movement to raise up some more of them.

We were able to get the movie through our library, so it shouldn't be that hard to find. Looking for something to do this evening? Find this movie, pop some popcorn and enjoy!

God Bless!

"Fireproof" Part II

It is time once again for me to shout something from the rooftops! This past Saturday evening, my husband and I went on a date with three other couples to see the movie "Fireproof". This is an incredible movie about the marriage in our present day society. It captures the spirit of most marriages that don't include God in the picture to a tee. We laughed, we cried - even my good friend who hardly cries at anything was crying throughout the whole movie. Just at the right times they would throw in something very funny to lighten the mood a touch.

To make it easy on you, here is the link to the website that allows you to find the movie in a theater near you!

Want to check out even more cool stuff? The creators of the movie have another website that has marriage resources and shows how you can help support the movie. What I thought was neat was that even though it is a movie made by Protestants, they have a page dedicated specifically to Catholics.

When we were walking out of the movie I noticed two very young couples that were "dressed up" in teenage finery going towards the movie theater. I looked up at the marquee and wondered which of those movies (with names like "The House Bunny", "The Family that Preys Together" and "Righteous Kill") they were going to go see. I wanted to run to them and tell them not to waste their money on trash, but to spend it on something that might change their lives. Unfortunately, I'm still not bold enough to do something like that. Hopefully someday I will be able to.

So, do whatever you can to scrape up the time and money to go see this movie. I cannot stress this enough! See it and then tell everyone you know to do the same!

God Bless!

"Fireproof"

I don't normally post on Sundays, but we'll be busy tomorrow, so consider this tomorrow's post a day early!

The other morning after mass, a lady approached me and a friend of mine and asked us if we had heard of the movie called "Fireproof". We had to admit that we hadn't so she told us that it is a movie coming out on September 26th that deals with the issue of the marriage. I did some searching and found the trailer to the movie. It looks like it is going to be a good one! The theme seems to be that instead of taking the "easy" way out by getting divorced, the husband is challenged to grow in his faith and save his marriage. Sounds like a great excuse to go on a date with your husband! Write it on the calendar now so you can find it at a theater near you and plan your date. When "Bella" came out, we got together with some friends and went on a group date to see the movie and get some coffee afterwords. It was a very nice time. Hopefully it will be coming somewhere close to wherever you are. As always, the more people that show up the first weekend a movie opens, the more widely it gets distributed and the longer it stays around.



God Bless!

Expelled, Part II

Okay, so I was in a hurry yesterday and didn't have much time to put my post together, so I thought a quick thing would be to tell you what I thought about the movie "Expelled". As is usual for me, I typed before I thought. I am not one for controversy, but sometimes I put myself in the middle of it by not thinking things through. Oh well. I received a very polite comment from someone yesterday, obviously on the other side of this debate. He said, "Please get the facts about this movie and the lies behind it at http://www.expelledexposed.com/. " I would post his original comment, but it links to his blog which has profanity on it that I will not link to. I did take a few moments to check out this other link. It is chock full of information that sounds very convincing. Like everything you read, you must decide whether or not to believe it. People on both sides of any argument are quite capable of spinning the information to suit their own agenda.

As my husband asked this morning, "What does this have to do with the subject of your blog?" Well, to me, this looks like a great topic for a high school unit study! Think about all of the great learning that could take place here: researching Evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism and then writing or perhaps giving a speech about the differences, pros and cons. Maybe a motivated student might even create a website about it?? Maybe it could even be a group effort. Anyone interested?

As for me, I am quite okay with the fact that I was created by an all-knowing, all-loving God who loves me so much that He sent His only Son to die on the cross for me.

God Bless!

"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

I just have time for a brief post today. This past weekend my husband and I got the opportunity to go out on a date. We went with two other couples to see "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" by and with Ben Stein. What a very thought provoking, sad and good movie all at the same time. It is a documentary about how the scientific world will not allow anyone to discuss Intelligent Design (an alternative theory about life to evolution). Ben Stein brings up very good questions and provides comments from both sides of the issue. There are times where we actually laughed out loud because the arguments from the evolution scientists were so unbelievable, yet the people were very serious. Sad to say, there are many people in the world who have been convinced that this stuff is the truth. Also sad that the scientific community will not allow open debate on this issue. This is the kind of movie you want to get copies of and give to everyone you know. I would definitely recommend this movie!

God Bless!